Theistic Evolution: A Theological Narrative

What follows is offered up as a provisional theological narrative for a Christian account of theistic evolution:

1. Creatio ex nihilo (creation "from or, out of, nothing"). In contrast to pantheism (and even panentheism), creatio ex nihilo asserts that the cosmos, i.e. "the world of the universe that is," has its origin in God as its ground of being, not out of divine necessity but rather of divine will. Hence, as a fundamental assertion of theism, the cosmos cannot in any way be identified with the Divine or be said to possess an essentially divine nature. The Creator, the one whom we call "God," is wholly other, i.e. utterly transcendent from the cosmos.

2. Divine Kenosis. Creation is nonetheless an act of divine kenosis, or "self-emptying," wherein the Creator freely and gratuitously "makes room" for something other than the Divine-Self: the "gift of being." This "gift of being" (creatio ex nihilo) includes the "gift of becoming" (creatio continua), i.e. the unfolding of divine purpose in the cosmos as it evolves from essentially random fluctuations in the continuum of time and space, to the formation of the basic elements, the coalescence of matter, the formation of stars, galaxies, solar systems, planets, the emergence of organic chemical processes, self-replicating molecules, biological life, and finally consciousness itself with its attending consequence of "existential estrangement."

3. Cosmic Stochasis. The extent of divine "self-emptying" can be detected in the stochastic or non-deterministic (so-called "random") natural processes of the cosmos. Orthogenesis, or so-called "progressive evolution," i.e. the hypothesis that evolution follows a straight or unilateral course towards a determined end or goal, must be excluded on both scientific and theological grounds. Scientifically speaking, the process known as Natural Selection simply precludes the notion. Theologically, the "gift of becoming" must contain within itself a true, rather than apparent, freedom, i.e. the "freedom-to-become." In other words, the physical universe contains no necessary internal, directional or teleological ("end-driven") goals.

4. Teleonomic Contingency. The admission, both scientifically and theologically, that precludes the existence in creation of necessary teleological or "end-driven" goals does not preclude the existence of inherent teleonomic or "end-seeking" goals grounded in teleomatic processes, i.e. natural laws that the physical universe follows. These processes are inherent in the universe as created. Consequently, the universe does not unfold in a chaotic or "directionless" manner, but rather in accordance with the purpose and will of its Creator towards greater and greater complexity. Be that as it may, this inherent direction towards greater and greater complexity follows a permissive course rather than a determined one. Hence, the universe is free within the confines of its own natural laws to evolve in an infinite number of ways, but always in the direction of greater and greater complexity -- termed "self-transcendence" by K. Rahner.

5. Theosis. Neither does contingency in nature in any way preclude an overall divine teleology or purpose for the cosmos. Theologically, this purpose is called "theosis" -- the participation of the created order in the Divine life, divinization, union with God. From the very moment of existence, the Creator has been drawing and calling the cosmos into closer and closer proximity to the Divine-self. The cosmos in turn responds through continuous evolution, more and more organization, emerging properties that yield, self-transcendentally, even more wondrous properties. Consciousness and self-awareness just happen to be among the wondrous properties that have emerged in our small corner of "the world of the universe that is," and just happen to be unique (as far as we know) to our species. In humankind, the cosmos possesses the ability to look back on itself in wonder, mystery and awe. Implicit in such emergence is the realization of the imago Dei, the faculty of volition, and the actualized moral realm wherein natural contingency self-transcends into human "choice."

6. Existential Estrangement. Estrangement is the angst of the self-aware cosmos -- the human species -- in coming to terms, at least implicitly, with its inability to attain the goal and purpose for which it has been created -- union with the Divine (theosis). In traditional terms, this is called Original Sin. The struggles to adapt and survive, to survive and compete, to compete and overcome -- struggles common to all biological life -- are but the birth pangs of theosis. Yet these struggles lie at the root of human estrangement and are indirectly the cause of sin, wherein biological competition is superseded by social competition, which in turn is superseded by economic and political competition, and ultimately by spiritual competition. The divine self-giving Logos challenges estrangement, undermines it, and threatens to overthrow it; yet while still "other" and speaking from a distance, the Logos cannot conquer it apart from the annihilation of the cosmos itself. In moral beings estrangement is inevitable; yet it is also necessary in the realization that theosis cannot be attained apart from grace, as a divine gift, and thus is the necessary condition of a true receptivity.

7. Incarnation. Far from being a divine afterthought, incarnation is the ultimate goal of creation. Indeed, creation and incarnation are but two acts of the same divine drama. Together they constitute theosis -- the perfect, inseparable union of God and creation -- which is not possible without the initiative of divine visitation: "The Word made flesh."  On evolutionary terms we may speak appropriately of incarnation as "ascendant Christology," but only in respect of the receptivity of the cosmos to unite with the divine Logos. The doctrine of creatio ex nihilo entirely precludes our ever speaking of incarnation in terms of a cosmos evolving into the divine in and of itself. As gift it must be received. Evolution, whether biological or spiritual, can only produce the conditions conducive to its reception.

Yet given the unfathomable gulf of being, divine grace from a distance can only hope to persuade through imperfect witness, hoping to woo a self-aware cosmos into receiving the divine "in the fullness of time." The biblical record is filled with stories of divine call and human receptivity. Even paganism has its myths of divine union with humankind. Yet each account fails by degrees to be that perfect moment of receptivity until the incarnation of Christ -- a holy mother's fiat -- the mythos of Annunciation -- the cosmos ready to receive the divine seed of its own theosis.

The Quest for the Mythistorical Jesus (Part Two): The Witness of the Empty Tomb

Christians do not believe in the empty tomb, but in the living Christ. This does not mean, however, that we can believe in the living Christ without believing in the empty tomb. Is it just a "legend"? What matter? It still refers to the phenomenon ensuing the resurrection, to the presupposition of the appearance of Jesus. It is the sign which obviates all possible misunderstanding. It cannot, therefore, but demand our assent, even as a legend. Rejection of the legend of the empty tomb has always been accompanied by the rejection of the saga of the living Jesus, and necessarily so. Far better, then, to admit that the empty tomb belongs to the Easter event as its sign. (Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/2)

(Note: Barth employs the term "legend" in the sense that this article employs "mythistorical." Click HERE to read Part One.)

In 1924, Karl Barth (1886-1968) published a small treatise entitled The Resurrection of the Dead. Little did he realize at the time just how misunderstood this aspect of his overall theology would become and just how tenacious the ensuing controversy would prove to be. This was not helped by the fact that Barth's early writings on the resurrection seemed to diminish the importance of the empty tomb. For Barth, a preoccupation with the empty tomb took the focus away from the true object of our faith: the resurrected Christ.  Yet to his detractors, especially evangelical theologians like Carl F. H. Henry, Barth's position sounded like an outright rejection of the gospel accounts, which in turn sounded suspiciously like a denial of the resurrection itself.

In time, however, Barth's growing concerns with the demythologizing project of Rudolph Bultmann would cause him to change his tune. Bultmann had regarded the resurrection as "a mythical event, pure and simple," grounded not in objective event, but rather in the subjective experience of the disciples. Increasingly alarmed that Bultmann's radical existentialist approach had stripped the resurrection of Christ of any objective significance, Barth in his later writings began to place considerable emphasis on the empty tomb as "the sign which obviates all possible misunderstanding."

