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Why do human origins matter? Part I of a review of John H. Walton's The Lost World of Adam and Eve

A series of three planned posts, beginning with this one, will include both my own discussion of why the origins of man matter and my review of the second book by John H. Walton that I have read, The Lost World of Adam and Eve (hereafter TLWOA&E). I have read the book in its entirety. My review of The Lost World of Genesis One (TLWOG1) is here. I have decided to break up my review of TLWOA&E into parts to make both posting and reading somewhat easier.

Why does the origin of man matter? Even the origin of animals matters, but why, more specifically, do our origins matter, as human beings? Why does it make a difference what Christians believe on these matters? How could a full acceptance of human common ancestry and material continuity with animal ancestors be problematic for a Christian worldview?

In this post, I will discuss three key areas where human origins matter. My discussion will be tailored toward answering the view of human origins that I take John H. Walton to be promoting as orthodox, since my goal is to present a review of his book on Adam and Eve. Thus, since Walton holds that there definitely was an historical person who can be described by some of the descriptions normally given to the historical Adam (though not all of them), I will not be addressing directly the implications of denying the existence of anyone like the historical Adam. However, I think it will be quite evident that my remarks apply a fortiori to that more radical position.

Ethics, speciesism, and the image of God

Suppose that one holds that the image of God in man is entirely an immaterial matter. Suppose that one holds it to be true or at least a fully open and orthodox option that man evolved by what would appear to be natural processes/secondary causes from animal ancestors and that, at some point in time, God placed into some hominid or group of hominids a purely immaterial imago dei, indetectable by science. I will call this "the ensoulment view." The ensoulment view raises some serious difficulties in the area of ethics.

Epistemologically, how do we now know that some member of the species homo sapiens is in the image of God? Christian pro-lifers who think in terms of the image of God have argued on both ends of the spectrum of life--both at the beginning and at the end--that we tell this entirely on a biological basis. If someone is a living member of the species homo sapiens, he counts as a full person with a full right to life. Even if he is newly conceived, even if he is in long-term coma and is never expected to awaken, it doesn't matter. All men are created equal, and "men" has a speciesist meaning. We know that you are a man, a member of the human race with full human value, because you are a living human being, period. Pro-lifers have rightly rejected as a red herring attempts by the pro-abortion crowd to drag in the theological issue of ensoulment. We have said that we aren't sitting around waiting for a human being to "get a soul" from God, that human beings are equal and protectable from the moment that they exist as members of the human species.

But there is a troubling change in the epistemic situation if one accepts the ensoulment view regarding the history of human origins. On the ensoulment view, there is every reason to think that there was a time in the history of our race when there were biologically type-identical creatures, some of whom were in the image of God and some of whom were not. If that doesn't bother you, it should. If the imago dei is purely immaterial, and if it is entirely possible that people who are physically type-identical to ourselves lack it, then why don't we wonder whether embryos or fetuses lack it until some later point of development? Why don't we worry that people in comas have lost it? If you think that this is an entirely hypothetical view that I am making up as a stick with which to beat the theistic evolutionists, think again. It is a real view held by some "Christian" ethicists that some living human beings lack the image of God. (See Robert V. Rakestraw's contribution to this volume and Robert N. Wennberg's view as quoted here.)

Now, I want to be absolutely clear: I have reason to hope and believe that John H. Walton himself would vigorously reject the views of those "Christian" ethicists. He expressly says, "It is essential to affirm that all people are in the image of God, regardless of their age [or] their physical ability or inability....The image is not stronger in some than others, and it is something that gives us all the dignity of being specially gifted creatures of God." (TLWOA&E pp. 42-43) These are laudable views on the subject of human equal value and dignity, and I commend Prof. Walton for them. I would contend, however, that if one thinks the ensoulment view of human history to be a theologically and biblically viable option, then one lacks the robustly "speciesist" basis that is metaphysically and epistemically needed to undergird an affirmation of the equality of all members of the human race solely on the basis of that membership.

Death

The Apostle Paul is quite unequivocal that human death came through the sin of Adam:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned....Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many....For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:12-16)

These words of Paul echo God's warning to Adam about eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: "But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:17)

The words of Paul and the story of the fall and man's subsequent bondage to death find an echo in our own grief over human death. The horror both of a corpse and of a ghost reflects the fact that we feel deeply that there is something wrong about the separation of the material and immaterial in man. This is not how it was meant to be. A great gulf has opened somewhere in the fabric of the world, allowing human death to occur.

Physical death is a sign in our own flesh that something has gone grievously wrong and that the human cosmos is in need of a Savior. Jesus the Healer (the Haelend, as the Anglo-Saxons called him) saves us from our sin. He also promises a new creation in which there is no more death (Revelation 21:4), in which that original wound of human death is healed.

Any theory of man's origins according to which there was human death before the fall of man is enormously problematic from the perspective of Biblical Christian theology. We will see in a later segment how Walton deals with human death prior to the fall.

Sex, complementarity, and marriage

Jesus' teaching on monogamy and divorce is firmly grounded in the reality of God's deliberate creation of male and female in the beginning of the history of man:

Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning 'made them male and female' and said, 'for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined 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 no man separate.” They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way...." Matthew 19:3-8

Jesus' words are recorded similarly in Mark 10:2-9.

At a minimum, Jesus is teaching here that God intended one man and one woman for marriage and that, because of God's original design plan for man, God does not approve of promiscuity and frivolous divorce. (No threadjacks on whether divorce is ever permitted, when, etc.) He bases his position on God's making man in the form of one man and one woman to begin with.

I note here that if God "made" (or ensouled) an entire tribe of people at the outset, the force of Jesus' words would be diminished. Jesus counts on the fact that his hearers will think of "making them male and female" as making one apiece, male and female. Otherwise, in a large original group, there could have been plenty of frivolous breakups and sexual pairings. Jesus' point is that the original state of mankind is that there was precisely one man and one woman and that this is God's model for marital fidelity and exclusivity.

