Questions Probing Theistic Evolution

A Christadelphian Discussion

These questions were asked in a Christadelphian group on Facebook. They will remain anonymous here unless the original writer agrees to be named. Responses to the questions are in this colour. If you have a user account for this wiki your are very welcome to contribute to the discussion of these questions. Please initial your responses by replacing "YCH" ("Your Comment Here") with your own initials, user name or pseudonym.

1. According to historical evolutionary theory, humans haven't changed much in the last 200,000 years. What was different about the humans from approximately 10,000 years ago that suddenly made them people that God could work with and were now in "his image"?
   • I don't know what you mean by historical evolutionary theory. Humans have changed a lot in the last 200,000 years, as our component of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA witnesses, not to mention the phenomenon of adult lactose tolerance and even our relationship with lice. — BP
   • your comment here — YCH
2. Did God create man in His own image, or did mankind evolve there by chance?
   • Both. Evolution by chance is one of God's creative methods, as the Bible itself hints. This was observed by rabbis long before Charles Darwin. By Christadelphians more recently, too: see the note at Ecclesiastes 9:11. — BP
3. What is sin and does it only apply to those who know what God wants?
   • Sin is transgression of divine law (1 John 3:4). Sin was in the world before divine law, but it didn't count for anything. In Adam's day and for many years afterwards there were mortal people who sinned without being subject to divine law the way he was. (Romans 5:13-14) — BP
   • your comment here — YCH
4. Did the pre-Adamic women have trouble with child-bearing or did that only start after Eve sinned?
   • They had trouble, lots of it. One interesting possibility, however, is that childbirth became more difficult and dangerous at the time of the Neolithic revolution when farming began. Some believe that the story of Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel is a record of those times. — BP
   • your comment here — YCH
5. If Adam wasn't real (as some TE believe) then how does this affect Romans?
   • It wouldn't affect it at all. Scholars disagree about whether Paul himself believed that Adam was a real individual. We might be “in Adam” without being descended from him even more easily than we can be “in Christ” without being descended from him, because of the meaning of his name, the context in which he is first described, and the use of the noun adam throughout the Old Testament. — BP
   • your comment here — YCH
6. Where did the thorns and thistles come from? Were they not existent prior to Adam? If they were, then why did God make that promise? Why not just say to Adam, “Now you join the rest of the people where they have all these issues that you could have missed out on”?
   • Thorns and thistles were created in just the same way as other living things, as witnessed by their genomes, and many were created millions of years before humankind. God's words to Adam about thorns and thistles do not constitute a promise. It is not for us to say why God chose to reveal life truths in subtle Hebrew poetry rather than vague waffle in English. — BP
   • your comment here — YCH
7. What does it mean by "sin is not counted where there is no law"? Do you think sin can exist without law in the pre-adamic humans?
   • “It” being Paul, presumably, in Romans chapter 5. He does envisage sin without law, different from Adam's transgressive sin in the very fact that it is without law. Paul does not give details about sin in the absence of law, so it is wise not to speculate; but we know that sin and death are related and we also know that many pre-adamic humans died. — BP
   • your comment here — YCH
8. Did a form of marriage only begin from the time of Adam where a man left his father and mother and cleaved unto his wife, or was it existent before?
   • If humans co-operating to have children and bring them up is “a form of marriage” then it has existed for many millennia. — BP
   • your comment here — YCH
9. Did mankind do work from the sweat of his brow for the 200,000 years prior to Adam, or was it not sweaty work then? Did the sweat only start after Adam?
   • This question is based on a particularly unsubtle reading of a subtle text. Without accepting the premises of the question we can say with certainty that sweating is common to all mammals—in fact, it is suggested that mammary glands themselves have evolved from sweat glands. — BP
   • your comment here — YCH
10. If women already had pain in child-birth prior to Eve, what do you think Eve thought about the consequences of her sin when she stepped out of the garden and saw all women had the same pain?
    • Presumably she was remorseful, regretting that she had lost the opportunity to transcend this painful mortal life. This is true however we understand Eve: literal, historical, archetypal, symbolic, mythical, allegorical, etc. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
