Science and Historical Christianity
have seemingly been at odds with each other. The study of Historical Adam &
Eve is a topic that contributes a good deal to this conflict.
Dr. Joshua Swamidass’1
recent book The Genealogical Adam and
Eve: The Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry, however, strives to
bridge the gap between evolutionary science and the conservative understanding
of Adam and Eve.
Proponents of evolutionary science
believe that humans evolved as a population sharing common ancestors with apes
and chimpanzees. On the other hand, a traditional or conservative
understanding of the book of Genesis is the belief that Adam and Eve were
created by God. They were the first humans. All of mankind descended from them.
These two views contradict each
other (or so it seems).
Dr. Joshua Swamidass’ position is that
there is enough room to accommodate both these views and that they do not
necessarily contradict each other.
How is this possible?
First, Dr. Swamidass establishes the distinction between genetics and genealogy within the context of
ancestral study. Upon establishing that distinction, he posits the Biblical
narration of Adam and Eve as the genealogical ancestry and that of science as
the genetic ancestry.
Second, he posits the presence of
human beings outside the Garden of Eden. In other words, when God created Adam
& Eve and made them reside in the Garden of Eden, there were other human
beings outside the Garden, who were the products of God guided evolution. Thus
he builds a bridge between theology and science.
It’s quite important to note that
Dr. Swamidass is committed to the de novo2
creation of Adam & Eve.
In an interview with Christianity
Today, Swamidass explains how these seemingly contradictory views could be
true:3
There’s been a
lot of conflict about how science expresses its understanding of Adam and Eve.
It has to do with misunderstanding the word ancestor. We can understand it in
the genetic sense, meaning someone we get our DNA from. Or we can mean it in a
genealogical sense, meaning someone whose lineage we descend from.
Genetics works
in a very nonintuitive way. For example, my parents are both equally 100
percent my genealogical ancestors, and the same is true with my grandparents
and great-grandparents. But my parents are each only one half of my genetic
ancestry; my grandparents are one quarter; my great-grandparents are one
eighth. Genetic ancestry just dilutes to the point where the majority of our
genealogical ancestors pass on no DNA.
Why is that
important? Scripture doesn’t tell us about genetic ancestry. It does, however,
tell us about genealogical ancestry. Historically, we’ve believed that Adam and
Eve are the ancestors of everyone. We can ask: Does this mean genetic ancestors
or genealogical ancestors? Well, Scripture
can’t possibly be talking about genetic ancestry. It has to be talking about
genealogical ancestry.
That
recognition really opens up an immense amount of space for theology. As
Christians, we’ve had a lot of anxiety over what science is telling us about
Adam and Eve. But these conflicts are based on what science says about our
genetic ancestors. If we focus on genealogical ancestors instead, there might
be far less conflict than we first imagined.
…If we keep
straight what the science is actually saying, the story of Genesis could be
true as literally as you could imagine it, with Adam being created by dust and
God breathing into his nostrils and Eve being created from his rib. But evolution is happening outside the Garden,
and there are people out there who God created in a different way and who
end up intermingling with Adam and Eve’s descendants. It’s not actually in conflict
with evolutionary science [Emphasis Mine].
While there seems to be a point of
convergence between evolutionary science and Historical Christianity, there
could be a number of theological conundrums.4
First, the Bible seems to unequivocally
imply that there were no humans before
the creation of Adam and Eve (cf. Genesis 1 26-29, 2:18, 20b, 3:20). Dr.
William Lane Craig explains, “When you look closely at the text itself, the text
is pretty clear that there weren't any other people around. Genesis 2 says
there was no man to till the ground and therefore God created Adam out of the
dust of the Earth. And when it comes to finding a suitable mate for Adam, God
parades all these animals before Adam and there was no one found that would be
a suitable partner until God created Eve. And what was she then given the name?
She was called “the mother of all living.” So I think that the story itself
says pretty clearly that Adam and Eve were the only human beings around.”5
Second, if there were humans outside
the Garden, then, Dr. Swamidass cannot
refer to Adam & Eve as the universal ancestors of mankind. At most,
Adam & Eve would be the ancestors of their descendants.
It is highly plausible that the
humans outside the Garden would have had their own children and they would have
had their own descendants. A part of these descendants would not, in any way, be
connected with the descendants of Adam & Eve (they would not have interbred
with the descendants of Adam & Eve).
These people are then totally
disconnected from Adam & Eve. If so, Adam & Eve cannot be the ancestors
of these people. Therefore, according to Swamidass’s view, Adam & Eve cannot
be the universal ancestors of all mankind. To consider Adam & Eve as the universal
ancestors of all mankind would be incorrect.
Third, there is an ontological
likelihood of a flagrant divergence between the humans outside the garden and
Adam & Eve. While Adam & Eve were created in the image of God, the other humans, who were evolving outside the
Garden would not be in God’s image.
