On Thu, 10 Jul 1997 22:56:02 -0500, Glenn Morton wrote:
SJ>Glenn, although you are no longer a YEC, there are parallels
>between their situation and yours. You claim that the Flood was the
>infilling of the Mediterranean 5.5 mya and that therefore Adam had to
>have lived before then. To support this, anything that is human-like
>that existed 5.5 mya is taken by you as evidence of the existence of
>full humanity 5.5 mya. To achieve this you must emphasise the
>similarities of early hominds to modern man and deemphasise their
>differences. This is *exactly* the same technique that YECs use.
>They have to shoehorn everything that looks remotely human-like into
>their timeframe of 15-10 kya. You have to shoehorn everything that
>looks remotely human-like into your timeframe of 5.5 mya.
GM>I will freely admit that there are some interesting parallels
>between my view and the YECs. We both believe in the historicity
>of the early Genesis account. We both believe in a Flood which
>wiped out most men. But so what?
Others who are not YECs believe in "the historicity of the early
Genesis account" and "a Flood which wiped out most men". But the
real parallel between you and YECs, which I pointed out above, is
that you both have a tight time-frame into which you must fit the
hominid evdidence into.
GM>I freely admit that my view makes certain predictions which
>have not been observed yet. There is nothing wrong with that.
>Your view also makes predictions. There should be evidence of a
>civilization on the floor of Lake Van where you think the flood
>occurred, yet none has been found there and your cite is much more
>accessible than mine. We can both await further discovery and
>each of us will hope it is our view which is finally verified.
No. I don't expect there to be any "civilization on the floor of
Lake Van" because as I have pointed out before, the Biblical account
makes no mention of a thick layer of mud covering the bodies of
Noah's former contemporaries, and indicates that life returned to
normal in the same location.
Besides, your view should predict millions of tools found in the
African jungle from 5.5 million years of human habitation.
GM>One could say that there are parallels between you and the
>materialistic evolutionist. You both believe in a human that
>gradually arises. The soul evolves in both your view and the
>evolutionist's position. That is why you keep saying.
I have no problem if "there are parallels between" me "and the
materialistic evolutionist. But I don't say anything about "the
soul" - I say that the image of God emerged, like a sculptor's
image emerging from the stone, or a clay image emerging under the
potter's shaping hands. Erickson admits this "Substantive View" has
been the "dominant" view "during most of the history of Christian
theology":
"The substantive view has been dominant during most of the history of
Christian theology. The common element in the several varieties of
this view is that the image is identified as some definite
characteristic or quality within the makeup of the human. Some have
considered the image of God to be an aspect of our physical or bodily
makeup. Although this form of the view has never been widespread, it
has persisted even to this day. It may be based upon a literal
reading of the word TLM (tselem), which in its most concrete sense
means `statue' or `form.' " (Erickson M.J., "Christian Theology",
1985, p498).
Note however that I do not "considered the image of God to be an
aspect of our physical or bodily makeup" but rather "our physical
or bodily makeup" to be "an aspect of" "the image of God".
But I do take the the "literal reading of the word TLM (tselem),
which in its most concrete sense means `statue' or `form' " seriously
and see it as the primary meaning of "the image of God". That is, man
is "the image of God" in the sense that a statue is the image of the
man it was modelled on. On this view, only the finished product can
be called the "image" of the man it was modelled on. Half-finished
likenesses may look a something like the image in the sculptor's
mind, but they are not the image itself. Michaelangelo's sculpture
"David" is a good illustration. No doubt the image of David that
Michaelangelo was working toward may have looked somewthing like
an ape early on and further along it may have looked like a hominid. But
only the finished image of a Homo sapiens was the image itself.
SJ>I grant that in one sense, all members of the genus Homo are
>"human", but this does not mean they were *fully* human:
GM>If they are not fully human, then they are partially human and
>they have a partial soul (or conciousness) as the materialist would
>say. What is the spiritual status of a being with a 25% evolved
>soul? Does he only need 25% of the Cross?