11. Adam had no-one that was the same as him, so God created a woman. How do you think Adam felt when he stepped out of the garden and realised there were thousands of people just like him? Do you think he might have been a bit miffed with God for providing him with Eve when maybe one of these other women would have been able to not tempt him to take the fruit?
    • If we insist on reading Genesis in this irreverently literalistic way, we should include the fact that before God created him a woman, his helpmeet program involved checking all the wild beasts and all of the birds of the air for suitability as partners. So perhaps he might have thought “I should have kept the flamingo after all.” — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
12. When God created Adam in His own image, was that the same as the other humans who just happened to evolve into God's image?
    • According to Genesis 1:26-30, God created humankind male and female to dominate the whole earth, and they did exactly that. There was no “just happened” about it — God spoke the word, “and it was so”. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
13. 1 Cor tells us that Adam was the first man, and this first man brought forth death, in contrast to Christ, the first resurrected one, who brought forth life. What death is Corinthians talking about if humans were already dying for centuries prior to Adam? Are there two different types of death?
    • This is a distortion of 1 Corinthians, which contrasts two men: the first is Adam and the second is Christ. Paul is referring to the death of people, adams in Hebrew. If they lived before the adam called Adam, their death would be included. Note that “was the first man” in NIV and other translations is an interpretation: KJV, REB etc correctly have “is the first man”. We all, including Jesus of Nazareth, are the first man; the second man is “the Lord from Heaven”. See here. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
14. What hope did the Pre-Adamite man have? As Paul has said, the many millions of people who must have lived and died prior to Adam had not even the hope of a hope according to TE faith.
    • There is no such thing as “TE faith” – no more than there is such a thing as “meteorological faith”. Paul's mention of ancient people, subject to death, “whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam” (Romans 5:14) may be relevant to the question as it should have been asked, depending on what he means by “from Adam to Moses”. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
15. If you don't believe in a literal Adam and Eve (as some TE do not), then at what point does the Biblical record in Genesis describe events that really, literally happened, and which ones were just fables?
    • There is a problem here in the question-begging “does the Biblical record in Genesis describe ...” and “just fables”. If we respect the text more, we will ask about the intent of the text, asking ourselves what the original inspiration meant to the holy ones of old who received it, and what meanings we are expected to find in what we have received across the millennia — expected of us by its divine Author. We will not presume to call it “the Biblical record” and we will not treat it as “just” anything. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
16. When God describes His creation as "very good", was that just at the point where it all nicely evolved until it got to the point where we are now, with everything symbiotically working together to keep the planet running smoothly? Was it not "very good" prior to that? What made it “very good” at that point?
    • Three questions here.
      Q.1: No.
      Q.2: Yes.
      Q.3. The premise of this question is not quite correct. “When God describes His creation . . . ” he chooses his own words. It is for him to judge; it is for us to follow his instructions. When all of the work of the six days has been completed, and the blessing pronounced upon humankind, the Creator's own response to what he has done is described, and perhaps we are invited to join in, by “beholding”: “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” The Creator judged it; we are to behold it. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
17. Most TE believe that we know God didn't create everything, but it rather evolved, because of all the mistakes that are in creation, such as the Vitamin C issue in humans. Is that belief reflected in the Bible? One where creation is actually not "very good" but rather a bit of a mess? Further to this, according to TE, due to the requirement for evolved humans to breed with God’s created line, the created line had to be created with the same “mistakes” as the evolved line. How does that make it “very good”?
    • This is a misrepresentation. The questioner presumes to speak for “most TE” and sets up a false dichotomy which misrepresents the central concept of Theistic Evolution, which is that God (hence “Theistic”) uses normal biological processes (hence “Evolution”) as a creative mechanism. This is as the redundant final word of Genesis 2:3 hints. Thus “God didn't create everything, but it rather evolved” is a false dichotomy. God created everything la'asot.
      