This then leads to another theological
conundrum. Those created in the image of God are worthy of honor and respect;
he is neither to be murdered (Genesis 9:6) nor cursed (James 3:9). Being made
in the image of God also attributes characteristics such as ‘righteousness,’
‘holiness’ (Ephesians 4:24), and ‘knowledge’ (Colossians 3:10) to man.
Furthermore, those created in the image of God and those who believe in Christ
are to be conformed to the likeness
of Christ (Romans 8:29) and will one day be like
Christ (1 John 3:2).
Those evolved humans outside the
Garden would have none of the above characteristics since they were not created
in the image of God. Therefore, the
evolved humans cannot be the recipients of God’s grace and beneficiaries of
Christ’s atoning death.
Here is Dr. Craig’s explanation of the situation, “What it would imply is there are people who are just like me and
you in every way (rational, self-conscious, self-reflective, trying to do right
and wrong, loving their children, having an aesthetic appreciation of beauty
and ugliness, of right and wrong) and yet they are not in the image of God and
therefore are not truly human and therefore are not recipients of God's grace
or beneficiaries of Christ's atoning death. And I find that unconscionable…”6
Dr.Craig also reminds us that if
such humans do exist now, then evangelizing
to them is totally futile.
Fourth and finally, the traditional
or conservative understanding of the term human
is to reference it with the image of God
i.e. every human is created in the image
of God. But Dr. Swamidass disagrees with this definition, “One of the other
surprising things in dialogue with theologians through this . . . one of the
key things that I wrote was a chapter explaining how the term “human” has no
precision in science to the point that really there's really no claim that
scientists have to be normative in that discussion. Theologians really have the
right to define “human” on their own terms. Right? But the problem is you go
talk to theologians and they can't define “human” in an agreement with one
another! They have a broad, broad range of views. One way to do it, which I
actually don't think is a most helpful way, is by equating human with the image
of God – saying if someone's in the image of God then they are human, and if
they're not in the image of God then they aren't. I think that that's a problem
actually. I don't think that that makes sense…”7
Dr. Craig rejects Dr. Swamidass’
view that humans are merely descendants of Adam and Eve i.e. that humans cannot
be defined as those made in the image of
God, “I think this attempt to drive a wedge between the image of God and
human is unacceptable. Listen to the words of Genesis 1:26 and following: “and
God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have
dominion . . .” Then it says, “So God created man in his own image, in the
image of God he created him, male and female he created them.” That's clearly
not just referring to Adam. That's referring to man generically. I think Mike
was quite right in his comments. “Adam” is not used as a proper name in Genesis
until later in the story, but here we're talking about adam meaning “man,” and
it's used with regard to a plurality – male and female, them. So we mustn't, I
think, try to drive this wedge between being in the image of God and being
human. On the contrary, what makes us human is that we are in the image of God
unlike all the rest of animal creation. No other animal in Genesis 1 is created
in the image and after the likeness of God. That's what makes us human. Now,
Josh says to be human is simply to be a descendant of Adam and Eve. In this way
he can approximate the traditional view of Adam and Eve that in fact they are
the parents of every human being that has ever lived but only at the expense of
having these folks outside the Garden who look like human beings, act like
human beings, but they're really not human. And that just gives me the chills
frankly.”8
To conclude, Dr. Swamidass’s endeavor
to bridge the conflict between evolutionary science and Historical Christianity remains untenable. For instance, the four theological conundrums that are
presented, which are the consequences of his theological position, deeply
undermine the essence of Historical Christianity. In other words, Historic
Christianity would be substantially diluted doctrinally, if Dr. Swamidass’
views are to be upheld.
A liberal Christian or the doctrines
of liberal Christianity (which has already compromised the core doctrines of
Historic Christianity) may agree with Dr. Swamidass’s position. But the doctrines
of Historic Christianity remain in conflict with his views. Hence, it could be
reasonably concluded that Dr. Swamidass’ stand about the historical Adam &
Eve does not reflect the essence of Historic Christianity.
Endnotes:
1A
Computational Biologist, who uses artificial intelligence to explore science at
the intersection of biology, chemistry, and medicine.
2In
the beginning, out of dust and a rib.
3https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/january-web-only/genealogical-adam-eve-evolution-joshua-swamidass.html
4Much
of the information for this section has been sourced from Dr. William Lane
Craig’s critique of Dr. Josh Swamidass. This is from two articles entitled Josh
Swamidass on Adam and Eve – Part 1 and Part 2.
5https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/josh-swamidass-on-adam-and-eve-part-1/
6https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/josh-swamidass-on-adam-and-eve-part-2/
7Ibid.
8Ibid.
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accessed on 28th March 2020.
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