This change in emphasis did not represent in Barth a fundamental shift in his theology of the resurrection as much as it did a development in his hermeneutical treatment of the gospel accounts. Barth had never held or insinuated that the resurrection of Christ had been anything but a physical resurrection or that the Church's faith in the resurrection was rooted in anything less than historical event. Barth's earlier statements that seemed to dismiss the "empty tomb" were not about denying the existence of a grave or a sepulcher located somewhere in or around Jerusalem, but rather about the legendary character of the resurrection accounts found in the gospels -- stories that differed greatly from one another in their details. Naturally, a physical resurrection would include an empty grave of some kind in its actualization in time and space.

Yet even if the tomb of Jesus could be located and identified this would in no way constitute historical verification of the resurrection, as there could be many possible explanations as to why the tomb was empty on the first Easter morning. Rather the resurrection of Christ could only be verified through the experience of the disciples and continuing faith of the Church. This is why the legendary character of the gospels posed no difficulty for Barth. Their stories of the empty tomb did not constitute actual eye-witness accounts, nor were they in any other sense historically verifiable, yet they bore witness to the Church's faith in Christ's resurrection in all of its objective significance, and thus the empty tomb stood as an indispensable sign that cannot "but demand our assent."

Naturally, such a nuanced position was bound to be misunderstood by fundamentalists and liberals alike. Generally speaking, in Barth's day there were but two ways of looking at the gospels: either in good literalist fashion as entirely historical accounts or as imaginative stories (more or less) crafted in the minds of the early disciples to explain the significance of their crucified master and/or the continuing experience of the "living Christ" within the early Christian communities. This is where Barth stood out as representing a via media or "middle way." Barth conceded that the gospel accounts of the empty tomb were not historical, per se, but rather were legendary in character. This did not mean that they were entirely fictional, but only that the stories bore the character of  imaginative responses appropriate for their time and culture. However, the living Christ to which they testified was the resurrected Jesus of history, not some otherwise existential figment of faith.

Barth's via media points the way forward in dealing with the gospel accounts as a whole. The true referent of the legendary witness of the empty tomb is the resurrected Christ, not the actual empty tomb itself or any of the other literary details of the different resurrection stories as they unfold in their telling. Hence, it stands to reason that we should not allow ourselves to get bogged down with attempts to explain other differences between the gospels: e.g. discrepancies, contradictions, different emphases, theological assumptions and the like. Such issues would be significant if we were dealing with competing historical accounts. But they do not matter in dealing with "mythistories." All that matters are the stories as stories and what they reveal to us about the Christ of faith. So, for instance, the question of whether Christ was entering or exiting Jericho when he encountered blind Bartimaeus, or whether two blind men met him there or just one (cf. Mark 10, Matthew 20, Luke 18), constitutes an unwarranted diversion away from what the "story-tellers" (i.e. the evangelists) actually want to tell us about Jesus, turning our attention instead towards fruitless considerations about the trustworthiness of texts erroneously regarded as historical accounts; as if to say that our faith was founded on a book (a Christian "Koran" if you will) rather than on the living Christ.

In the final analysis (as this post-catholic thinker sees things), Barth's via media rescues our faith both from the tyranny of textual literalism and from the relativism of radical demythology. The stories of the empty tomb are grounded in the resurrected Christ of faith, not the resurrected Christ of faith in the stories of the empty tomb. Likewise, the gospels are relative to the Church's faith in Christ, not the Church's faith to the gospels. Considered thus, the Bible assumes the nature of a truly revealed word from God en-fleshed in the words of its human authors.

Part One: The Problem Stated
See also: "Mythopoeia: Ancient & Modern"

The Quest for the Mythistorical Jesus (Part One): The Problem Stated

Modern scholars have routinely reinvented Jesus or have routinely rediscovered in Jesus that which they want to find, be it rationalist, liberal Christianity of the nineteenth century, be it apocalyptic miracle workers in the twentieth, be it revolutionaries, or be it whatever it is that they're looking for, scholars have been able to find in Jesus almost anything that they want to find. Even in our own age scholars are still doing this. People are still trying to figure out the authentic sayings of Jesus...All of our middle class liberal Protestant scholars who will take a vote and decide what Jesus should have said, or might have said. And no doubt their votes reflect their own deep seated, very sincere, very authentic Christian values, which I don't gainsay for a moment. But their product is, of course, bedeviled by the problem that we are unable to have any secure criteria by which to distinguish the real from the mythic or what we want to be so from what actually was so. (Samuel Ungerleider, Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies, Brown University)

Albert Schweitzer could not have said it better himself...

In his 1906 classic work, The Quest for the Historical Jesus, Schweitzer had challenged the foolhardy "Lives of Jesus" movement of the nineteenth century by revealing the scholarly presumption and bias behind all attempts to make up the life of Jesus of Nazareth out of whole cloth. What is now called the "original quest" for the historical Jesus had been going strong since Reimarus's initial investigations into the "historical Jesus" question in the eighteenth century. By Schweitzer's reckoning, the quest had run its course and should now be considered dead, marked his own work (as well as that of William Wrede).

The original quest had been a characteristically Enlightenment project in its dismissal of the miraculous elements of the gospels along with what was considered the "pretentious divinizing" of Jesus by misguided first and second century followers who sought to make sense out of their teacher's tragic demise. The result was a Jesus completely divorced from the New Testament, variously portrayed by nineteenth century liberal theologians along imaginative lines of what a first-century Jewish prophet might look like. Yet, ironically, Schweitzer's critique of this approach did not end the quest as much as it unwittingly anticipated its future course. Schweitzer's attempt to understand the historical Jesus in light of what he saw as the (misguided) apocalyptic nature of Jesus' preaching and mission as revealed in the gospels now paved the way for future "questers," in their respective ways, to take the New Testament seriously as a historical source. The "new quest" would focus its investigation on the continuity between the preaching of Jesus and the preaching about Jesus (kerygma) in the New Testament.

And so the "quest for the historical Jesus" has continued with interesting twists, curves and turns in the road, with only a brief rest-stop or two, right up to our own day. Newer approaches (as different as the works of N.T. Wright are from those of Marcus Borg) seek to understand Jesus and the character of his mission in light of his peculiar context within the Palestinian setting of Second Temple Judaism. But they all work under the same guiding principle: the significance of Jesus is of utmost importance in understanding the course of history, so we had better get it right. By the second century the early Jesus-movement had burst forth on the scene in a major way. By the beginning of the fourth century Jesus himself was well on his way to becoming the most influential figure who ever lived. All this to say that Jesus of Nazareth simply cannot be ignored as a historical figure, even by the most radical of skeptics. Yet as enlightening (and as helpful at times) as these "quests" have been, in the final analysis, every attempt to reconstruct the "historical Jesus" is doomed from the start.

This is true because Jesus is not the kind of person that history typically remembers. Indeed, the shortcoming of "questing" for the historical Jesus is simply that what can be known about Jesus historically, apart from the rare incidental comment by otherwise disinterested observers (like Josephus and Suetonius), is relegated exclusively to the writings of his followers, particularly the gospels. The problem is, however, that the gospels are not "histories," at least not in the sense that we understand that term today; nor are they what we would call "biographies." Rather they are "faith-narratives," i.e., stories about the "Christ of faith."

