Scientific and Theological Issues on Human Origins

Loren Haarsma

Calvin CollegeChristian Perspectives

In Science seminar

Oct. 8, 2010

“If you have skipped ahead to this chapter [11-12], please go back and read the earlier chapters, especially chapters 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 9. These chapters lay the theological and scientific groundwork and will help to avoid false impressions about the topic of human origins.”

Theological issues on human origins• Divine action• Image of God • The soul• Selfishness & morality• Original Sin• Human mortality• Hermeneutics• Atonement• Suffering and death in nature

in general• Theodicy and original sin

Scientific issues on human origins

1. Hominid fossils2. Genetic similarities to animals3. Genetic diversity in the human population

Genesis 2-3: Adam & Eve as…

Recent Ancestors of all human beings

(about 8,000 years ago)

Scientific evidence on human origins

1. Hominid fossils2. Genetic similarities to animals

Genesis 2-3: Adam & Eve as…

Recent Ancestors

Ancient Ancestors

8,000 years ago

150,000 years ago

Scientific evidence on human origins1. Hominid fossils2. Genetic similarities to animals

3. Genetic diversity in the human population

Genesis 2-3: Adam & Eve as…1) Recent Ancestors

2) Ancient Ancestors

3) Recent Representatives

8,000 years ago

150,000 years ago

Genesis 2-3: Adam & Eve as…

1) Recent Ancestors

2) Ancient Ancestors

3) Recent Representatives

4) Ancient Representatives

Genesis 2-3: Adam & Eve as…

1) Recent Ancestors

2) Ancient Ancestors

3) Recent Representatives

4) Ancient Representatives 5) Symbolic

Types of divine action considered in various scenarios:

• God working through scientifically understandable natural processes

• Divine special revelation• “Spiritual transformation”• Physical / biological transformation which is

scientifically unexplainable

All scenarios discussed include the first two. Some include the third and/or fourth

3 views on the Image of God1. God gave us mental and social abilities far

above animals.2. God chose to have a personal relationship with

us.3. God commissioned humans to be his

representatives and stewards in this world.

All three views are compatible with human evolution.God could give us our abilities through evolutionary

processes; establish relationships and commission us through divine personal revelation.

3 theories about the soul1. Immaterial souls are joined to material body.

Souls miraculously created.2. The soul is not an “entity,” but the organizing

principle/power of the material body.3. The soul is our mental and relational abilities

(arising from our bodies) in relationship to God — a relationship established by divine personal revelation and divine promises.

All three views are compatible with human evolution (in different ways).

Selfishness, morality, and evolutionary

psychology

Evolutionary processes in animals and hominid ancestors would produce• “Selfishness” and other precursors to sin• “Altruism” and other precursors to morality• Analogy to developing children – at what stage of

development does self-centered wanting and acting become willful sin?

The doctrine of Original SinThe situation: No one can be righteous apart from

Christ.

Three theories about “transmission”: (1) biological; (2) social learning; (3) spiritual status.

Historical origin: Single or multiple acts? Was “original righteousness” an actual or potential state?

All 5 scenarios for Adam & Eve agree about the situation of original sin; but disagree about transmission and historical origins.

Questions raised by various scenarios about historical origin of

human rebellion and sin• How critical was the historically first “sin”? • Was “original righteousness” an actual or

potential state?• Role of divine revelation? What sort?• Divine action: “Transformation” required?

What sort?• How intellectually / emotionally / morally

advanced were the first “sinners”?

Human mortality and the Fall

Do scripture passages which talk about death as a consequence of sin refer only to spiritual death (separation from God)? Compatible with human evolution and all five scenarios of Adam & Eve.

Or does scripture imply physical immortality was a possibility via God’s grace (the “Tree of Life”) if humanity had not sinned? Difficult to reconcile with Adam & Eve as representatives; very difficult to reconcile with “symbolic” scenario.

Hermeneutics• Does biblical scholarship favor

some sort of concordist or some sort of non-concordist interpretation of Genesis 2-3? Can we be more specific than that?

• What are the various interpretations of Romans 5? How do they fit with other parts of scripture?

• Other passages referring to Adam & Eve? Lack of other passages referring to Adam & Eve?

Lutheran theologian and scientist George Murphy wrote,

“The Christian claim is that a savior is needed because all people are sinners. That is simple. Why all people are sinners is an important question, but an answer to it is not required in order to recognize the need for salvation. None of the gospels uses the story in Genesis 3 to speak of Christ’s significance. In Romans, Paul develops an indictment of the human race as sinful and then presents Christ as God’s solution to this problem in chapters 1-3 before mentioning Adam’s sin in chapter 5.”

“Roads to Paradise and Perdiction: Christ, Evolution, and Original Sin,” Perspectives in Science and Christian Faith, June, 2006.

Atonement• What are the various theories of atonement?