I use the term "human", but not "fully human". If you want to use
"partially human" and "soul", they are not words I would use to
describe my position, because they are misleading. Until man became
fully human in Adam, was put to the test and disobeyed, he didn't
need "the Cross" at all.
GM>But enough of that.
>
>I have said many times I am not sure where to place Australopithecus. You
>don't ever acknowledge that. It is a fact that one of this centuries
>greatest taxonomists, Ernst Mayr, advocated having only ONE genus Homo, and
>three species (transvaalensis, erectus, and sapiens). Transvaalensis, is
>what we call the Australopithecines. It may be that the piths had the
>image. It may not be the case. But even if it isn't, there is every
>possiblity that man lived in a forested environment, where the bones decay
>within a year after death and they left little evidence of themselves.
What is there to "acknowledge"? I have no problem with the fact that
you are "not sure where to place Australopithecus". But if
"Australopithecus" was the only hominid around 5.5 million years ago,
then you must assume he was fully human. But as your own source
indicates, if there were any men around then, they were only
"ape-men":
"Cascading at a rate of 10,000 cubic miles per year, the Gibraltar
falls would have been 100 times bigger than Victoria Falls and 1,000
times more so than Niagara. Even with such an impressive influx,
more than 100 years would have been required to fill the empty
bathtub. What a spectacle it must have been for the African ape-men,
if any were lured by the thunderous roar." (Hsu K.J., "When the
Mediterranean Dried Up", Scientific American, Vol. 227, December
1972, p33)
[...]
>GM>Where dose the Bible say man must be HOMO SAPIENS? I cant find
>the term HOMO SAPIENS in my Bible.
SJ>This is just a quibble. Of course the *name* "HOMO SAPIENS" isn't
>in the "Bible" since the term was only coined by Linnaeus in the
>18th century. But the *reality* that "man" in the Bible (with the
>possible exception of the category "man" in Genesis 1) is what we
>call Homo sapiens.
GM>Why? Is this not adding something to the Scripture, which
>Galatians warns us against?
It is Revelation actually. But no, it is not not "adding something
to the Scripture" to interpret "`man' in the Bible" as being "what we
call Homo sapiens." If anything it is "adding something to the
Scripture" to declare that "man" means something other than "Homo
sapiens."
GM>Why must the Biblical term 'man' apply only to beings that look
>like us?
It's not that these "beings" do not "look like us" - they *are* not
"like us"! Anything other than "Homo sapiens" would not only not
"look like" "Homo sapiens", it would not *be* "Homo sapiens":
"William Straus and A.J.E. Cave, believed that if a Neanderthal
'could be reincarnated and placed in a New York subway - provided
that he were bathed, shaved and dressed in modern clothing- it is
doubtful whether he would attract any more attention than some of its
other denizens'. (Cave A.J.E. & Straus W.L., 'Pathology and posture
of Neanderthal Man', Quarterly Review of Biology, 1957, 32: 348-63)
Many other anthropologists dispute this point, however. They believe
there would still have been an order of magnitude of difference
between the appearance of a Neanderthal and an early Homo sapiens, as
Steve Jones, professor of genetics at University College London's
Galton Laboratory, has pointed out in a decidedly pithy riposte to
Straus and Cave's subway scenario. 'Most people would change seats
if a Cro- Magnon sat next to them on a train,' he says. 'They would
change trains if a Neanderthal did the same thing.' (Jones J.S., The
Language of the Genes, 1993, in Stringer C., & McKie R., "African
Exodus", 1997, p95)
SJ>Indeed, the whole pattern of Christian redemption is based on our
>solidarity with Adam and Christ as our representatives (Rom 5:14;
>1Cor 15:22). If Adam was a different species (as Homo habilis and
>Homo erectus were), or indeed a different genus (as Australopithecus
>was), then there is no solidarity between Homo sapiens and him.
GM>You must have overlooked my documentation that many anthropologists
>think Homo sapiens extends back at least 2 million years.
Well, even if he did, how does that help you? You need "Homo
sapiens' to "extend back at least" *5.5* "million years"!
God bless.
Steve
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