This is not to suggest that the New Testament is completely mute with respect to the historical Jesus. Indeed, there is every reason to affirm that the New Testament is replete with stories that are rooted in actual events. But rather than giving us straightforward history, the New Testament gives us projections of the "Christ-event" rooted in the faith-encounters of the earliest believing communities. The Jesus presented therein is not merely a figure of firsthand memory (which in any event would have been fading quickly by the time of composition), but rather a Jesus whose life and ministry had been re-imagined in light of post-resurrection theological reflection; a Jesus whose story had been re-told through the pages of Israel's sacred story; a Jesus whose mission had been re-crafted into the personification of Israel's prophetic tradition; a Jesus who was seen as recapitulating the role of hero in Israel's ancient mythos by taking it up into his own mythos (e.g., the "new Moses," the "second Adam," the "High Priest in the Order of Melchizedek," etc.). In light of this, how much of what we read in the gospels can be considered in terms of empirical fact? From the historian's perspective, it is impossible to know.

The difficulties inherent in the historical question become even more acute within literalist or fundamentalist circles, where the canonical gospels are taken to be entirely historical, thus compelling proponents to attempt harmonizing or reconciling contrasting and even contradictory features within them. But how do we reconcile the two very different infancy narratives presented in the Synoptic tradition (i.e. Matthew and Luke)? Which one of their genealogies represents the true lineage of Jesus? Did the Last Supper take place on the night of the Passover (as all three Synoptics testify) or on the night before (as in the Gospel of John)? Did Jesus institute the Lord's Supper at this meal or simply wash his disciples' feet? Which account of the trial is most faithful to actual events? Which account of the crucifixion? Did Jesus carry his own cross to Golgatha or was it Simon the Cyrene who carried it? Which of the four different accounts of what happened at the empty tomb do we take as factual? And what of events that do not normally happen in the physical realm? Miracles? The virgin birth? The resurrection?

In stating the historical problem in this way we can more easily understand the demythologizing project of Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976). Bultmann had regarded the quest for the historical Jesus to be a dead end, and for a brief time he had nearly convinced the entire academy of his day of this as well. Bultmann considered the mythological worldview of the New Testament to be unintelligible and unacceptable to modern people. Hence, for Bultmann, a historical consideration of Jesus from the gospels was simply not relevant to modern Christology, at least not the kind of historical consideration attempted by the "questers." Rather, Bultmann reduced the historical significance of Jesus to a single word: "that." It was important only to believe that (das Dass) Jesus existed. Whereas many were attempting to connect the actual preaching of Jesus to the preaching about Jesus (kerygma), Bultmann saw kerygma as the only event of continuing significance -- the here-and-now divine act of judgment and salvation, confronting the hearer and necessitating a decision. In this way, Bultmann had managed to reduce the historical significance of Jesus to a mere presupposition.

In the final analysis, we are left with a conundrum that even Bultmann, try as he might, could not avoid. The Christian faith is grounded in Jesus of Nazareth, a figure in history whose existence and significance can only be established through the testimony of texts that we cannot entirely regard as historical accounts. In Part Two, we will offer a way forward that was anticipated by the great Karl Barth in coming to terms with the significance of the empty tomb.

Part Two

Mythopoeia Ancient & Modern: Myth, History, and Sacred Text

History is distinguished from all other sciences in that it is also an art. History is a science in collecting, finding, penetrating; it is an art because it recreates and portrays that which it has found and recognised. Other sciences are satisfied simply with recording what has been found; history requires the ability to recreate. (Leopold von Ranke, from The Theory and Practice of History, edited by Georg G. Iggers, 1976)

If we have learned anything from the postmodern critique of modernity it is that history is essentially storytelling and thus a near kin to ancient mythology. Both history and mythology attempt to explain how things got to be the way they are by telling some sort of story. While von Ranke, the 19th century founder of modern source-based history, would have demurred at this comparison, he nonetheless unwittingly exposed his own subjective underbelly by insisting that history was both a science and an "art."

In any case, the task of the storyteller, whether ancient or modern, is to portray and recreate events into a meaningful reality that is both relevant to (while at the same time constitutive of) the storyteller's context. Both ways of storytelling may in this sense by termed "mythic," as postmodernists are keen to point out, yet only one of these ways can properly be called "myth." That's because ancient storytelling is markedly different from modern storytelling. Despite von Ranke's subjective underbelly, we still expect our modern histories to be "rooted" in brute fact. Fantastical tales of gods, demigods, and other imaginative descriptions of forces beyond human grasp could never satisfy the modern mind as faithful descriptions of reality if such tales were composed today, though they might entertain us as fiction.

Indeed, what we have come to expect in our modern stories -- our "histories" -- is empirical accuracy. We expect a high degree of awareness of the universal laws that govern nature. We expect a faithful retelling of events as they actually happened or at least a very close approximation of what happened. We also expect a fair assessment of and appreciation for the social and societal contexts that serve as the all-important interpretive grids through which our storytellers filter their modern tales. Even when persons and events take on "larger-than-life" legendary status, we hold fast to their empirical "rootedness" so that they may continue to have meaning for us as icons of our culture.

In contrast, we afford to the ancients a high degree of imagination in their story-craft, a dabbling in the absurd, a dreaming of innocence. There is little to no expectation that the ancients should have been interested in our conventional ways of looking at the world, or to have had a similar preoccupation with accuracy or brute fact. From our perspective, stories about Osiris and Horus (Egypt), Prometheus and Atlas (Greek), or the Gilgamesh Epic (Ancient Near East), do not count as history in the modern sense, no matter how much they may have served to shape and mold their respective worldviews in the way that histories do today. And we're okay with that.

Yet this is more than just a casual acceptance. We recognize the value of ancient mythologies as "portals" through which we view a "mind-world" that otherwise would be lost and forgotten. Whether explained in terms of the evolution of the brain or the evolution of culture (or no doubt some combination of both physiological and social factors), the fact remains that the ancients thought very differently than we moderns do; they were conscious in a different way -- not just by degree, but in kind. Something has radically changed in human consciousness over the last three milliennia or so. No doubt there have been many such "mind-changes" in the 200,000 years of our existence as a species, but this happens to be one that we can actually see because the stories are still with us.

The most ancient of these stories stem from a period that Henri Frankfort termed mythopoeic thought: a time before philosophy, logic, and rationalism; when human beings did not view the governance of the cosmos in terms of impersonal laws but rather in terms of personal agency. The rise and fall of rivers, the seasons of the year, the occurrences of drought or deluge -- all events controlled as an act of the will by some god or spirit. Simply put, we value ancient myth because instinctively we know that the mythopoeic mind is gone forever, though, paradoxically, the archetypes formed by this mind still haunt our modern psyche and inform our own pursuit of meaning. They stand as shadows of a lost "embeddedness" we once had with the cosmos, communicating the earliest aspirations of our species to realize transcendence, to grasp the divine, and, in so doing, convey to us the earliest realizations of our estrangement from the Ground of Being itself.

Needless to say, the shift from ancient to modern consciousness did not happen overnight. Evolution involves gradual change over time. Standing between the ancient and modern minds -- in the transition -- is the so-called Axial Age, characterized by the emergence of a new sense of self-awareness, "when people began to see themselves as objective, distinct entities" (Mayer). This period also saw the parallel developments of the major religious traditions -- Buddhism, Confucianism, Zoroastrianism, and, of course, Judaism. Meanwhile the Greeks were imbibing in logos, while vestiges of their old mythologies continued on in local cultus, as old wives' tales, or were re-crafted as quasi-histories (e.g. Homer).