      It is true that as humans we need Vitamin C in our food because we have inherited a defective “GULO” mechanism to synthesise our own, but this is not a reason to call it “a mistake in creation” or to claim that the "TE" victims of the misrepresentation believe that God didn't create us.
      
      This sort of thinking is mentioned in the Bible, but not favorably. “Rather a bit of a mess” is a matter of opinion: the questioner might benefit from considering Paul's words in Romans 8:20-21 in a variety of translations: the creation is subjected to decay, by God, in hope. Presumably this decay, or “futility” is behind the questioner's “requirement” about breeding, “mistakes” etc. If the questioner means to ask how a creation described as “very good” can include so-called “mistakes” such as our defective GULO gene, the answer is that the creation, which is indeed very good, is subjected to decay, by God, in hope. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
18. If we allow for evolution in our teachings, how are we going to teach our interested friends? Don't worry about Genesis - you can make up your own mind about that.
    • We need to be teaching the gospel of salvation. If we can impart some of the wonder of both of “God's two books”, as understood by Christadelphians since their very beginning, we will do well. If we can also show them how wise and honourable we are when we find ourselves in respectful disagreement about some aspects of Genesis, so much the better. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
19. Why was Adam led to believe that he was 'alone' when, according to TE faith, he wasn't? Wouldn't that have been a falsehood on God's part?
    • This question is based on a misreading of Genesis chapter 2. We know that the man was alone, because in the beginning of that chapter tells us that God made him but doesn't tell us where he did so.
      Next it tells us that he planted a garden (v.8) and that he put into it the man that he had made. Verse 15 repeats this: “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden . . . ”
      In verse 18 he is still alone, as God says, and that is the reason for God to form all the animals and birds out of the ground! (This is not “TE faith”, it is the straight narrative of Genesis 2. Adam is already in existence.)
      God brings every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air to Adam, and he gives them names, but none of them is a suitable partner for him. (This is not “TE faith”, it is the narrative of Genesis 2.)
      Because not one of the animals and birds is a suitable partner for Adam, God gives him the experience of tardemah and an adult woman who, later, is called Eve.
      Now, the falsehood: We are mistaken if we read falsehood into the text of Genesis chapter 2. Note, though, that to read it literally is one way of reading falsehood into it. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
20. If there was already an evolved population that had evolved into the "image of God" then why did God need to create an Adam and an Eve? Why not just pass a law to the general population? After all, God didn't "create" Christ completely separately from the rest of the existing population, but rather he was born from a woman.
    • This question mistakenly conflates the two creation texts of Genesis. Humankind, adam “male and female” is created in 1:1-2:3: they were blessed, given dominion, told to be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it — “and it was so”.
      