The origins of human sexuality are also relevant from a natural law perspective. If man's body developed by natural processes (aka secondary causes) with an entirely immaterial "imago dei" imbued only later, then the division into male and female is no more evidently the result of God's special intent for mankind than the evolution of the rabies virus. Or, for that matter, the fact that some people experience homosexual spontaneous attractions. One can, of course, affirm that God is intimately involved in everything somehow, but the origin of gender and the origin of the human body as specially God's design is not affirmed by theistic evolution. Indeed, one of the arguments for common descent is that the human genome allegedly contains many elements that "look like accidents" (alleged pseudogenes and the like). Why should we not regard heterosexual sex and male-female gender as more of these apparent accidents in the development of mankind? Or, alternatively, why should we not consider that homosexual feelings are "God's doing" along with everything else and that God means a minority of people to be different in this way, since God is working through everything that happens?

Jesus' words about God's intending to make man male and female, with the undeniable implication that man's physical nature is intended by God specially to be male and female, is a powerful Scriptural argument against this for those who accept Scripture. If we fuzzify the notion of "made," then Jesus is not really saying that God made man as male and female in any specially intended way, any more than God made every other event or outcome that happens in the physical world.

The moral argument against promiscuity is also undermined if the imago dei has no material aspects. A stallion does not violate the moral law or any aspect of his nature by keeping an entire herd of mares as a harem. Yet natural law theorists teach that it is against the law given in our material nature for human beings to be promiscuous or (still more) to engage in homosexual and other perverse acts. If we take these rules to be merely divine special revelations rather than part of the innate nature of human beings, and/or if the first human beings were materially indistinguishable from hominid animals whose sexuality had no moral significance, then the natural law basis for sexual ethics and the innate significance of human sex is called into question.

The Apostle Paul also clearly asserts male-female complementarity in the church on the basis of a literal understanding of the making of Adam and Eve:

But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. I Timothy 2:12-13

Whatever one may think about what counts as "exercising authority over a man," the point is that male-female complementarity is taken by Paul to arise from God's intent to create the man first and the woman second, as unambiguously taught in Genesis 2. To take these accounts to have nothing to do with the physical making of man by God is to undermine this Scriptural argument as well for gender complementarity as the special intent of God.

Thus there are important ways in which the ensoulment view undermines both Biblical and natural law ethics in the area of sexuality and gender.

To sum up "Why does it matter?" there are serious theological, ethical, and scriptural reasons for affirming that there is not merely spiritual discontinuity between man and animals but also significant material discontinuity. This means that Christians should be willing to do serious work before concluding that science "tells us" that there was full material continuity between man and animals and that there could not have been an Adam and Eve in the fully traditional sense of being the first humans. I have written here about these scientific issues, and I also highly recommend the book Science and Human Origins on these subjects.

By no means is the science as cut and dried as Walton presents it as being in his brief discussion in TLWOA&E. While Walton sometimes disclaims capability in the realm of science (see this interview at around 1:04 and 1:52), he does not allow this to stop him from labeling the scientific evidence against the traditional understanding of Adam and Eve "compelling" (p. 182). Furthermore, while he refers repeatedly to the idea of allowing science to "prompt us to go back to the Bible to reconsider our interpretations" (pp. 14, 103), he does not suggest that Scripture prompts us to ask questions about whether the science really says what some are telling us it says. In fact, though Walton showed an awareness of intelligent design theorists in the previous book, his footnote in TLWOA&E (p. 238, proposition 20, note 1) on the scientific issues surrounding Adam contains no reference to the vigorous and interesting work done by intelligent design theorists on the very issues he raises (pseudogenes, genetic bottleneck, and the like). See both Science and Human Origins, my post on the historical Adam, and here, as well as too-numerous-to-link posts at Evolution News and Views.

His footnote on the scientific issues consists of references only to critics of intelligent design--Francis Collins, Denis Alexander, and Graeme Finlay. This is a remarkably one-sided approach to the science, especially coming from one who urges that the scientific side of the matter should be "judged on its own merits." (pp. 71, 81, 181)

Walton does not say explicitly what he personally believes about the origin of Adam. Therefore, when I refer to "the position he is endorsing as orthodox" or other such locutions, the roundabout wording is very deliberate. But consider: Suppose that the scientific evidence is, as he states when he summarizes it, "compelling" that Adam and Eve could not have been the only first humans, with everyone descended from them. And suppose that the project of his book is successful in showing, as his chapter titles state, that "It is not essential that all people descended from Adam and Eve" (chapter 20) and "Humans could be viewed as distinct creatures and a special creation of God even if there was material continuity" (by this he means full material continuity of the human body with non-human ancestors). In other words, the argument of Walton's book is that full-scale theistic evolution of human beings, on the purely physical level, is perfectly compatible with a faithful reading of the Bible and with Christian theology. Given both of these--both the existence of "compelling" scientific evidence and the absence of any theological/Biblical reason to the contrary--why would anyone believe that Adam was physically specially created by God as the first human being and that all humans are descended from Adam and Eve?

Moreover, some consider Walton's biblical and theological arguments to remove all reason for Christians to have a stake in examining the science of human origins. As I aim to show in this series of posts reviewing TLWOA&E, Walton's interpretations of Scripture do not constitute a get out of jail free card for thinking Christians, allowing them to do no research into scientific counterevidence pertinent to the historical Adam on the grounds that "Walton has shown us" that there can be no conflict between Scripture and science on this matter. I have, unfortunately, encountered this attitude in some who cite Walton with great approval; they assert that "the science should be left to the scientists." I would like to think that Walton himself would not endorse such intellectual passivity, but unfortunately his book has had this effect on some in the evangelical community.

I want to suggest that we allow Scripture to "prompt us to ask questions" and to do some looking into both sides of these scientific issues, not passively accept the (alleged, present) consensus of science. If I can show in the segments of this review that Walton's interpretations of Scripture are implausible and strained and that the theological and biblical problems for the full physical evolution of man remain severe, I will have provided a motive for that further investigation.

Disclaimer: A review copy of The Lost World of Adam and Eve was provided by Intervarsity Press Academic. A positive review of the book was not required.