Standing right at the pivot point of the Axial Age are the sacred texts of the biblical tradition, written over the course of some eight centuries, more or less, but certainly preserving stories that are much older; stories of the ancient mythopoeic mind, remembered and re-crafted into Israel's sacred story. It should not surprise us then to find myth, quasi-history, and even early attempts at empirical history within the same corpus, or even within the same book, as in the case of the Book of Genesis. Herein we see ancient cosmologies, descriptions of paradisiacal conditions, talking serpents, life and knowledge giving fruit, angelic unions with humans and the giants they produced, an epoch flood (Israel's version of a common myth of the ANE), and heroes that live incredibly long lifespans. But we also see names, empires, cities and other locales, customs, and events that are consonant with, if not supported by, modern archaeological finds.

In many places Holy Scripture turns out to be a cacophony of ancient folklore mixed with actual historical persons, places and events, making it notoriously difficult at times to tease out the threads of "brute fact" from their mythological embroidery. This is true even for the later portions of the biblical corpus when stronger and stronger urges towards historical "rootedness" (on the part of the human authors) were not necessarily matched with equally strong concerns for empirical precision or with any particular regard to, or consciousness of, cultural bias. Yet, paradoxically, these are the conditions that must exist, and the kind of sacred texts that must emerge, within any religious tradition that would make the audacious claim that God actually and truly discloses the divine-self to humankind by fully assuming and participating in the human condition: "The Word of God en-fleshed in the words of men."

Rehabilitating Marcion (Part Four): Divinizing Our Estrangement

Note: This entry is not intended as an endorsement of Marcionism, Gnosticism, or any other form of mythical or metaphysical dualism. For a brief historical analysis see Rehabilitating Marcion (Part One).

Marcion's Dilemma strikes at the very heart of what Christians believe about their sacred scriptures, not only because it compelled the early church to define its canon and embrace the old-new dichotomy of the testaments, but also because it imposed upon theologians the persistent task of having to reconcile the picture of the capricious God of the Hebrews with the picture of the all-loving God and Father of Jesus Christ. In Part Three, we briefly considered two approaches to this dilemma, namely the theologies of discontinuity and continuity.

Given these options, we were left with a god who either suffers from multiple personality disorder (discontinuity) or bipolar disorder (continuity). In either case, the Cross is viewed as the "means of satisfaction," the purpose of which is to appease the part of the divine personality that we would rather not face, indeed, that we "could not see and live." Perfect justice, we are told, demands divine retribution, whereas divine love seeks to forgive. What to do? The proffered solution sees God the Father as unleashing punitive justice upon the Son, thereby satiating divine wrath and opening up the way of forgiveness for those who believe. It's a tidy system; the problem is, it is not a just system. There is simply no way to uphold the righteousness of a God who would allow -- nay, demand -- the substitution of an innocent party for a guilty one, even if such a substitution were done voluntarily.

Ironically, the only way out of Marcion's dilemma is to acknowledge it. Marcion was right to point out the differences between the God of the Hebrew scriptures and the God and Father of Jesus Christ, because, in general terms, this is where the greatest differences are to be seen. However, a closer examination would reveal that we are not just dealing with one or two portraits of God, but rather with many different portraits of God, and many different kinds of portraits of God, appearing throughout both testaments. For example:

• In Genesis 1, God is pictured as a transcendent being who moves like wind over the primordial, dimensionless seas of heaven and earth; speaking forth from the darkness to call the chaotic abyss to order. 

• By Genesis 2, God appears as a mysterious figure who takes morning walks in a garden, who shapes a man (adam) from the dust of the earth (adamah) and then breathes life into him; later he fashions a woman from the man's rib.

• God is portrayed in the OT both as a tribal deity who occasionally visits his friends and an inapproachable national deity who must be worshiped at a particular mountain in the desert. 

• God is the traveler for whom Abraham plays the host and offers a meal; he is the mysterious angel who wrestles the whole night with Jacob and is defeated! 

• God is the jealous judge who would have destroyed the nation of Israel had it not been for the intercession of Moses, yet relents in the destruction of pagan Ninevah despite Jonah's protestations. 

• God is the capricious deity who strikes down Uzzah, whose only crime was to touch the ark of the covenant with his hands; yet later he declares through his prophets that he is not nearly as concerned with their temple observances as he is with justice for widows, orphans, and the stranger within their gates. 

• Supremely, God is portrayed in his Son, Jesus Christ, "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men" (Phil. 2:6-7).

Indeed, such an examination compels us to go further than Marcion's original observation to admit that Scripture simply does not present us with a coherent picture of God at all. Rather the scriptural testimony of God is equivocal, and, if equivocal, then eminently human. The implications of this admission are startling at first, at least to the traditional-minded, for what this means is that we can no longer consider the Bible in terms of direct divine disclosure to humankind. Rather Scripture constitutes a multifaceted witness of distinctly human experiences of, and encounters with, the divine. Such descriptions of God are inextricably woven into the fabric of the human condition, and thus are anthropomorphic rather than theophanic, analogical rather that literal, poetic rather than propositional, dynamic rather than static, progressive rather than fixed, rudimentary rather than complete.

In this sense the biblical portraits of God tell us more about the human condition than they do about divine nature qua nature. They are not pictures of the way God actually is, but rather are projections of how human beings have encountered the divine in history. These are very human portraits, and yet sacred: human, because they ascribe to God human motives and emotions, even reflecting at times the pettiness and darkness of the human heart; sacred, because they are encounters with the divine, and thus "word of God" enfleshed in human condition, wholly and without qualification.

Often glorious, sometimes crude, but always meaningful, these portraits express and "divinize" our deepest sense of estrangement from what Tillich terms the "Ground of our Being."

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Sound Bite Theology: Liberation from the fallacy of historical reification

As a theistic-evolutionist, I am free to accept the stories of Genesis as mythological. Hence, I am not compelled to reify historically, or to justify scientifically, the stories of the Six Days of Creation, the Making of Adam & Eve, the Garden of Eden, or the Fall; nor need I provide any taxonomic or scientific explanations for life-giving or knowledge-giving trees, talking serpents, or paradisiacal conditions. And yet, ironically, I can lay claim to a reading of Genesis that is more "literal" than that of the so-called "biblical literalist." The text of scripture says what it says, and it's quite liberating.

Response to Kevin DeYoung's Top Ten Reasons to Believe in a Historical Adam

See DeYoung's article in The Aquila Report.

1. The Bible does not put an artificial wedge between history and theology. Of course, Genesis is not a history textbook or a science textbook, but that is far from saying we ought to separate the theological wheat from the historical chaff. Such a division owes to the Enlightenment more than the Bible.

While DeYoung admits that Genesis is not a "history textbook" (or a "science textbook"), the underlying assumption of his first reason is that we are still obligated to treat it as such, a classic case of having your cake and eating it too. Anything less is met with the charge of putting an "artificial wedge between history and theology," strongly suggesting that theology cannot be communicated in anything less than a straightforward historical narrative. But this simply begs the question, why not? Why is it untenable to suppose that theological truth could be mediated through sacred story or myth? By revealing his prejudice against this possibility, DeYoung has unwittingly betrayed his own debt to Enlightenment thinking.

2. The biblical story of creation is meant to supplant other ancient creation stories more than imitate them. Moses wants to show God's people "this is how things really happened." The Pentateuch is full of warnings against compromise with the pagan culture. It would be surprising, then, for Genesis to start with one more mythical account of creation like the rest of the ANE.

