ADAM AND EVE DID EXIST: EVOLUTIONISTS GET OVER IT
By Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Jun 13, 2011 in AM Missives, Current Issues, Features
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? (1 Corinthians 5:6)
Slowly Imbibing Theological Poison
A main focus of this particular online apologetics and discernment work here at Apprising Ministries, has been monitoring and exposing the Emerging Church, now upgraded to version 2.0 with its newer, more clearly delineated, postmodern Progressive Christian theology.
This new, and not improved, version of liberal theology—a Liberalism 2.0—is what this sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church will often refer to as “big tent” Emergence Christianity. Sadly, it all part and parcel of an unnoticed New Downgrade No-Controversy currently going on within evangelicalism at large.
It’s as if in its pursuit to be accepted by the world a new creed has been adopted and stated thusly: *sniff sniff* We the one hole-y and basically Roman Catholic Church now very quietly, and ever so politely, confess: “Can’t we all just get along?” In days to come you’ll see terrible consequences of allowing such as these Emergent mutants to teach your young.
As I pointed out in The Emerging Church On A Wild Goose Chase these are neo-Gnostic fools who’ve unbuckled themselves from the Word of God and have embarked upon their wild goose chase of subjective experience; but what you may not have realized is that they’ve convinced much of the younger sectors of evangelicalism to do likewise.
However, without the gravity of the proper Christian spirituality of sola Scriptura they will all only drift deeper into spiritual outer space. Against this veracious background I remind you again of Christianity Today On The Search For The Historical Adam. If you don’t lnow, this happens to be a dangerous new series on the search for the so-called historical Adam.
Not surprisingly CT tries to straddle the fence but does seemingly fall toward the side of the unbiblical position of old earth creationists:
some have suggested—as does John Collins in Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? (Crossway, 2011)—that if both biblical and scientific clues suggest a larger population contemporary with Adam and Eve (Whom did Cain marry? Whom did God protect him from?), we can still conceive of Adam and Eve as leaders of that original population. That suggestion has the virtue of embracing both a prehistoric couple and a prehistoric population. (Online source)
The problem for CT is that the Bible makes no such suggestion; however, their deconstructing questions do appear to make their own suggestion…of compromise. Now I first discussed something called the Massachusetts Bible Society and its Exective Director “Rev.” Anne Robinson (see video below) in Indeed, Did God Really Say? MBS informs us:
As you can see, it’s the pretty typical talk of the postmodern liberal; although you need to know that we are now hearing this more and more within evangelical circles as well. How this shakes out in practice is a denial of the clear teaching of God’s Word on hot button issues, e.g. homosexuality, by obfuscating the texts of Scripture that confront their false views/teachings. They then replace them with murky mystic myths, and tired old arguments originally advanced by the original Cult of Liberal Theology, which were already answered long ago.
Bottom line: They just don’t like what the Bible says. Today MBS wanted to make sure we saw something and tweets:
By following the link we end up at the HuffPost piece Adam and Eve Didn’t Exist. Get Over It! by Michael Ruse, Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University. Entering into the mental off-roading of Humpty Dumpty language Ruse also gives us further important information about himself:
Raised a Quaker, I lost my faith in my early twenties and it has never returned. I think of myself as an agnostic on deities and ultimate meanings and that sort of thing. With respect to the main claims of Christianity – loving god, fallen nature, Jesus and atonement and salvation – I am pretty atheistic, although some doctrines like original sin seem to me to be accurate psychologically. I often refer to myself as a very conservative non-believer, meaning that I take seriously my non-belief and I think others should do (and often don’t)…
Had I married a fellow Quaker, I might still be going to Quaker meetings. But I have little time for someone who denies the central dogmas of Christianity and still claims to be a Christian, except in a social sense. No God, no Jesus as His son, no resurrection, no eternal life – no Christianity. As it happens, I prefer the term “skeptic” to describe my position rather than “agnostic,” because so often the latter means “not really interested” and I am very interested. Like Thomas Henry Huxley, I am deeply religious in a total absence of theology.
