RE: The wrong horse in evolution education

Jack, your wrote (30 Mar 2006):

> I think what you are saying here is exactly correct. I
> also say good luck to you because I think the problems
> with coming up with a model that meets your criteria,
> without mythologizing the text, is an insurmountable
> problem. Of course I am not fooling myself into thinking
> that I am smart enough to be able to come up with such a
> model, just honest enough with myself to understand that
> there is no model that is going to work.

 From science, we know that hard problems need not make us conclude that they
are in principle insurmountable. I think it's a question of continuing to work
on them and discuss them with others. Saying this, I'm of course not suggesting
I'm any smarter than you are. ;-)

> Take the federal headship of Adam as an example. If we
> want to be concordist and put Adam in neolithic
> mesopotamia, and make the story of Adam about the first
> one chosen by God to have a personal relationship with
> him, and a story about Adam's failure in that relationship
> and that the rest of the old testament is about these
> peoples, how can it be possible that Adam's curse extended
> to the existing homo sapiens in Australia, Europe, and
> Asia such that all people need redemption through Christ?
>
> If you have a better answer than Genesis is just a
> monotheistic retelling of pre-existing polytheistic myths,
> I am all ears.
>
> On Thu, 30 Mar 2006 20:16:18 +0200
> Peter Ruest <pruest@mysunrise.ch> wrote:...

Regarding the federal headship of Adam, I wrote to Dick Fischer:
"... the Bible doesn't teach original sin in the sense of all humans
biologically inheriting Adam's sin (German 'Erbsünde'). On the contrary, it
explicitely says all are sinners because all have sinned (Rom. 5:12)... Rom.
5:12-21 contrasts the old humanity according to Adam with the new humanity
according to Christ. It shows us that Christ is the beginning, firstfruits, or
head of the new humanity of the redeemed, including those before and after his
time on earth. And certainly none of these is physically descended from him. But
they all became children of God by faith, represented by him who is the Son of
God /par excellence/. In a parallel fashion, all humans without exception are
sinners and lost because they had their personal fall 'after the image or
pattern of Adam', who therefore is the representative and 'federal head' of all
humans, including those before and after his time on earth. And certainly not
all of them are physically descended from him."

Does the Bible say that God's curse pronounced over Adam extended to all other
humans? I don't think so. We read in Rom. 5:12-14: "Therefore, just as sin came
into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to
all men because all sinned- for sin indeed was in the world before the law was
given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from
Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of
Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come."

Sin came into the world (of humanity) through one man (it doesn't say Adam),
because the first genuine human, created in the image of God, fell into sin, as
all others. What followed this (humanly universal) sin was (humanly universal)
spiritual death. It does not deal with physical death, because physically Adam
lived long after that. Now, sin is not counted where there is no law. Not all
humans had the same (divine) law. In fact, God's giving of law was in portions,
over at least the time from Adam to Christ, if not before. The Law in the sense
of the torah was given through Moses. But certainly there was divine law before
that (e.g. Gen. 2:17). But everyone is just responsible for the kind and amount
of law s/he knows. And not all sinned like the transgression of Adam, but sin
they did.

All are fallen, because all have violated _some_ divine law, cf. Rom. 2:14-16:
"For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires,
they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show
that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also
bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that
day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus."

Thus, sin, spiritual death, and curse could become human universals, typically
represented by Adam's personal history, both for those before and those after
Adam. Therefore all need redemption through Christ.

Peter Ruest

-- 
Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
<pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution
"..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)