The biblical story of creation was not meant to supplant other creation stories of the Ancient Near East (ANE) as much as it was meant to tell Israel's particular story within a common cultural milieu. This being the case, it should not surprise us at all that Israel's story contains both affinities and stark contrasts with these other stories, and that is exactly what we see. So, for instance, Hebrew cosmology is hardly distinguishable in some places from what was commonly believed in the ancient world: e.g. chaotic primeval conditions, flat disk-shaped earth, the firmament as a "vault" or "dome" above the earth upon which the heavenly bodies are fixed. Are we to accept these beliefs as straightforward descriptions of the way things actually are, especially when science has demonstrated otherwise? Or would it be better to acknowledge them as part of the ancient cosmogony common to that period, time, and region of the world? Indeed, the real contrast between the biblical story and others of ANE provenance is not to be found in some supposed myth/history dichotomy, but rather in Israel's monotheistic outlook and explanation of the origin and workings of the world around them as they understood that world to be.

3. The opening chapters of Genesis are stylized, but they show no signs of being poetry. Compare Genesis 1 with Psalm 104, for example, and you'll see how different these texts are. It's simply not accurate to call Genesis poetry. And even if it were, who says poetry has to be less historically accurate.

Comparing Genesis 1 with Psalm 104 would be analogous to comparing a Haiku with a Shakespearean sonnet. What point is there in such an exercise? The real question is what does DeYoung mean by characterizing the opening chapters of Genesis as "stylized"? Might it have something to do with the seven-day framework of Chapter One? The parallelism between the first and last sets of three creative days? The evening-morning formula for each day? Or the chiastic structure of verses 26-27 describing the creation of humankind? Obviously, "stylized" is a loaded term, which in the case of Genesis 1 unquestionably impinges upon one's hermeneutical approach regardless of whether one calls it poetry or not.

4. There is a seamless strand of history from Adam in Genesis to Abraham in Genesis 12. You can't set Genesis 1-11 aside as prehistory, not in the sense of being less than historically true as we normally understand those terms. Moses deliberately connects Abram with all the history that comes before him, all the way back to Adam and Eve in the garden.

The Book of Genesis has all the characteristics of an "antiquarian history," a common type of literature in the ancient world which connects the identity of a people, or the pedigree of a notable person, to a distant past. Greek historians like Homer were particularly noted for it. Such histories show little concern for making distinctions between myth, legend, and historical events/persons, and often weave the three together into an incredibly evocative meta-narrative. In fact, making distinctions between myth, legend, and historical fact is a concern peculiar to modernity. By ancient standards, the "seamless strand of history from Adam to Abraham" in the Book of Genesis is to be expected.

5. The genealogies of 1 Chronicles 1 and Luke 3 treat Adam as historical.

The genealogies of 1 Chronicles 1 and Luke 3 serve to connect their respective stories to the biblical meta-narrative that began back in the Book of Genesis, and hence to the entire history and identity of the People Israel as a continuation of that same "seamless strand of history" noted above (see response to Reason 4).

6. Paul believed in a historical Adam (Rom. 5:12-21; 1 Cor. 15:21-22, 45-49). Even some revisionists are honest enough to admit this; they simply maintain that Paul (and Luke) were wrong.

Paul was a traditional Jew of his day, and as a traditional Jew we can assume he believed that Adam was a real person. In fact, it would never have occurred to him or to anyone else in his day or context to question that assumption. Besides, he had neither the historiographic or literary methods to raise the question in the first place. So was this assumption wrong? As it turns out, yes. But does it matter? No, because regardless of ancient assumptions (or modern ones for that matter), the story of Adam (indeed, the entire story of the Bible) provides the divinely-inspired backdrop and stage upon which the drama of the Christ-story unfolds. If C.S. Lewis could liken pagan myths to "divinely-inspired glimpses" of God's "true myth" (i.e. the story of Christ), then how much more appropriate the divinely-inspired myths and stories of Hebrew poets and storytellers? (For further discussion of this argument, see my Weighing in on the Adam Debate.)

7. The weight of the history of interpretation points to the historicity of Adam. The literature of second temple Judaism affirmed an historical Adam. The history of the church's interpretation also assumes it.

The weight of the history of interpretation - both Jewish and Christian - points to a geocentric universe. The weight of the history of interpretation is mistaken.

8. Without common descent we lose any firm basis for believing that all people regardless of race or ethnicity have the same nature, the same inherent dignity, the same image of God, the same sin problem, and that despite our divisions we are all part of the same family coming from the same parents.

Science has been able to establish the solidarity of our species and our common genetic heritage independently of any theological considerations. It seems reasonable to suggest that theologians should have the competence to establish the creation of humankind in imago Dei independently of any scientific ones.

9. Without a historical Adam, Paul's doctrine of original sin and guilt does not hold together.

The doctrine of Original Sin as commonly understood in western Christianity is an Augustinian construct, not a Pauline one. Paul's point in Romans 5 is not to tell the story of how we contracted "original sin and guilt" from Adam, but rather to tell the story of how death was unleashed on humankind as a result of one man's transgression. In other words, the story of Adam is not about how we became "sinners," but about how we became "mortal." (For a fuller discussion of Original Sin from an evolutionary perspective, see my Paradise Imagined.)

10. Without a historical Adam, Paul's doctrine of the second Adam does not hold together.

Regardless of historicity or even Paul's assumption of it, his use of the Adam-story is metaphorical and typological, akin to the way the author of the Book of Hebrews employs the figure of Melchizedek in Hebrews 7. Even assuming that Melchizedek was a historical person, are we really compelled to believe that he is "without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life" (Heb. 7:3)? Or, rather, is the story of Abraham's encounter with the shadowy figure of Melchizedek in Genesis 14 a fitting type or metaphor to illustrate a theological truth about Christ's eternal priesthood?

Coming soon to a post-catholic blog near you...

...My response to Kevin DeYoung's Ten Reasons to Believe in a Historical Adam.

Here's a little teaser:

(DeYoung) 10. Without a historical Adam, Paul’s doctrine of the second Adam does not hold together.

While doubtless Paul did believe in the historicity of Adam, this belief is really not relevant to the way he uses the Adam-story in Romans 5 or even to the theological point he is making. Stated in a slightly different way: if it turns out that Paul was mistaken to believe that Adam really existed, why would it matter?

Regardless of historicity or even Paul's assumption of it, his use of the Adam-story is metaphorical and typological, akin to the way the author of the Book of Hebrews employs the figure of Melchizedek in Hebrews 7. Even assuming that Melchizedek was a historical person, are we really compelled to believe that he is "without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life" (Heb. 7:3)? Or, rather, is the story of Abraham's encounter with the shadowy figure of Melchizedek in Genesis 14 a fitting type or metaphor to illustrate a theological truth about Christ's eternal priesthood?

[To be developed and continued...]

Paradise Imagined (Part Two): Toward an evolutionary account of Original Sin

See also: Paradise Imagined (Part One) and The Two Minds of Augustine.

[The story of the Fall] is the profoundest and richest expression of man's awareness of his existential estrangement and provides the scheme in which the transition from essence to existence can be treated. (Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology 2:31)

Until recent times, the traditional meta-narrative of Original Sin has been able to provide a sufficient answer to the origin of sin through its telling of the story of Adam's fall. Though somewhat at pains to explain why the Fall happened in the first place (i.e. beyond "sin-as-possibility," or, in Augustinian terms, "posse peccare"), the traditional meta-narrative nonetheless neatly explained every subsequent sinful act in human history as predicated on Adam's first sin and its consequent deleterious effects upon human nature. Thus sin becomes both inevitable and universal in Adam's progeny (who were now deemed non posse non peccare). However, with the decoding of the human genome, science has put the final nail in the coffin of monogenesis (i.e., human origins from an original couple), and with it the idea of Adam's sin as "causal event." Eden's story of "Paradise Lost" suddenly becomes the story of "Paradise Imagined." Genesis's epic etiology is recast as a mythic story of realization, not of how things had gone awry, but simply that they have. To borrow a phrase from Tillich, our ancient storytellers had "dreamed of innocence."