Comments (59)

I am profoundly grateful to Lydia McGrew for this clear and well-reasoned critique of theistic evolution and those who promote it, and I look forward to her further posts on the subject. Writing as a scientist with a doctorate and higher doctorate, I believe it is essential for those of us who hold Scripture to be 'God-breathed' (2 Tim. 3:16), and therefore to mean what it plainly states concerning origins, to stand up and be counted. Far too often Christians who aspire to academic 'respectibility' and fear to be labelled 'unscientific' are willing to compromise the foundations of the faith by subordinating Scripture to current (and notoriously fallible) claims of materialistic human wisdom.

Thank you, Prof. Andrews.

One perhaps side point: I think that I mentioned in the previous review that I am probably not an inerrantist according to the Chicago Statement. Prof. Walton _does_ assert (which I did not touch on in this review) that all of the things he is considering are compatible with a profession of inerrancy!

I think what we may see happening, in one of those strange reversals of history, is that we may have academics increasingly making strained interpretations of what is allegedly Chicago Statement inerrancy and claiming that their highly eyebrow-raising interpretations of Scripture are consistent therewith, while others (like myself) who make no such profession actually stick to and insist upon more "conservative" (if I can use that word) interpretations of Scripture.

So the divisions may end up falling along rather different fault lines than they have in the past--for example, the new fault lines may concern how willing and eager someone is to promote an implausibly highly metaphoric interpretation of Scripture.

Death, of course, was a reality on Earth long before Mankind came into being. Mortality came into existence at the Creation of the first form of life. Death is essential in Creation because various life forms and greater consciousness could not come into being without the agency of death clearing the decks, so to speak, for further generations, gradual improvement, not tripping over ourselves, and allowing a somewhat random and sometimes providential development of living things and creatures.

Without Death, there is no progression of consciousness into the kind of self-awareness that humans have (although some might assert that human consciousness as we generally know it is a meager and feeble thing. Since everyone of Faith believes their consciousness will somehow expand in comprehension or apprehension in the afterlife, the slur on our present circumstance is not very insulting).

Man never Fell because Death was always a part of human, animal, and plant existence. None of this denies the resurrection of Jesus, by the way. It simply casts aside silly archaisms of thought, myth, and obsolete theology regarding human, animal, and plant genesis.

It’s a shame to see intelligent people defending the indefensible out of a misguided interpretation of Faith and reliance upon a book written by men to account for life, death, and spirit -- some of it of universal import, much of it dated, deceptive, factually wrong, and agenda driven.

I go into a bit more detail in my major essay, The Future of God, now included in my little book, The Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth according to John Mark. If interested, anyone is welcome to a copy. You can view it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Jesus-Nazareth-Mark-Butterworth-ebook/dp/B00ECLC1NM/ref=la_B000APN0UM_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426900359&sr=1-11

Dogma has some value initially in religion, but eventually it destroys what it once tried to inspire -- communion with God.

Well, Mark B., I was writing as a Christian to Christians. Christians have every reason to believe that _human_ death is different from genetic "death." Scripture doesn't address animal death.

In any event, as I state in my post, I think the natural light also tells us that human death is uniquely to be grieved. That, presumably, is why we have murder charges for humans but not for even dogs, much less mosquitoes. Because human death is different. Human death is certainly not part of some Grand Progress.

However, your comments do tell me that you are not the audience for whom I was writing, so I do not propose to debate with you at any length that human death is bad.

I am a Christian, too.

I don't know what you mean by genetic death. Death is the great insult, of course, to conscious life. To be aware one will die is tragic.

I watched a spider flee as I tried to kill it the other day, and marveled at his overwhelming fear (or desire to avoid) death. But it is death that makes life possible. Life is impossible without it.

Death is built into our universe, and it was put there by God, of course.

Human death is not always bad, obviously. To be old, feeble, and dying in one's sleep is a blessing; and who of faith mourns for long the death of a loved one who has entered into his reward after a long and fruitful life?

So what is it exactly that you would not debate with me?

People I love have died and I miss them, but I know they live on. Dogs I have loved have also died, and I miss them also, and I do not know what becomes of them. That's beside the point, though.

The question, really the absurdity at this point, of arguing for a historical Adam and Eve is my main concern. It has to do with the self-deception of intelligent people in the face of a plain fact (death was created by God, not Fallen into by men or anything).

The applecart thus upset reflects back upon the analogy or metaphor that Jesus is the second Adam who redeems the original sinner and corrupted offspring, the sacrifice for atonement for Adam's sin. If Adam never sinned (because he never existed), and sin and death were built into life, what is Jesus about then?

Well, he saves and redeems otherwise. He is risen, and acts for different reasons than were proclaimed at Pentacost.

No one loses anything if Adam never was except a number of cherished but false notions about God.

One other small point. This universe was created with one of its purposes being to make you suffer. If you did not suffer, what would you need God to rescue you from? You might muse upon an idea of a Creator, but you wouldn't need him.

Consciousness is a progression from the first cell on Earth to a sentient creature; from a single cell into a whole soul and being in communion with the Divine (and other people).

That was a really interesting and well-written post.

I'm not a Christian and, therefore, not part of your intended audience (as you've said), but I have a question anyway. From what I've read, the "image of God" phrase in Genesis most likely referred to humans' right of dominion over the earth, not to ensoulment or to metaphysical resemblance. This is based on cognates of the phrase in other contemporary languages, where kings used "in the image of god" to denote their god-given right to rule; and based also on the context of the phrase in Genesis. So the question is, assuming hypothetically that this is true, would it matter much to the whole "image of God" theology that the original understanding of that biblical phrase was quite different? Or does the theology stand well on other foundations?

Mark Butterworth said "I am a Christian too", then proceeded to lay some sweet Buddhist pillow talk down. Or something. But I bet it works great on the co-eds at Sum Dum University. Like, wow dude, that's deeeep, pass the bong.

Mark, it has been a while.

Well, he saves and redeems otherwise. He is risen, and acts for different reasons than were proclaimed at Pentacost.

Almost the complete entirety of what we know about the historical Jesus in concrete terms (as opposed to the entirely subjective internal experience like "he made me feel better about my suffering") is from the accounts of people who claimed to have known him and claimed to have lived through the accounts proclaimed at Pentacost. To suggest that the accounts provided by "his followers" (if they even were) are other than what really happened, is to undermine ALL of our understanding of Jesus, every detail.