(Online source)
Okay; now you know what you’re in for as we look at his definitive declaration: Adam and Eve didn’t exist. But how does Michael Ruse know this? Answer: He doesn’t. Ruse first reminds us that:
The cover article of this month’s Christianity Today is on the subject of Adam and Eve. Could humans be descended from one single pair or not? Really, Christians should be over this one by now. They should have been over it by Christmas of 1859, a month after Charles Darwin published his “Origin of Species.” As he said there, “light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.”
It sure was! Organisms evolved from simple forms by natural selection. This includes humans. We are the end result of a long, slow, natural process of development. (Online source)
The Theory Of Evolution Is Fact Because…Well…Scientists Just Assume That It Is
Really; mankind developed from “a long, slow, natural process”? No, I don’t think so, as it’s written — then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed (Genesis 2:7-8). Note man, singular; no developing, because he was created instantly by God Himself. Therefore, Ruse is wrong about the origin of human beings and the truth is he’s in error concerning Darwin as well.
For you see, you should also know that there are even unbelieving secular scientists who disagree with Ruse’s mythology of Charles Darwin as plainly evidenced by Dissent From Darwinism:
As a Bible-believing Christian you needn’t worry about abandoning what Scripture teaches us because there simply isn’t any compelling argument to the contrary; those who take that position do so because they want to, which is their right. So when Ruse dreams that “science tells us that Adam and Eve are fictions” he’s merely using circular reasoning. He then tries to tell us that, “St. Paul thought we are descended from Adam and Eve. He was wrong.” No, sorry about that because — All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16).
God ought to know; after-all, He was there, and neither Ruse nor his scientific pals were. He continues:
Not everyone is happy with this conclusion. At Calvin College in Michigan, two very eminent professors — deeply sincere Christians — are in very hot water with their president for doubting the historical veracity of the early chapters of Genesis. But whatever the outcome of the president’s bullying, apart from the fact that already he is making one of the best liberal arts colleges in America seem ludicrously out of step with science, it is they who are on the side of the angels not he. (Online source)
Good; I’m glad to hear that, at least for now, professors at Calvin College have to hold a proper Biblical position. Here Ruse hits the root source why more and more Christians, particularly in the academic arena, bow before the sacred cow of science; they don’t want the offense of the Cross or to be considered “out of step with science.” We’re only going to see this more and more now that the Emergent neo-liberal cult has successfully blown up the pillar of sola Scriptura in favor of “mystical or self-transcendent experiences.”[1] As I said before, prepare for dueling revelations from people suffering increasing liver shivers attributed to God.
Ruse wonders, “What should be the attitude of the Christian faced with clear evidence that some part of the Bible cannot be taken literally and that this must have consequences for hitherto-accepted theology?” The problem he has in this case is the clear evidence for a literal reading of the Bible as it concerns Adam; and there is no evidence to the contrary. Gene Veith is correct in his 10,000 Adam and Eves when he says:
Christianity Today, is raising new questions and opening up a new level of controversy. According to recent genetic evidence, the human race did not begin with two people. Rather, it must have begun with a population of around 10,000… It’s hard to imagine how 10,000 creatures could, at the same, evolve into the same species. I can’t help but wonder where they came from. Who were their parents? (Can anyone explain how the geneticists answer that?) (Online source)
And what of that “recent genetic evidence?” Over at AnswersInGenesis.org Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell correctly observes what’s really going on here when she postulates “we are being put on notice that the science is demanding a paradigm shift in our understanding of God’s Word. We’d better have a look at the assumptions underlying that bold conclusion.” Mitchell then brings out some important information:
Search the Christianity Today article much as you will, it never explains how the conclusion that there had to be 10,000 original people was reached. Oddly enough, neither does the BioLogos website. The latter does tell where to find the information. According to a footnote in one of its articles, “The genetic evidence [of a population of several thousand people from whom all humans have descended, not just two] is explained in: Francis Collins, “Deciphering God’s Instruction Book: The Lessons of the Human Genome,” in The Language of God (New York, NY: Free Press, 2006).”