      Where does the Bible say anything about “an Adam and an Eve”? Eve was an adam. Genesis 1 says of adam that "male and female created he them". Genesis 2 is about an ishah created from an ish. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
21. Why did God clone Adam when there were at least millions of help meet for him outside the garden?
    • To ask is to answer. (For help, look up every description of cloning in the Bible.)
      There is something special about Genesis chapter 2: find out about Tardemah - תרדמה. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
22. Why didn’t the serpent just say, “Look Eve, everyone dies. Look over the wall of the garden and you’ll see the graveyards”?
    • If it was that sort of serpent, it might have.
      There is a worth-while question behind this: why not think it through? — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
23. Genesis 1-3 doesn't just describe the creation of Adam and Eve. It describes the creation of everything? According to TE, when did this happen, or didn't it happen? How does changing Genesis 1-3 to suit TE affect God's requirement that we trust Him implicitly?
    • Many interpretations of Genesis 1-3 are possible, whether we accept evolution or not. The most compatible with modern science, for what it's worth, would follow Rashi's preferred pointing of bereshit – and Wilfred Lambert's – leaving open a great period of time, when the world was without form, and void, with wind over the waters in darkness, before God's word “Let there be light!” Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 outlines the entire creation as a sabbath week, culminating with the earth populated by humankind — adam in Hebrew, “male and female”. This explains why the sky wasn't created until the Wednesday: it is not a mere chronicle of events. (There are chronicles in the Bible: they are quite different.)
      Nothing in Genesis needs to be “changed to suit TE” – that is a malicious beginning to a foolish question, frankly: misreading the Scripture is not an expression of implicit trust in God, and neither is misrepresentation of people who read it differently. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
24. Who was Cain’s wife?
    • I do not believe in primordial incest as described in the Book of Jubilees or as supposed by people who read Genesis too literally. It is not in Genesis.
      What we do find in Genesis is that when Cain was sent into exile, 130 years before Seth was born (according to the “record”) he expressed his fear thus: “whoever finds me will kill me” – so if we want to read the Bible literally it is easy to believe that one of those potential killers might have been a woman who decided that she'd keep him instead. Another possibility: given that when he “built a city” it was probably populated by people, things might have worked out with one of them. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
25. Why didn’t Cain just say, “Heaps of other people have been murderers. Why would they care about one more?” Why would he have been worried about other evolved people’s opinions of him?
    • You're adding to Scripture, there: it doesn't say that he was afraid of a judicial process, or that anyone would care about why he was exiled. There have always been places that are dangerous for lonely and unsupported people. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
26. In Gen 1:28 we are told that God told the man and woman to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over ... every living thing that moves on the earth." Wasn't the evolved man fruitful? Didn't the evolved man have dominion over the rest of the earth?
    • Similar misreading. God told adam, i.e. humankind, female and male, male and female, to be fruitful and multiply etc, and (don't miss this part) it was so. It happened. Humankind as created in Genesis 1 has replenished the earth and exercised dominion over it. So it was. It was so. It has been happening for a very long time. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
27. In Gen 1:29 God says "I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth ... for food." What was the evolved man eating before Adam was created?
    • Find the answer by thinking about this last sentence in the language of the Bible: What was the evolved adam eating before the adam called “Adam” was created? People ("adam") have always eaten food. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
28. When God punished Adam and Eve He said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil." Didn't the evolved population know anything about good and evil? What is the good and evil that God is speaking of?
    • Specifically, it's guilt following disobedience. Some cat-lovers think that kittens can show similar guilt. Very young adams also exhibit it. Baby animals of species that evolutionists would say are more closely related to us adams do too, more obviously than kittens. Notice that the first section of Genesis finishes with The redundant final word|la'asoth in 2:3, and the “record” of the creation of humankind beginning at verse 4 is quite different, and deals with different aspects of our relationship with God. Even the internal clues that it should not be read as a literal “chronicle” are different in nature from those in 1:1 to 2:3. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
29. If God didn't create the way He has told us in the Bible, and what has been believed by millions of people for thousands of years, then doesn't that make God a liar? Why couldn't God have just told us the truth in a simple way?
    • To ask is to answer. Reading the Bible should be listening to God, respectfully, diligently, and fairly. It is not by any choice of ours that God has chose to speak to us at diverse times and in sundry manners, and through his Son. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
30. Why does the Bible only describe the generations from Adam after creation? Were there no generations of evolved man that followed God independently from Adam's line?
    • Again, try rephrasing the question in the language of the first chapter of the Bible: why does the Bible only describe the generations of adam (humankind) after creation? Were there no generations of evolved adam (humankind) that followed God independently from the line of adam (humankind)?
      Start by understanding that Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 describes how the world was created and how humankind, male and female, was made to have dominion over the earth. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
31. How did the evolved people develop consciences and moral values? This is easy to understand if everybody came through Adam and Eve and knew all about the creation story, but not so easy to work out for an evolved population that had nothing to do with Adam & Eve.
    • There are many people who haven't heard of Adam and Eve and still have consciences and moral values. Genesis ch 3 tells us how adams' consciences work, though like ours, they are not related to obeying a rule concerning the tempting fruit of a particular tree. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
32. In Genesis 4 we are told about those who are "the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock", "the father of those who play the lyre and pipe", "the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron"? What were the evolved people doing for 200,000 years such that houses, animal keeping, music and instruments of bronze and iron weren't in vogue prior to these people? Were they not as "evolved" as the ones in Adam's line?