But of course, I know that you didn't say "what really happened", you said "different reasons". That doesn't get us out of the woods. If the purposes of his actions, his reasons, were otherwise than what the writers of Acts and the Gospels tell us, then we can have no reason to believe that they were either divinely inspired to write, or divinely protected from any error, or divinely inspired to spread these words, or divinely helped to overcome intense suffering in their missions. Among other reasons, the internal coherence of the message (Gospel) with the messenger (Apostle) with the central character of the story (Jesus) falls apart completely. And then there is really no reason to think that the words written have ANYTHING to do with those "different reasons". And thus may not have ANYTHING to do with what really happened. Which means that using the words in the Bible to tell us about Jesus is a footless endeavor.

That's why we don't go around imputing to Jesus purposes that are "entirely different reasons" for acting than what the Apostles proclaimed.

I have to suggest that we ignore the really weird stuff Mark Butterworth is saying.

Aaron, to your question: Certainly the intended role of dominion is _part_ of the biblical concept of the imago dei. Psalm 8 is very clear on this: God has made him/man a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory. God has given him dominion over the creatures, etc. The Apostle Paul (or whoever wrote Hebrews) does quite the interesting rabbinical riff on Psalm 8 in Hebrews 2, where he says that now we do _not_ see all things made subject to man but see Jesus "crowned with glory and honor," and that all things will eventually be put under the dominion of Jesus, who is the fulfillment of what God intended for man.

However, I would not grant that this _exhausts_ the biblical theology of the image of God. For example, Genesis 9:6 institutes the death penalty _among_ men based on the image of God. Because man is made in the image of God, murder is wrong and is punishable by death, it says _because_ man is made in the image of God. I cannot see that the right to dominion over the earth would establish such an intra-human principle.

Also, the context in Genesis 2 emphasizes specifically the distinction between the _woman_ and the animals--no helper was found for Adam among the animals, whom Adam named, and God made the woman for him, of whom Adam said that she was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. I think this too emphasizes a more general distinction of _nature_ between humans and animals, not merely the role of humans to rule over creation. Not to be crude, but it's pretty obvious that Genesis 2 is ruling out bestiality, for example. Adam isn't an animal, so his proper mate is another person in the image of God. (Several verses do this little Hebraic parallelism thing--"In the image of God created he him; male and female created he them," etc.)

So it's fine to note the concept of the image of God and the relation to kingship in ANE cultures. That's certainly there. But the biblical teaching is pretty clearly not _reducible_ to the notion of kingship.

As to how much of the theology would stand on other bases, that's a very interesting question, too. I hold to the natural law, so I think that even a person who is not a Christian at all can see by the natural light that man *as a species* is different, valuable, etc. The whole anti-humanism of present bioethical theory runs, I believe, contrary to what we know by the "law given in our hearts" to be true. This has found expression in the West in notions of the equality and dignity of man.

However, I don't know if one should in that case call it "theology." More like metaphysics, ethics, etc.

Christians have always had, as it were, a sort of double line of evidence on this. On the one hand we have our instinctive, natural law knowledge that a baby is not on a par with a dolphin but that even the most disabled human being is of greater worth than the most advanced animal. On the other hand we have confirmation of this in the distinctively Christian theological teaching that all men are in the image of God.

I think that the explicit acceptance by Christians of an "ensoulment" view strongly undermines this latter line of evidence.

I also think that, for those who are not Christians at all and _just_ believe that man evolved from animals, there is an epistemologically rather interesting cognitive dissonance between their beliefs about human origins and what their ethical "lying eyes" tell them about the special worth of human beings. I discuss that a bit here (search "dissonance" in the online article):

http://www.christendomreview.com/Volume004Issue002/essay_001.html

I would even go so far, though, as to say that a Christian who has explicitly embraced an ensoulment view of the history of man is *in some ways* in a more delicate position when it comes to affirming the equal dignity of all humans than is a "noble atheist" who just believes that man evolved. The former may _explicitly_ hold that younger or more disabled human beings have not gained or have lost a "soul," whereas the atheist won't believe in a soul at all, nor that the conferring of a purely invisible soul was what made man different from the animals in the first place, and is therefore more free, as it were, just to hold as a brute fact that homo sapiens as an embodied type of being is specially valuable. I take it that this is why the issue of ensoulment is so often brought up in the abortion discussions by people who, actually, probably don't believe in souls themselves.

This is based on cognates of the phrase in other contemporary languages, where kings used "in the image of god" to denote their god-given right to rule, their dominion over earth; and based also on the context of the phrase in Genesis.

Aaron, it may well be that the expression in contemporary (to Moses?) cultures used phrases like "in the image of God" to express their right to rule. It is important to note, however, that there is no reason to assume that this captures the ENTIRETY of the meaning - either in those cultures or in Genesis. Here are 2 reasons.

First, just a few chapters later (9:6) God tells Noah that murderers shall be put to death by man, "for man is made in the image of God." I suppose that it is possible that this refers, yet again, to the notion of dominion - man has dominion even over other men, not just over animals and plants and the Earth. But it is difficult to make that work from the prior verse 5:

The shedder of your own life-blood shall be held to account for it, whether man or beast; whoever takes the life of his brother-man shall answer for it to me.

God is clearly establishing the importance of man's blood - that is, man's life. In this verse he asserts dominion himself: "shall answer for it to me". Then in verse 6 he goes further:

Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

The formulation here is not very consistent with merely asserting man's dominion and nothing further. If anything, whatever God here asserts as man's place (i.e. in punishing, or being punished), is asserted as arising out of man's likeness to Him. And so ALL of the things that flow from man's likeness to God are contained therein, not just that of ruling. Clearly the passage comments on the heinousness of man killing another man - because man (the victim) is made in God's image. That's not a comment on rule and dominion.

Since this is just a few chapters after the creation story, it is reasonable to consider that the human author is using the phrase at least in connected senses in both places.

It seems to me this question about the meaning of 'image of God' is related to the broader point against Walton that functional roles are not typically, in the Hebrew mind, easily distinguished from that which has more "metaphysical," so to speak, weight. Scripture associates the image of God with sonship.