So what evidence for this starter population does Dr. Collins provide in his book? None…the “troublesome” science we are told to accept over a natural reading of Scripture claims only to prove what it assumed to be true in the first place… [CT] insists o[n] finding a middle ground, not even acknowledging the fact that false assumptions could undermine the reliability of the science. Bottom line: the science cannot possibly be wrong, so we must re-interpret the Bible. (Online source)
Her bottom line is dead-on-target with too many professing Christians today; however since Scripture originated with God, and He created this universe ex nihilo, actually science must be interpreted in light of the Bible no matter where whining to the contrary comes from. In his HuffPost Michael Ruse offers:
Augustine thought that we are all tainted (original sin) because of actual act of disobedience by a real Adam. This cannot be so. (Online source)
Why is it this “cannot be so”; because Ruse says so, merely assuming the truth of his own statement. It doesn’t really matter what Augustine, or any other Church Father thought; it matters what Scripture itself teaches. Here Augutine is right, not because of his own intellect, but because the Bible teaches the doctrine of original sin. Ruse then shows us he doesn’t understand the doctrine as he says, “The Augustinian scenario always leaves the bad taste about why we should be blamed for the sin of someone else.” No, the Christian Church has always taught that we are responsible for our own sin, which due to our fallen nature, we are unable to prevent.
If Ruse was speaking simply as a philosopher I wouldn’t be so hard on him; that said, Ruse is attempting to teach us about Christianity, and it’s obvious at best he only understands the progressive/liberal variety. I’ve said before, it’s neither progressive nor Christian. Finally, Ruse wonders:
is there not the uncomfortable worry that religion — theology — is always going to play second fiddle, having to give way in the face of science? And never the other way around. When did a Nobel Prize winner ever change his or her mind in the face of a reinterpretation of the Trinity? (Online source)
The genuine Christian faith is one of power; we don’t do the convincing, God does. I have news for Michael Ruse, the Lord plays second fiddle to no one. Science hasn’t come close to proving evolution and it also hasn’t even proven that the universe is billions of years old. As far as the first couple of human beings that God created is concerned, Adam and Eve did exist: Evolutionists get over it. We have the infallible and inerrant eyewitness deposition of the Apostle Matthew from His Gospel; and he tells us that Christ Jesus of Nazareth—God Himself in human flesh—our Creator spoke of a literal Adam:
And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
(Matthew 19:3-6)
Even though the issue the Pharisees placed before Jesus was divorce, His answer is quite revealing as to Christ’s high view of Scripture and His taking this section of it literally. In fact, we see an example of the proper implication of sola Scriptura as Jesus uses God’s Word as the final authority on the matter of marriage and divorce. Citing Genesis 1:27 and taking it for what it literally means Jesus says, “he who created them from the beginning made them male and female.” And further the Master takes Genesis 2:24 for what it means literally, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
As was pointed out elsewhere, there wasn’t any equivocation on Jesus’ part and no hint that He secretly believed that these sections of Genesis were not meant as literal history because it was merely a poetic myth. In fact, the final statement on the matter by Christ Jesus makes it perfectly clear that the Master quite literally believes that it is God who brings together a man and woman and makes them one flesh. Keep in mind here that this is all predicated on Jesus’ personal knowledge that Adam and Eve were literally and historically the first two humans that Jesus created. And no one has any business calling themselves a Christian and not holding the same view of Scripture as Jesus Christ.
If you’ve ever wondered what Satan sounded like when he seduced Eve into questioning what God said, as you watch this video below…now you’ll know…
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End Notes:
[1] http://tiny.cc/1i16m, 6/13/11.
See also:
DOUG PAGITT POINTS US TO EVOLUTIONARY EVANGELIST MICHAEL DOWD
MENTAL OFF-ROADING RADIO WITH DOUG PAGITT AND MICHAEL DOWD
MICHAEL DOWD & SPENCER BURKE—INTEGRITY AND EVOLUTIONARY CHRISTIANITY (PART 2)
JUST HOW WELL PROVEN IS EVOLUTION?
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