    • (Follow the links that I have put into your question.) Jabal was the "father" of tent-dwelling cattle herders, and Jubal was the "father" of harpists and organists in the same way that Eve was “the mother of all living”. Was Eve the mother of living lizards or lions that eat them? if not, how could she be “the mother of all living”? Hint: it isn't literally true. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
33. When we allow ourselves to question whether Genesis 1-3 is real, due to our faith in scientists, then does it give us free rein to throw other pieces out, because man has questioned it? For example: Noah's flood, the ten plagues, Israel in Egypt, the wilderness wanderings, the miracles, Christ's resurrection.
    • Really you'd need to ask someone who has “faith in scientists”, whatever that is. When we read Genesis faithfully and with reverence, respecting its language — including when it is clearly metaphorical, symbolic, allusive, elusive and generally subtle — we need permanent awareness that we are communicating in mere English and dependent on translations. It's best to steer clear of people who imagine they have authority to pronounce that Genesis 1-3 is “real”. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
34. Why does God give us such long ages for mankind from Adam to Noah? Surely the evolved population were not living such long lives. If the ages are all false, then why did God tell another whopper? What was the purpose of that?
    • This question has nothing to do with evolution, and does not appear to be genuine, or respectful of Scripture and its readers. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
35. Gen 10:32 tells us "from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood." Where are the evolved population in this spread?
    • See Genesis 7:21-23. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
36. Col 1:16 says about Christ: "For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him." This verse clearly tells us about the pre-eminence of Christ with creation. Was this only talking about the creation since Adam, or was Christ in mind throughout all the hit and miss of the billions of years prior to Adam?
    • Really! If you don't like the way God has made the universe, just make your own.
      You might consider Proverbs 8:22 and ask what was before the beginning, according to the Bible. Jesus Christ, "the power of God, and the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24) alluded to this in his prayer to his Father, recorded in John ch. 17: “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” Interestingly, Paul said that God promised eternal life before the world began. (Titus 1:2)
      The Bible does not describe the wisdom of God or the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ as “hit and miss of billions of years”. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
37. Acts 17:26-27 says "And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him." How can we understand this in light of the TE faith? With creation, there is no issue because we know all came from one blood, and that blood understood how to seek God and find Him, which they could pass down to their children. With TE, though, there are millions of people who had no ability, ever, to understand about God and find Him.
    • Luke didn't actually write “from one blood”. When God inspired him to report Paul's speech to the Areopagus he wrote “from one,” which would have been perfectly understandable to the Areopagites. Why did Paul not mention “one blood”? It was not relevant. Why was “blood” later inserted into the text? We might find the answer to that by asking why Paul did mention “the giving of life and breath,” so reminiscent of Genesis 2:7 and Isaiah 42:5, which speak of the One God about whom Paul was speaking, in relation to all his children – “we are his offspring”. "One blood" might emphasise the unity of our human family. See discussion and references in this wiki. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
38. If the Creation story in Genesis 1-3 is not true, then why did God perpetuate that lie throughout the whole of the Bible? Given that many inspired people and many with the holy spirit accepted the story as true, why did God at no point inform people that this was not correct or provide an alternative story for later generations?
    • “If the Creation story in Genesis 1-3 is not true . . . ”
      Oh dear. There are two creation “stories” (as you call them) in Genesis 1-3. They are both true, if you know how to read them respectfully, even though some of their details appear to contradict. Surely the many inspired witnesses you call on would whisper in your ear and suggest that you ask for an adjournment of proceedings at this point. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
39. If the Creation story in Genesis 1-3 was just a myth written in Babylonian times, why hasn’t one single author in the scriptures bothered to tell us that?
    • Interesting question. Similarly, if the creation texts of Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 and Genesis 2:4 to 3:24 had any unlikely origin (even if they were just a shopping list written in Egypt by Pharoah's chef, for a suitably absurd example) we could ask why the Bible didn't tell us so. But the Scripture was written by holy men of old as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, which they sometimes resisted: it might have been a struggle, but it wasn't a matter of “bothering to”. — BP
    • your comment here — YCH
40. The Bible tells us in multiple places how hands-on God is and was with His creation, particularly in Genesis 1-3 and in descriptions of the potter and the clay, etc. It tells us what God created, when, where, who and why. It is easy for a Creationist to point to the creation and see the wonder of God’s handiwork. As evolution is an unguided process, can TE point to anywhere in the evolutionary story that shows God’s handiwork, His direct hand in His creation?
    • This is a good place to finish, but notice that misreading can result from bias. I want to ask you about the Potter's technique: pinch-pot, or thrown on a wheel? Be careful: both might be in the Bible.
      
      Sometimes, as in Isaiah 45:9-12, we are God's clay creation without knowing which technique is used:
      v. 9, Does the clay say to the one who fashions it, “What are you making”? . . .
      v. 12 I made the earth, and created humankind [adam] upon it
      Note: according to Isaiah 45, we are God's clay creation just as Adam was (Genesis 2:7) and just as adam is (Genesis 1:1-2:3). We might like to ask: if we adams are God's clay creation just as Adam was, was Adam God's clay creation just as we are?
      
      We might ask a similar question about Genesis 1:27 (God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. - KJV) If women, female adams, are God's clay creation just as the female adam was, was Eve God's clay creation just as we are?
      In Jeremiah 18:1-6 God is compared to a potter working on a wheel. Pots that don't turn out well go back into the clay.
      In Job 33:6 Elihu says that he too “was pinched off from a piece of clay”. (ESV) The Hebrew word is not from the usual Created, Formed and Made group: it's קָרַץ (qarats) which means pinch, also 😉 wink! — BP
    • your comment here — YCH

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