When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created he called them Adam. When Adam had lived 130 years, he had son in his own likeness, in his own image, and he named him Seth.

On the other hand, Adam's divine sonship seems to be the result of something like adoption, rather than natural generation. Adoption confers on someone the dignity, duties, and privileges of sonship without any metaphysical alteration. So one could argue that that's compatible with a completely non-metaphysical reading of 'image of God'.

Still, I think the thicker theological concept of the divine image contains an important truth, even if it's not in Genesis exegetically. Adam couldn't have performed the duties of divine sonship, couldn't have ruled over creation, without the mental, moral, and spiritual capacities that make humans so obviously radically different from other animals and that provide the common sense natural law basis for our knowledge that humans have by nature the dignity that demands we all be treated as sane morality has always required.

And this common-sense truth was known by the ancient Hebrews. So it's not out of the question that it is there exegetically. Which brings me to a quibble against the argument in the main post: I do agree that the question of human origins is theologically important, and I reject the ensoulment view entirely, for both philosophical (Aristotelian) and theological reasons, but I'm not convinced the ensoulment view can be saddled with the charge of undermining pro-life reasoning.

For any reasonable interpretation of "God created man in his own image" must recognize that it teaches that every creature that the original audience would have conceptualized as human (as opposed to a brute animal) bears the image of God. And that's sufficient for all of our pro-life conclusions, even if one thinks the text has zero implications for the scientific value of the species concept. The Darwinian critique of the Aristotelian-Linaean concept of species (if it's successful) doesn't undermine the ordinary practical use of the common-sense concept. Compare: if you say something happened at sun-rise, everyone knows when you mean, even heliocentrists. In the same way when Moses tells us humans are in God's image, we all know which creatures he's talking about. The mere possibility that there could have been, aeons ago, human ancestors who did not bear the divine image, would not undermine what the text teaches about all humans now existing.

And the fact that some Christians reject this clear teaching just means that some Christians have an unreasonable interpretation of the text. That doesn't help us decide among reasonable interpretations.

But you are right, Lydia, that standard Darwinist evolution raises problematic questions, in the sense that it might well undermine morality altogether (for that's what undermining the uniqueness of the human race as such would do: it would not only undermine our special status as moral patients, it would undermine our status as moral agents). But the Christian Darwinist who takes not an enouslment view but an anti-metaphysical interpretation of the divine image would be in a better state in regard to seeing the truth of pro-life conlusions than the noble atheist, since the fact that God conferred this special status on early humans with the intention that it function like a title of nobility - that is, something heritable, but not (meta)physical - has a basis for human uniqueness and no grounds for doubting that every presently existing human has it.

The mere possibility that there could have been, aeons ago, human ancestors who did not bear the divine image, would not undermine what the text teaches about all humans now existing.

Christopher, don't you think there is more of a problem, though, if some of these ancestors were biologically type-identical to those who bore the divine image? I assume that such a statement will be meaningless given your Aristotelian views, but if, per impossible, it were so, I think that tends to support what I say about undermining the pro-life argument. Here is Creature A, which is biologically type-identical to Creature B, but God has completely invisibly endowed Creature B at just this moment with the imago dei. It seems to me that theistic evolution cum ensoulment has no way to rule this out. In fact, they will often talk about "hominids" who were endowed by God with the imago dei, and a strongly anti-material view of the imago dei seems to me to raise very strongly this possibility about Creature A and Creature B.

Or, to put it differently, Creature B at time t does not have the image of God, but at time t1 he does, though no material change has taken place in him.

Now, if that is something the theistic evolutionist believes God did, then epistemologically why should it be so implausible that we have the situation of Creature B recapitulated in the timeline of each one of us in the womb? It's already "the kind of thing God does."

I get that, on the view in question, it is logically possible that the imago dei be absent from someone at one time and present at another. But that's a logical point, whereas you want to infer something epistemological, and it's at that point that I raise my objection. Logical and epistemological possibility don't always run together, as I'm sure you know: the Cartesian cogito is epistemologically certain (or as near it as one can realistically get), but logically contingent; the Riemann hypothesis is probably logically necessary (or impossible) but epistemologically uncertain.

Now, the only reason we have for believing anyone ever has the imago dei comes from Scripture. But in the very place where it introduces the concept it affirms clearly that all of us who are human beings (common-sense concept) have it. So whoever believes in the imago dei in any sense has just as much reason to believe it _actually_ adheres to all contemporary humans, regardless of what is logically possible for contemporary humans, and regardless of what we say about paleolithic hominids where the common-sense concept of human breaks down.

In a sense, I could be doing harm by pressing this line of argument further, because it's not like I actually want someone who holds the ensoulment view suddenly not to be pro-life or to adopt the views of Rakestraw and Wennberg! And I also think that the natural light has something to say here. However, with a certain amount of fear and trembling lest I mess somebody up...

But in the very place where it introduces the concept it affirms clearly that all of us who are human beings (common-sense concept) have it.

Not precisely. Think of it this way: Suppose that the creation statements of man in Genesis 1 and 2 happened by way of ensoulment of hominids, and that these other hominids who looked just like Adam were still around. Then, precisely where the text says that "man" is in the image of God, we're supposed to picture a situation where the actual men (like the "Adam and Eve" that Walton asserts) could literally look at these other hominids and say, "But they aren't people like us" even though they were visually completely similar. (Maybe they wouldn't be able to talk, but who knows how similar or different their abilities would be?) And we wouldn't actually know how long those other hominids would have persisted in existing in the book of Genesis, if we accept this whole picture. So the text is affirming that _man_ is in the image of God, but the very reinterpretation in terms of evolution and the immaterial imago dei apparently means that the text _isn't_ defining "man" entirely as the common-sense concept when referring to those ancient time periods.

In fact, there are some (I have reason to believe N.T. Wright is in this camp) who would say that the true men might have _interbred_ with the non-human hominids. Walton himself seems to be picturing the image-of-God-making act as being conferred upon a large enough population that that would not be happening, or at least wouldn't need to be happening, but theistic evolutionists are not univocal on that question. Obviously if the similarity were that great, that sexual desire and interbreeding crossed the line between those who were in and those who were not in the image of God, who knows? Maybe the non-humans were talking "some"? So it seems like these verses are supposed to be about precisely that time when the common-sense notion breaks down.