Thus, for the theistic-evolutionist, the origin of sin as event is no longer an issue of theological importance. Even if it were possible to determine the exact moment when the willful act of a common ancestor could be counted as sin, there would be no basis, either theological or ontological, to posit a causal connection between that supposed "original" sin and every subsequent sinful action in the history of the human species. Instead, the theistic-evolutionist seeks to explain the origination of sin as grounded in conditions that would not only make sin possible, but also inevitable; and, if inevitable, then universal as well.

So we must start with a consideration of divine creative activity, and in particular creatio continua with its divine gift of "becoming." If, as we have argued previously, the "freedom to become" means that the processes of an evolving universe are free, contingent, and undetermined on the physical level, then what does this "freedom to become" imply on the level of consciousness? What does indeterminacy look like in the actualized moral realm of this evolving universe? And in what ways do free moral agents experience or exhibit this "freedom to become"? These are the questions at the heart of a theistic-evolutionary account of Original Sin.

As a preliminary answer to these questions, we suggested in Theosis Interrupted that the indeterminacy and contingency of the cosmos take on new significance with the arrival of human consciousness, particularly in the corresponding emergence of the human faculty of volition, or "will." Simply put, human beings, considered as moral agents, are "free" to make moral choices; a "freedom" that includes the very real possibility of sin because it assumes "free will" as an essential human faculty (i.e., libertas voluntatis essentialis). Yet, as tidy as this explanation may be in explaining "sin-as-possibility," the universal aspect of sin (or "sin-as-inevitability") must be posited on different grounds; and therein lies the rub, for one must exonerate nature as the cause of sin (else fall into Gnosticism) while at the same time avoiding the suggestion that God is the author of it.

Yet this may not be as imposing a dilemma as it appears to be at first glance. If the course of the evolution of our species had followed a straight directional line from single cell through to us, with the achievement of consciousness as its ultimate end, then we should expect to see not only the "freedom of will" but also the "perfection of will" as its consequent results, making the question of the presence of sin in the cosmos a greater theological conundrum. (Incidentally this is why both orthogenesis and Intelligent Design fall short as explanations.) But, as was argued in God's Purpose or Nature's Dice, the physical processes of nature, including our own evolution as a species, follow no inherent "end-driven" (i.e. teleological) pathways. Consciousness, as far as the physical realm is concerned, is merely a successful adaptation of our species, and the faculty of volition, or "will," a mere byproduct of the same.

As a species we are an accumulation of our biological past, with its baggage of both useful and vestigial systems, complete with structures, faculties, and instincts that may give all the appearance of having been evolved for our particular moment in cosmic history, but have more than likely been conscripted and co-opted into service from earlier stages of our evolutionary past. This can be seen in stark detail in the evolutionary layers of the human brain: with its "reptilian layer" (i.e. brain stem and cerebellum), which controls our vital functions; the limbic or early mammalian layer (i.e. hippocampus, amygdala, hypothalamus), which constitutes not only the seat of our judgment values, but also of our unconscious behaviors; and finally, the most flexible layer, the neocortex, which we share with higher primates, constituting the seat of learning and (in humans) of higher abstract thought.

It stands to reason then that while we may call our faculty of will or volition "free," the choices set before us are certainly far from it. Luther's keen insight into the servum arbitrium comes to mind here, not the mistranslated "bondage of the will" but rather the "bondage of choice." Human choice is contextually conditioned, subject to our human finiteness, and always obliged to pay attention to our more basic "lower" instincts. The undeniable fact is that we spend most of our time suppressing and re-directing instincts we once depended on for survival and/or the passing on of our genes.The instinct of "fight or flight," once a useful defense mechanism (and still of limited value in that regard) becomes the anxiety that so afflicts our higher selves; the primal urge to reproduce easily becomes lust; the instinct to horde easily becomes greed. Indeed, in the final analysis, Aquinas' suggestion that concupiscence involves not the corruption of human nature, but rather the struggle to overcome the lower passions and desires which are natural to it, turns out to be not far from the truth.

Paradise Imagined (Part One): Toward an evolutionary account of Original Sin

Though a theistic-evolutionist might at first be tempted to set aside the doctrine of Original Sin as the product of a "pre-scientific" age, our previous examination of the "Two Minds" of Augustine revealed a rich theological tradition behind the Augustinian meta-narrative that could rightly be employed in the service of an informed contemporary accounting of the nature of humanity and of sin. Yet even after conceding as much, the theistic-evolutionist should still proceed with caution lest the temptation should arise again to cast the doctrine aside after plundering its riches. 

Truth be told, a theistic-evolutionary account cannot avoid its obligation to attempt a recasting of Original Sin in light of its own insights if those same insights should ever stand a chance of being recognized as Christian. This is not merely because Original Sin has been such a dominant theme in Christian theological discourse over the last two millennia. Rather, the Christian Gospel requires an etiology for sin in order for there to be any gospel at all. Simply put, there can be no remedy, no cure, no medicine, unless the sickness and its cause are identified for what they are.

Before moving forward from this point, it may be helpful to consider other insights that might be gleaned from the history of this doctrine, particularly the insights of a perspective we have only briefly considered in other articles: the perspective of Eastern Orthodoxy (e.g. Adam and the Undoing of Augustine). Generally speaking, Eastern views of Original Sin (more accurately "Ancestral Sin") have not been encumbered by the metaphysical speculations that have weighed down the Western discussion (e.g. original righteousness, transference of guilt, etc.). In contrast, Eastern views are refreshingly straightforward commentaries on the Genesis account of the Fall and of Paul's understanding of it in Romans 5: the story of "Paradise Lost."

To the Eastern mind, what Adam "lost" in the Fall for himself and his progeny had nothing to do with natural or supernatural attributes, either originally instilled or endowed in human nature -- issues we noted that so preoccupied Western discussions of Original Sin. Rather what Adam "lost" or, more accurately, what he "forfeited," was twofold: (1) communion and fellowship with God in the Garden; and (2) the gift of life (immortality) made possible by Adam's access to the Tree of Life. In fact, it would be accurate to suggest that not only had nothing been "lost" in the Fall with respect to human nature, but something had actually been "gained" in the Fall, namely the experiential knowledge of good and evil.

Two trees stood in the midst of the Garden: one conferring life and one conferring the knowledge of good and evil. As long as Adam remained obedient to the command not to eat of the fruit of the latter, he continued to have access to the fruit of the former. He would also remain in communion with God within the safe environment of the Garden. Beyond Eden lied the realm of death and dis-fellowship; expulsion from the Garden meant the same. This is precisely why the traditional Eastern Orthodox reading of Romans 5 sees the entrance of "death" into the world as its primary focus rather than that of "sin."

This is not to say that the Eastern Orthodox understanding of Ancestral Sin denies that, in some sense, human nature was affected by the Fall. Indeed, Paul's entire argument rests on the premise that "one man's trespass" effected death for all people. In other words, sin is never an isolated affair. The "knowledge of good and evil," once actualized, increases exponentially in the human condition -- "Through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners" (Romans 5:19).

