Tim Barnett at Stand to Reason tells us why Christianity with a mythical Adam and
Eve simply doesn’t work:
“Imagine a young boy sits next to his grandfather, and a large scar across his
grandfather’s cheek catches the boy’s attention. The boy asks, ‘Grandpa, how
did you get that scar on your face?’ The grandfather replies, ‘Well, a long
time ago, in a galaxy far, far away ...’ Immediately the boy interrupts
his grandfather, ‘No, Grandpa, I don’t want a fairy tale, I want to know how
you got that real scar on your face.’
The problem of sin is real. We experience it every day. A fictional tale does not
explain the fall of humanity into sin.”
Barnett disagrees, naturally, and his list
of reasons in lengthy and convincing. He cites the genealogies and the constant
references by Christ and the apostles to Adam as a real person:
“It is undeniable that Paul believed Adam was a real person. But where does this leave the theistic evolutionist who denies the existence of Adam? Theologian Peter Enns answers this question for us. He says, ‘One approach that is helpful to me is that I think Paul certainly assumed that Adam was a person and the progenitor of the human race. And I would expect nothing less from Paul being a first-century man.’ Theistic evolutionists, like Enns, are left to defend the position that Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, got it wrong.”
Thus a Genesis creation that is mere mythology
is incompatible with belief in the inspiration of scripture.
But Barnett’s best point has to do with the doctrine of the Fall of Man. Without a historical Adam and Eve, humanity was always ‘fallen’ in the sense that selfishness is a necessary part of the evolutionary process: survival of the fittest, after all. Thus the Garden of Eden narrative, if mythical, fails even on a symbolic level, since it posits a period of innocence that has no counterpart in reality and a “fall” that never took place.
It’s a good point, and only one of many. Read
it all here.
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