Can you see how, the more similar you make ancient hominids who were and weren't in the image of God, that could be problematic for asserting that all contemporary humans (common sense concept) have the image of God?

One rather stark and controversial way to put it is this: On the ensoulment view, there could well have been a time in human history, and probably was, when it would have just been _true_ for human beings to assert views of other _strongly_ human-like beings which, if uttered now, would be just like those of vile racists or vile haters of the disabled: "They look just like us in kind, but actually they are merely subhuman and can be treated accordingly."

For that matter, why would it have been wrong for the true humans to have farmed and eaten the sub-human-but-human-appearing hominids? It would just have been an instance of meat-eating from animals. God shows (by making clothes for Adam and Eve from animal skins, Gen. 3:21) that the killing of animals is now okay.

... precisely where the text says that "man" is in the image of God, we're supposed to picture a situation where the actual men (like the "Adam and Eve" that Walton asserts) could literally look at these other hominids ... the very reinterpretation in terms of evolution and the immaterial imago dei apparently means that the text _isn't_ defining "man" entirely as the common-sense concept when referring to those ancient time periods. So it seems like these verses are supposed to be about precisely that time when the common-sense notion breaks down.

Emphasis added because it seems to me the distinction between exegetical and theological questions needs to be made more clearly here. "These verses" can be "about" a time in which things were going on that, if the author knew about them, would have disenabled him from straightforwardly applying his common-sense concept of human to events at that time; but he didn't know about them.

We have three groups of conceptualizers:

First, the earliest humans themselves
Second, the ancient Hebrews
Third, modern Darwinian Christians

The earliest humans couldn't have made use of the common-sense concept of human, because the common sense concept involves a clear practical way of distinguishing man from beast, and there were, ex hypothesi, all these hominids running around and making things unclear. What sort of concepts they did have, who knows?

The ancient Hebrews could have made use of the common-sense concept of human quite easily. Even if we read Genesis as describing actual events in the distant past (which, of course, not all interpreters do) the ancient Hebrews didn't know everything about what was going on at that time. In particular, they didn't know about those hominids. So they could have used the common-sense concept. At the very least Moses could have intended to say something to his audience about all men contemporary with themselves. But in addition, he may also have intended to say that this special status derived by heritage from a past act of God conferring the divine image on mankind (using his own concept), without making any claim about how one would have had to define "mankind" back then.

Modern Christians, if they believe in the existence of those hominids, have some really difficult theoretical questions to answers about how morality might have applied to the earliest humans. But they are theoretical difficulties, not practical ones, since we ourselves don't have any sub-human/semi-human hominids to deal with.

Hmm, but if we make a strong division between the Israelites' concepts of humans and what the earliest humans knew, it seems that we may be moving in the direction of "God's using false ideas to communicate a true message." Now, some interpreters _will_ go that direction: "Moses may have thought, and the Israelites may have thought, that God actually created man de novo from the dust of the earth, but we know better, and God was just using their false ideas to communicate a broader, true theological message." Walton himself occasionally falls back on that (to my mind, rather desperate) type of maneuver, though _definitely not_ with regard to Genesis 2, where I think he really holds himself to be giving the view that the Israelites would have understood. What most theistic evolutionists do, I don't know. In any event, _if_ a theistic evolutionist is saying that he is interpreting the text as the ancient Israelites would have understood it, then I don't think he can lean too hard on that distinction. I think he has to be saying that the ancient Israelites wouldn't have cared about theistic evolution if they'd known about it, or that the text really is intending something so vague as to be at least _compatible_ with a state with all these confusing hominids running around, etc.

Modern Christians, if they believe in the existence of those hominids, have some really difficult theoretical questions to answers about how morality might have applied to the earliest humans. But they are theoretical difficulties, not practical ones, since we ourselves don't have any sub-human/semi-human hominids to deal with.

But, again, at the risk of doing violence to some theistic evolutionists' common sense: *Of course* I agree with you that we have no subhuman hominids to deal with today, and *of course* we can tell this by common sense. But doesn't the ensoulment notion of human history tend to undermine that common sense? Couldn't the theistic evolutionist understandably worry like this: "Since I know that there was a time when there were beings physically indistinguishable from us, perhaps even members of the species homo sapiens, but not in the image of God, mere animals whom it would not have been wrong to kill, how do I know that there are none such today? How do I know that some of these are not young fetuses who, like our biologically indistinguishable ancestors of old, have not yet been given the image of God?"

I agree that the Darwinian part of the story does undermine - or at least a plausible case can be made out that it does - what we know by common sense before even looking at the Bible. (Your Christendom Review article is a model of clarity on this, and gets a hearty amen from me.) But if we're talking about the imago dei, we're talking about something specifically derived from special revelation. Pagans can recognize that we are in some vague sense "like unto gods", but I don't think the term 'imago dei' should be stretched so far as to include that. The only way to know about the imago dei is that God tells us we bear it. Any Christian, you or me included, can ask the question "How do I know that fetuses have the image of God?" and the only possible answer is "God says so."

if we make a strong division between the Israelites' concepts of humans and what the earliest humans knew, it seems that we may be moving in the direction of "God's using false ideas to communicate a true message."

In a pedantic mood I might ask what ("exactly", as they say) you mean by "moving in the direction of".

The ancient Hebrews thought that the sun went round the earth. When they talked about sunrises they conceptualized it in a heliocentric manner. Must we then characterize every heliocentric expression in Scripture as God "using false ideas to communicate a true message?" I would regard that as highly misleading way of describing what God was doing (I hope you would too). Heliocentric expressions are not ipso facto false, which is why we still use them in many contexts today. The heliocentric model is a perfectly good way of conceptualizing the world of our ordinary practical experience. Beyond those limits, there was something the ancient Hebrews didn't know, and because of that lack of knowledge they assumed something that we know is not perfectly accurate. But it is not at all the case that all of someone's ideas by which he frames what he wants to say have to be perfectly accurate or else what he said is false. If your complaint is that the ensoulment theory has the text actually saying false things, then you need to identify what actual claim the text would be making that would be false on the theory. But if your complaint is only that, on the theory, the concepts by which the author expressed his claims were not perfectly accurate, or that he described an event without knowing everything relevant (to whose interests?) that was actually going on at the time of the event, then I don't think your criticism has much bite.