Finally, there is also a cosmic dimension to some Eastern explications. In some sense, Adam's death meant the condemnation of all creation -- "For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in childbirth until now" (Romans 8:22). The Garden of Eden was but a foretaste, the mere beginnings, of a theosis that would encompass the entire cosmos; and Adam, the Creator's appointed caretaker of the Garden, would in time graduate to become caretaker of the entire cosmos. Adam's fall was creation's fall. When Adam fails to live up to his calling, no hope remains that the cosmos will realize its own.

However, a theistic-evolutionary perspective still demands its own account, and one in which the Genesis story of the Fall must still serve as an etiology, though not in terms of "Paradise Lost," but rather in terms of "Paradise Imagined." Yet, before we attempt such an account (which we shall endeavor to do in Part Two), it will do well for us to review the insights from the Eastern view that could prove useful to it:

1. The Eastern understanding of the Fall as "forfeiture" of the paradisiacal conditions of Eden over against the Western understanding of the Fall as the "loss of original righteousness." In either case, the theistic-evolutionist is not looking to identify or locate a "primordial Eden" in the natural history of the universe. Yet the mythological account of "Paradise Imagined" -- lost to humanity through willful disobedience -- is illustrative of the nagging realization that something has gone terribly awry in the cosmos, that humanity has not lived up to its calling, and that the failure to do so has meant the forfeiture of the ultimate purpose for humanity's existence -- i.e., communion in the divine life ("Paradise Realized").

2. The Eastern understanding that sin is never an isolated affair. As one man's trespass effected death for all humanity, so each subsequent act of willful disobedience compounds the problem of humanity's exclusion from Eden and estrangement from God. Again, the theistic-evolutionist is not interested in finding sin's origin in one primordial act of transgression. Yet "Paradise Imagined" is illustrative of sin's compound deleterious effects on the human race and compels the theistic-evolutionist somehow to account for sin's origination within the conditions of cosmic history.

3. The Eastern understanding of the cosmic dimension of the Fall. The entire cosmos is invested in Adam's destiny, so when Adam falls, all creation falls with him. Death becomes condemnation. Again, the theistic-evolutionist is not interested in blaming one common ancestor for the condemnation of all of creation. Yet "Paradise Imagined" is illustrative of the solidarity and theotic destiny of the entire cosmos as Imago Dei; a destiny only just recently actualized for the whole universe in the emergent consciousness and moral awakening of a tiny population of terrestrially-bound hominids ... as comical as that may appear to be.

READ PART TWO.

Sound Bite Theology: The Meaning of Eden

Given the evolutionary origin of the human species, the story of Adam and Eve is about moral awakening. When as a species we became conscious of our moral calling before God, sinfulness became an inevitable part of our finite experience, and thus death became, for us, judgment whereas before it was simply part of the natural cycle.

Adam and the Undoing of Augustine

There are two main issues at stake for those who insist that a belief in a historical Adam and Eve is essential to the Gospel. The first issue concerns the integrity of Scripture, the charge being that if Paul were mistaken in his belief in a historical Adam and Eve then Scripture would be mistaken as well. Hopefully my previous article Weighing in on the Adam Debate was to some degree an answer to this charge.

The second issue is probably the more emotive of the two because, as SBTS president Al Mohler contends in his recent article on the historicity of Adam, a whole way of thinking about the Gospel is at stake. States Mohler, "The denial of a historical Adam means that we would have to tell the Bible's story in a very different way than the church has told it for centuries as the Bible has been read, taught, preached, and believed." While I understand why Mohler is keen to assert that a belief in a historical Adam constitutes the linchpin of the Gospel, I would contend that this has more to do with faulty theology (namely, Augustinianism) than it does with what the Bible actually teaches.

What follows hereafter is not an attempt to recast the biblical metanarrative sans a historical Adam, but rather to expose the faulty theology that lies behind the dominant, centuries-old Western telling of the story of the Gospel, a telling more dependent on St. Augustine than on St. Paul.  The undoing of Augustine is set forth below in three premises drawn from the Adam-story, especially as it relates to Paul's discussion in Romans 5:12-21.


First Premise: The entire human race did not participate in the guilt of Adam's sin, but rather in the consequences of it.

The concept of "original sin" is the hallmark of the Augustinian system, stoutly defended today by most expressions of Western Christianity. But is the concept really taught in Scripture? In Romans 5?  Actually, it stems from Augustine's take on a misleading Latin translation of the last phrase in Romans 5:12 -- "in quo omnes peccaverunt," which translates "in whom [Adam] all sinned." However, the Greek phrase "ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον" is more properly translated "because all sinned."  So rather than Romans 5:12 teaching that all die because in Adam all sin, it simply means that, like Adam, all die because all sin.


Second Premise: The story of Adam's fall is not primarily a story about how sin entered the world, but rather about how death entered the world.

Paul's point in Romans 5:12-21 is not to tell us about how we contracted "original sin" from Adam, but rather about how death became the defining factor of human existence through one man's transgression. The key to understanding this passage is found in Verses 13-14:

¹³ for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. ¹⁴ 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.

Paul teaches here that prior to the Law of Moses the only "law" (i.e. explicit command with a penalty attached to it) was God's instruction to Adam not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Unfortunately for Adam and his progeny this particular "law" had a death sentence attached to it. Thus, because of Adam's one transgression we all face death. This is not to say that there was no other sin in the world prior to Moses or that our individual sins do not factor into death. Rather, the story of Adam as re-told by Paul is that death was unleashed by Adam's one transgression and was then free to spread throughout the earth to inflict all who, like Adam, commit sin.  As Verse 12 says, "Death spread to all people because all sinned."

SIDEBAR NOTE: Verse 12 does say that "sin entered the world through one man," but this simply means that Adam was the first sinner. The real point of the passage is to tell us how Adam's one transgression led to death for all in contrast to Christ's one act of righteousness that leads to grace for all. 


Third Premise: The story of Adam's fall does not tell us how we became sinners, but rather about how we became subject to death (i.e. mortal).

The account of Adam's own sin is instructive here.  Sin did not enter the world on account of the fall. Rather the fall was the result of sin -- Adam's sin.  Simple logic tells us that sin cannot be the result of the fall if the fall is the result of sin. If humankind needed a fall to become sinful, then how do we explain Adam's sin prior to the fall?

An Augustinian reading of the text insists that we receive a "fallen nature" from Adam on account of the fall, which (we are told) is the reason why we are "sinners" even before we commit an act of sin. But Scripture nowhere teaches this idea; it is a complete interpolation into the story.

The idea is meant to explain, in Augustinian fashion, why in the human experience we find it impossible "not to sin" (non posse non peccare).  Yet even Augustine admitted that sin was possible prior to the fall, as something inherent to human nature as originally constituted (posse peccare). So why do we need to "up the ante"?  Employing Occam's famous razor, could we not simply say that as descendants of Adam (metaphorically speaking) we inherit his (pre-fall) ability to sin? As it turns out, the inheritance of a "fallen nature" subsequent to the fall is unnecessary as an explanation of why we sin. Indeed, experience tells us that the compulsion and propensity to sin is very much a part of human nature, and most certainly always has been, Adam not excepted. This is a profound mystery, which the Bible never really explains, Augustine notwithstanding. The old adage that "we are not sinners because we sin, but rather we sin because we are sinners" turns out at best to be a distinction without a difference.