– Ransom, Recapitulation, Penal-substitution, Moral-influence, Debt-satisfaction, Governmental, Christus Victor …

• To what extent are various theories of sin and atonement influenced by extra-biblical (e.g. metaphysical) assumptions of their proponents?

• If we don’t have to choose one theory of atonement as correct and the rest as incorrect, are nevertheless some “weightier” than others?

• What does each theory of atonement “require” to be true about human origins and sin?

Suffering and death in nature in general before humans existed

• “Moral Evil” = evil that results from sinful choices.

• “Natural Evil” = things like earthquakes and parasites and disease – things which hurt, destroy, and kill, but which are not caused by anyone’s specific sinful choice.

If predation and parasites and disease and natural disasters and suffering and death

existed before human sin, then …?

EarthquakesThe constant motion of continental plates:• is an inevitable consequence of the

composition of the Earth and the laws of nature;

• creates a wide variety of ecological niches;• is necessary for life on land, by bringing

nutrients from below ground to the surface;

• causes earthquakes.

The “package deal” of biology: the same laws of nature produce both:• Beautiful butterflies and annoying mosquitoes.• Hardy lichen and hardy crabgrass.• Symbiosis and parasitism.• Helpful bacteria and disease-causing bacteria.• Adaptive genetic mutations and harmful genetic

mutations.• Mechanisms of cell repair/reproduction and

malignancy.

Plant and animal death

• are inevitable, given the fundamental laws of nature.

• make way for new generations – new individuals, adaptation, and increasingly complex ecologies.

• show us that all creatures in this creation are finite in space and time.

It appears that many things we call “natural evil” (earthquakes, disease, parasites, pain)

• have been part of the created world since long before humans existed;

• are an inevitable consequence of how the laws of nature operate;

• are results of a larger system which is beautiful and complex and life-sustaining.

Perhaps the Fall is seen more in how we respond to these things. Do they make us more loving or more selfish? Do they drive us towards or away from God?

Natural Evil and the book of Job

Satan accuses: Some humans might act righteous, but only for selfish reasons.

To refute Satan, God allows Job to be a victim of both moral and natural evil, and to suffer the loss of wealth, family, and health.

Natural Evil and the book of Job

Job’s wife says: Stop being righteous. “Curse God and die.” Job refutes this.

Job’s friends say: If you suffer, you must have done something wrong. Both Job and God refute this.

Job says: God is attacking me unjustly, and I can’t do anything about this. God refutes this in chapters 38-41.

Natural Evil and the book of Job

God doesn’t tell Job about Satan’s accusation, nor does God offer a complete explanation for Job’s suffering.

God points to all the dangerous, chaotic, wild things in the world and says, “These things are under my rule, not yours. They serve my purposes, not yours.”

Why create a world with natural evil?Maybe God values human free will so much,

that God permits morally evil acts.Maybe God values the more limited autonomy

that he gave his creation so much, that God permits it to “do its thing,” even if it sometimes produces natural evil.

Maybe a world with natural evil is necessary to be a home for humans who have free will, humans who can foresee consequences and make choices to help or harm others.

Maybe

Another theological category for some kinds of natural evil

• Not “good” in and of themselves.• Not a result of human sin.

• But something to be “subdued.”

“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion … over every living thing….”

-Genesis 1:28

. . . the mandate given to man in Genesis 1:28 which reads, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion . . . over every living thing . . . “charged man with “subduing’” the earth. The Hebrew word for “subdue” is kabas, and in all its other occurrences in Scripture (about twelve in all) it is used as a term indicating strong action in the face of opposition, enmity or evil. Thus, the land of Canaan was “subdued” before Israel, though the Canaanites had chariots of iron (Josh. 17:8; 18:1); weapons of war are “subdued,” so are iniquities (Zech. 9:15; Micah 7:19). The word is never used in a mild sense. It indicates, I believe, that Adam was sent into a world where all was not sweetness and light, for in such a world what would there be to subdue? The animals, it suggests, included some that were wild and ferocious, and Adam was charged to exercise a genuinely civilizing role and to promote harmony among them. — D. C. Spanner, Biblical Creation and the Theory of Evolution, (Paternoster, 1987)

A pastoral response to sufferingcaused by natural evil

• Not a complicated theological argument, but suffering with the victims, empathy, and doing what we can to ease suffering.– God restored Job’s healthy, family, and wealth.– Jesus healed the sick, and even calmed a

dangerous storm.• God gave us a mandate to subdue the earth.• God gave us a mandate to ease the suffering

of others.

Theodicy and Original Sin• Just how much chance did humans have of

avoiding rebellion against God?

• If the Incarnation was God’s “Plan A,” was the Incarnation + Suffering + Death + Resurrection + Atonement also God’s “Plan A”?

• How do various scenarios of human origins interact with scriptures which say that God is not the author of sin?

Many difficult questions

But also remember, we all share belief in• God’s sovereignty• God’s revelation• God’s grace• Incarnation and atonement• God’s kingdom• … much more