I think he has to be saying that the ancient Israelites wouldn't have cared about theistic evolution if they'd known about it, or that the text really is intending something so vague as to be at least _compatible_ with a state with all these confusing hominids running around, etc.

The latter. What they cared about is not relevant on the theological level. It's relevant to the earlier task of interpretation: seeking to understand the whole body of background assumptions the original audience would have brought to the text, and thereby reading it, so to speak, through their eyes. The gestalt of an ancient reader encountering a text gives us the tools for understanding the text. But our commitment to the truth of the text must be a commitment to the truth of _what it says_, not to the whole gestalt an ancient reader (even the author). To know what speech-acts the author engaged in we want to know as much as we can about his milieu, but it's the speech-acts, not the milieu, that constitute divine revelation. (Have you read Nicholas Wolterstorff's _Divine Discourse_? I think it's an excellent work.)

But I think that if what is being said is "so vague as to be at least compatible with a state with all these confusing hominids running around," then it's not clear that "God says" that human fetuses have the image of God. Because the statement that man is made in the image of God has therefore been rendered sufficiently vague (after all, it's supposed to be vague enough that it shouldn't be taken to apply to biologically type-identical hominids) that it is not clear why it should be taken to apply to biologically type-identical fetuses.

After all, if biblical statement "the sun rises and sets" is sufficiently vague or observationally constrained as to be compatible with either a literally heliocentric or a literally geocentric universe (which sounds correct to me), then we don't say that "God says" either that the sun literally goes around the earth or that the earth goes around the sun!

I think the theistic evolutionist can't have it both ways: He can't vagueify the statements about "man" being in the image of God sufficiently that they are compatible with the existence of creatures that are biologically type-identical to man but aren't really man while keeping it concrete and precise enough to be able to say that "God says human fetuses are in the image of God."

By the way, I make a pretty sharp distinction between "they probably had such-and-such a false concept, but the text isn't communicating that" and "the text communicates this false concept, but God doesn't really _mean_ us to take that false concept away as the _lesson_ of the text."

I think that a lot of these examples blur a lot of those lines. Once we start talking about God's "accommodating" the false ideas of the original audience, we are tacitly admitting something like this: "The human author definitely intended to communicate P. The human original audience definitely understood P. P is false. But that's okay, because we can now divine that theological truth Q was what God was _really getting at_ by inspiring/allowing the human author to write a text that, on the human level, _definitely said and communicated something false_."

I think your example of the sun going around the earth is an example where we can say that the text is sufficiently observational that we do not need to affirm anything like this. As you point out, we still say that the sun goes around the earth today, because it's operationally efficient to look at it that way.

It's even easier to deal with things like references to "the bowels" in connection with emotion and so forth. It seems to me to be making needless difficulties (and some people, including Walton, do so in service of their own agenda) to assert rigidly that the ancients *literally* believed that the intestines and kidneys are the seat of emotions and personal identity or what-not. Why assume anything like that any more than one assumes from our expressions that we *literally* believe the physical heart to be the seat of human love? I think such expressions can be taken to be metaphors, by original intent, plain and simple.

Once we start talking about God's "accommodating" the false ideas of the original audience, we are tacitly admitting something like this: "The human author definitely intended to communicate P. The human original audience definitely understood P. P is false. But that's okay, because we can now divine that theological truth Q was what God was _really getting at_ by inspiring/allowing the human author to write a text that, on the human level, _definitely said and communicated something false_."

I agree that that is precisely what we may not say. And that's why I don't talk about God's "'accommodating' the false ideas of the original audience."

He can't vagueify the statements about "man" being in the image of God sufficiently that they are compatible with the existence of creatures that are biologically type-identical to man but aren't really man while keeping it concrete and precise enough to be able to say that "God says human fetuses are in the image of God."

There's no need to vagueify anything. Statements about man being in the image of God are already "vague" when applied to the situation envisaged (in the sense that there's no clear way of telling which individuals are included in it) by virtue of the fact that the ordinary concept of man presupposes a situation like what we all live with, in which there are no doubtful creatures appearing to be intermediate between man and beast. It functions as a species-concept, which breaks down if you try to apply it during an evolutionary branching event, but does not break down when applied to fetuses nowadays. It's real easy to tell whether a fetus is human or not.

It functions as a species-concept, which breaks down if you try to apply it during an evolutionary branching event, but does not break down when applied to fetuses nowadays.

Well, biologically, I suppose that on an ensoulment view there could have been hominids of the *same* biological species as the "true men," just as much as human fetuses are now of the same biological species as we are, who were nonetheless not in the imago dei.

From a scientific standpoint, I don't believe that either heliocentrism or geocentrism is true. These are relative reference frames concerning relative motion.

Now, if you take it to the next step by asking about the underlying causes of their respective motion(s), like gravity, then the physics will be very different.

I think we need to draw some distinctions, or at least make some implicit distinctions explicit:

i) We should distinguish between what Gen 1-3 means, and whether its meaning is normative for Christians.

ii) Apropos (i), some theologians do it backwards. They begin with what they think is true, then interpret Gen 1-3 accordingly. They discount interpretations which they think are false.

Problem is, they don't let the text speak for itself. They often begin with their modern scientific understanding. That's their standard of comparison. They then use that as the interpretive grid. But, of course, that's anachronistic.

iii) Apropos (ii), exegesis typically seeks to ascertain original intent or authorial intent. The text means what the author intended to convey by his choice of words.

An exegete consciously avoids imposing his own preconceptions onto the text. Rather, he attempts, if only for the sake of argument, to assume the viewpoint of the author. For instance, a Dante commentator will view the text through the Dante's cultural lens. Not what makes sense to the commentator, but what would make sense to Dante–given Dante's time, place, and outlook.

iv) One potential objection is that, given the dual authorship of Scripture, what is normative is divine intent, not human intent. Indeed, Walton tries to salvage inerrancy by recourse to speech-act theory. For him, the narrator's locutions are errant, but the divine illocutions, behind the locutions, are inerrant.

