>Second for anyone who wishes to deny the status of human to homo erectus, the
>question becomes, do we really want to have a non-human,tool-making,
>weapon-making, non-spiritual being on the planet? Some might answer yes, but
>in my mind that would diminish the specialness of man.It is better to include
>him (and his possible porno-venus figure of 300k yr ago) than to theologically
>have to deal with a non-human weapon maker.
>
>Assuming this venus figure I mentioned last night was made by homo erectus, do
>we want to theologically deal with a non-human purveyor of pornographic
>statues? Frankly, this sounds more like fallen man than risen ape.
I for one do not have a problem with non-human, tool-making, weapon-making,
non-spiritual beings (even Darwin's finches make and use tools). I think
that it is risky to make these capacities (or even others commonly used)
the essence of humanity. The scriptures indicate that man is made in the
image of God, but doesn't go a long way to define that image except in
knowledge, righteousness, and holiness (as the Westminster Confession of
Faith puts it) and with dominion over the creatures. I have some problem
with having speciation even in the human lineage after the creation of Adam
and Eve. Thus to say that Homo erectus or even Homo sapiens
neanderthalensis are fully human in the Biblical sense makes me much more
uncomfortable than the observation that these pre-humans have some human
characteristics.
Along these same lines is a more general problem with Glenn's attempt at
harmonization. The civilization depicted in the early chapters of Genesis
is the civilization recognized in the anthropological and archeological
record as existing within the past 15,000-20,000 years. See Davis Young's
recent article in Christan Scholar's Review: The Antiquity and the Unity
of the Human Race Revisited. Here are the closing two paragraphs:
" Again, the challenges are primarily theological. On this position, Adam
cannot possibly be the father of Cain and Abel. Although Warfield had no
problem with an ancient human race, his solution was to stretch the
genealogies by allowing for the possibility that several generations were
omitted between the names in the lists. But no amount of stretching
genealogies can salvage the position because Genesis treats Cain as the
immediate son of Adam and Eve. The text explicitly states that Adam lay
with Eve, she conceived, and gave birth to Cain. And Eve acknowledges the
help of Yahweh in bearing Cain. But Cain and Abel lived at the beginning
of Near Eastern civilization according to Genesis 4 whereas his father Adam
lived at least 40,000 years ago. To be sure, the ages of the biblical
patriarchs are very large, but we have no reason to argue that Adam lived
30,000 years before begetting Cain! The major challenge then for this
position is to account for a time gap, tens of thousands of years long, of
which the Bible seems to know nothing.
Conclusion
The biblical and scientific data pertaining to the antiquity and
unity of the human race seem to force us toward positions that are fraught
with serious flaws. Perhaps the weaknesses of these positions are sending
a signal that careful reexamination of the fundamental premise regarding
literal historicity is in order. Or perhaps others can achieve
satisfactory solutions without abandoning the fundamental premise. In any
case, my aim has been, not to solve the problem, but simply to encourage
Christian theologians, anthropologists, archeologists, and paleontologists
to collaborate in honest, forthright assessment of the available evidence
and in development of a position that preserves the fundamental biblical
doctrines of man, sin, and salvation."
It's not that I oppose Glenn's efforts, but I see the problems of his very
ancient date for the origin of Adam to be very severe. Of course, as he
has been telling us the problems of not accepting an ancient date are also
very severe.
For me, an old earth, an evolutionary origin life and of the body of man,
and a local flood scenario (including other survivors beside Noah and his
family) is not inimical to the Biblical text. The major scientific problem
that remains with my "harmonization" is the polymorphisms in the MHC genes
that seem to pre-date the chimp-human (body) split. See Ayala's article in
Scientific American, December (I think) 1993. From this sort of data one
can estimate the population size of the transition population and it comes
out to 500-10,000. This is difficult to square with a single ancestral
Adam and Eve.
Derek Kidner in his commentary on Genesis (Tyndale OT commentaries) has an
interesting solution. God uniquely endowed Adam with the divine image and
a human soul, specially created Eve as his wife, making them the first pair
and the covenant head. Then he endowed all of Adam's "collaterals"
(Kidner's word) with the divine image and human souls. Kidner's view does
away with the biological unity of the race (thus solving the above genetics
problem), but preserves the coventantal and legal unity of the race as
required in our Biblical theology.
I'm not yet ready to go with Kidner and give up the biological unity of the
race, but there are problems with my view.
Terry G.
_____________________________________________________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Calvin College 3201 Burton SE Grand Rapids, MI 40546
Office: (616) 957-7187 FAX: (616) 957-6501
Email: grayt@calvin.edu http://www.calvin.edu/~grayt