Scientific and Theological
Issues on Human Origins
Loren Haarsma
Calvin College
Christian 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
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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 fossils
2. Genetic similarities to animals
3. 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 fossils
2. 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 origins
1. Hominid fossils
2. Genetic similarities to animals
3. Genetic diversity in the human population
Genesis 2-3: Adam & Eve as…
1) Recent
Ancestors
8,000
years ago
150,000
years ago
2) Ancient
Ancestors
3) Recent
Representatives
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
4) Ancient
3) Recent
5) Symbolic
Representatives
Representatives
Types of divine action considered
in various scenarios:
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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 God
1. 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 soul
1. 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 Sin
The 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, Moralinfluence, 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 …?
Earthquakes
The 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:
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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 suffering
caused 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
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Just how much chance did humans have of
avoiding rebellion against God?
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If the Incarnation was God’s “Plan A,” was
the Incarnation + Suffering + Death +
Resurrection + Atonement also God’s
“Plan A”?
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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