In summary, the three premises above address three theological fallacies of the Augustinian system: (1) inherited guilt, (2) the origin of sin, and (3) the contraction of a fallen nature. Given these Augustinian assumptions it is easy to see why most Western Christians, even many who embrace some form of theistic evolution, are keen to retain some semblance of historicity in the Adam-story. Without a historical Adam, there is no historical fall; without a historical fall, there is no need for a Savior in history, or so the argument goes.

What I have presented above is a way to read the Adam-story apart from Augustinian assumptions, something that Eastern Orthodox Christians have been doing for quite some time. It is the most natural reading of the story, free of theological interpolation. Moreover, it has a distinct advantage over the Augustinian reading in that it roots the human condition in something more constitutional and "original" than the legal fiction of an inherited guilt from a primordial act of transgression. It roots the human condition in the "Adamic nature" itself.  As such, it is a reading that is less dependent on the question of whether the story should be taken as "event" or as "metaphor."

END NOTE: The title of this post is a play on the words of a title and theme that C. Baxter Kruger has used for a number of articles, lectures, and at least one book, Jesus and the Undoing of Adam.

Weighing in on the "Adam Debate"

Peter Enns' latest book, The Evolution of Adam, seems to be generating a lot of buzz on the internet of late.  Currently it is ranked #1 on Amazon for new books on Science and Religion -- quite an accomplishment for a book that (to date) has yet to be released.  I have always enjoyed Enns' contribution to the science and religion dialogue, particularly his work with the Biologos Forum, so I'm looking forward to reading this book.  (Incidentally, Enns is no longer employed by Biologos.)

Meanwhile, I was thinking that the "historicity of Adam" debate might be just the thing to kick-off the Post-Catholic Project.  So, as an inaugural post, I will weigh in on a rather heated charge made by SBTS president, Al Mohler, in his recent article, Adam and Eve: Clarifying Again What is at Stake, namely that a denial of a historical Adam and Eve is detrimental to the "Apostle Paul's telling of the story of the Bible and the meaning of the Gospel."  Mohler's concern is to demonstrate that the historicity of Genesis 2-3 is an essential proposition in Paul's "telling of the story of the Bible" (e.g. Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15).  Simply put, according to Dr. Mohler, without a historical Adam and Eve there is no Gospel. To quote Mohler more fully:

If Adam was not a historical figure, and thus if there was no Fall into sin and all humanity did not thus sin in Adam, then Paul’s telling of the Gospel is wrong. Furthermore, Paul was simply mistaken to believe that Adam had been a real human being.

My first inclination as a self-confessed "post-catholic thinker" is to ask: Why would it be such a big deal if Paul were "simply mistaken"?  But then I realize that in asking this question I would be jumping way ahead of where many Christians are, particularly those who identify with evangelicalism (the very camp that Dr. Enns is keen to persuade).  So I'll ask my question in a different way:

Why should we assume that the Apostle Paul would have understood the Adam-story differently than any other traditional Jewish thinker of his day?  

The answer is self-evident.  He wouldn't have.  Mohler would not deny this; in fact, Mohler might probably say a hearty "Amen!" at this point.  But once we take as axiomatic the premise that Paul shared an understanding of the Adam-story that was considered "a given" within his own religious context we are halfway there.  As a follow-up question we might then ask (within the context of this present debate) whether it would have been possible or likely that a traditional Jewish thinker, like Paul, could have held any other position?  Here again I would answer in the negative.  Why?  Simply because it would be a gross anachronism to suggest that the question of whether the Adam-story may or may not have happened in the manner portrayed in Genesis, or have happened at all for that matter, would ever have occurred to Paul or to anyone else in his religious context.  So should it really surprise us that Paul assumed that Adam had been a real human being? Does it really matter that he did? (More on this question later.)

Granted, one might well counter this line of thinking by asserting that a proper understanding of divine inspiration would require the intervention of the Holy Spirit at this point to correct Paul's understanding of the Adam-story (perhaps by whispering in his ear as he wrote Romans 5), or otherwise to preserve the text of scripture from any erroneous, albeit pious, assumptions that Paul or any other writer of scripture might otherwise be inclined to make.  But is it really necessary to go through such hermeneutical gymnastics to prop up our theological assumptions, especially when additional information and evidence fly in the face of those assumptions?  (E.g. one could cite the overwhelming genetic evidence for the polygenic origin of the human species, thus calling into question the status of Adam and Eve as the "first humans"...but I digress.)

For Paul, there would have been no way of going back to witness these events himself, nor could he have appealed to any contemporaneous witnesses or records of these events either to confirm or deny them.  The historiographical or literary methods available to us today did not yet exist.  There was no way to examine the stories of Genesis in light of a plethora of other ancient origin stories, nor (as yet) any scientific considerations that might well have called their historicity into question.  Paul possessed neither the tools of inquiry, nor the methodologies of research, nor even the categories of thought, that we take for granted today.  Simply put, it would never have occurred to Paul to ask the questions of the texts that we ask of them today.  The biblical accounts of Genesis were simply stories; sacred stories, to be sure, but stories nonetheless.

It is time now to return to our earlier question: Does it really matter that Paul assumed Adam's historicity?  More precisely, if Adam had not existed, then was Paul's "telling of the Gospel" false?  It is here that C.S. Lewis' concept of "true myth" can be instructive. Both Lewis and Tolkien understood Christ's saving work (i.e. atonement, resurrection) as God's "true myth," acted out in space and time.  In their view God was at work even in the minds of pagan storytellers, whose myths of dying and resurrected gods and/or godlike heroes were likened to "divinely-inspired glimpses" and precursors to God's "true myth" -- the drama of the Christ-story. In Lewis' words:

The story of Christ is simply a true myth; a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference, that it really happened, and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God's Myth where the others are men's myths.

If the man-made myths of pagan poets and storytellers can serve as precursors to God's "true myth" in history, how much more natural and appropriate the sacred, divinely-inspired myths of Hebrew poets and storytellers?  When seen from this perspective then the correspondence between the work of Christ and the primordial story of the human condition and solidarity in sin and death as personified in Adam is something that would obviously have resonated deeply with Paul, the faithful Jewish exegete that he was.  Far from being detrimental to the Gospel, such a correspondence confirms both the sacred stories of the Hebrew people as the divine backdrop and stage of the drama of the Christ-story, and the Gospel as God's remedy and cure for the ravages of sin and death as portrayed in the drama of the Adam-story.

The Adam-story was Paul's heritage as a descendant of Abraham, the heritage of his immediate faith-community, as well as the heritage of the faith-community that lives on today.  It is a sacred story which continues to be part of the faith-community's sacred text; a story not subject to negotiation as an integral part of how the People of God understand themselves in relation to their God and to the world.  For the ancient Israelites the story served to reify the human condition as they understood it, providing an etiology (i.e. origin story) for the entrance of sin and death into the world.  As such, it is reasonable to conclude that the ancients would have found theological meaning in the telling of the Adam-story as "event."  Yet people of faith today continue to tell the story, and continue to be instructed by it as a metaphor of the human condition (e.g. the universality of sin, as well as its nature/consequences, and "death" as our cosmic enemy, etc.).  It has just as much theological meaning when understood as "parable," perhaps even more.  We can say this because the Adam-story's rightful inclusion in the "Torah" is no more contingent on ancient assumptions than its canonical status as the "Word of God" is jeopardized by our modern ones.