However, an obvious problem with that dichotomy is that we can only access the illocutions via the locutions. Typically, an author uses certain locutions to express his illocutions.

God communicates truth through the instrumentality of the human author. Hence, the human intent expressed in human locutions can't be at cross-purposes with the divine intent or divine illocutions.

v) A theistic evolutionist can be a theist for philosophical reasons and an evolutionist for scientific reasons.

The problem, from a Christian perspective, is when there's an effort to make theistic evolution intersect or coordinate with Scripture. That characteristically results in hybrid interpretations. The "Adam" of theistic evolution isn't the Adam of Genesis. At best, the "Adam" of theistic evolution is a makeshift construct. Equally artificial from both an exegetical and scientific standpoint.

vi) In principle, one can bypass that stopgap compromise by sidelining Scripture altogether. However, Christianity claims to be a revealed religion. Biblical revelation can't be sidelined if the result is to remain Christian.

If, however, the correct interpretation is theologically normative, then evolution can't be permitted to leverage either the interpretation of Scripture or the content of Christian theology.

Tony,

We don’t Plato seriously about Atlantis (but many do as many take the idea [or myth] of a Fall and Adam seriously), and we take his Socratic dialogues with a grain of salt as some not being verbatim transcripts of Socrates debating others, and other later dialogues as pure inventions.

We have to take the Bible as a book written by people, and that God doesn’t write books. Nor does the term inspired or “God-breathed” have any concrete meaning. If you want Truth, you have to go to the Source - God. Not a shadow of it filtered through very fallible people. The Bible is filled with many patent absurdities, falsehoods, contradictions, and fancy.

“If the purposes of his actions, his reasons, were otherwise than what the writers of Acts and the Gospels tell us” . . . then it behooves us to go to the Source, Truth himself. And the way of that is prayer, contemplative prayer. If people aren’t following Christ in such a manner, they are not likely to receive much of his wisdom.

If every Bible were to disappear tomorrow, you would not cease to believe in the risen Lord. But you would have need of continued guidance. That can only come from God, and through prayer if you want your wisdom and insight directly rather than indirectly from others who may or may not know what they’re talking about.

At this point, I wonder if Lydia et al, here practice contemplative prayer at all. It is my experience that almost no Christians do, and few ever become adept at it. f course, St. John of the Cross was called a Buddhist, too.

And thus far, I have not heard anyone refute the fact that death was built into the universe and arrived through no choice, fault, or free agency of Man (Adam), or does the entire body of knowledge regarding Natural History mean nothing? The Bible (and Church) contains some Truth, but hardly all of it, and certainly none when it comes to human origins and the development of life.

Before Fr. Neuhaus died, I exchanged emails with him about an article in First Things discussing Original Sin. I pointed out that if there never was an Adam and Eve, Original Sin could no longer apply nor Jesus as the Second Adam. He agreed it was problematic, that natural history made Genesis a matter of myth, and wished to discuss it further at a later time, but death intervened.

I have observed that God appears to be in the business of making souls, creatures in his own image, and so how does he go about doing that? Step by step, of course, as he seems to do everything. It is impossible, obviously for God to create two people as complete adults with a fully formed adult consciousness like voila! People can only come into being single cell by a cascade of single cells forming a blind, sensory driven baby who must grow in unselfish and intelligible awareness.

That simple fact alone ought to be enough to get intelligent adults to reconsider the fallibility of other people and books.

steve hays,

The "Heliocentrism isn't true either" view makes me think of this: https://xkcd.com/1318/

Cute, but that doesn't refute my point.

However, I'm impressed by your longevity. Give my regards to Cleopatra.

The only bit in Mark Butterworth's comment really relevant to my post is the question of whether _human_ death can be seen by the record of natural history to have been built in from the beginning.

The answer to that is no, for several reasons.

1) The evidence that these or those hominids were "ancient men" is highly conjectural, and usually based upon naturalistic, evolutionary assumptions. Hence, saying that there has been human death all along _because_ definitely man evolved from ape-like ancestors is depending on rather a broken reed of a premise. It is also begging the question against the traditional view of human special creation.

2) If in fact God specially created only _two_ original humans, made them immortal, but this immortal period lasted temporarily because they sinned--which is the traditional view--then _of course_ we would find no confirmation in the fossil record. We're talking about two people, here, who _did_ eventually die! What in the world would you expect to find in the fossil record? A pair of carefully preserved skeletons with little "his" and "hers" Original Immortality But Blew It medals pinned to them??

3) The whole "minimal bottleneck" thing is dubious science, and I have answered it in the post linked in the main post.

So, no, human death from the outset is not made obvious by natural history.

4) Fr. Neuhaus, as a human being, was also fallible, and if he said what he is presented as having said, he was wrong. Lots of people are wrong about lots of things.

I think the theistic evolutionist can't have it both ways: He can't vagueify the statements about "man" being in the image of God sufficiently that they are compatible with the existence of creatures that are biologically type-identical to man but aren't really man while keeping it concrete and precise enough to be able to say that "God says human fetuses are in the image of God."

That's always been the nut of my objection, admittedly more of an intuitive one than a neatly thought-out one, to theistic evolution generally (I mean, apart from the fact that I think macro-evolution of human beings from single-celled organisms is not actually proved by science). Thank you for this series of posts, Lydia, which has given me much more to work with and to think about.

Let's provide a baseline standard of comparison–between the Adam of Genesis and the Adam of theistic evolution (of which there are various models).

In Gen 2-3:

i) Adam has no animal, human, or prehuman ancestry.

ii) Adam is directly created from inanimate raw materials.

ii) Eve is directly created from organic matter (i.e. a tissue sample supplied by Adam).

iii) All humans, past and present, are descendants of Adam and Eve.

iv) Humans die because Adam and Eve were banished from Eden, which cut them off from the tree of life.

2) If in fact God specially created only _two_ original humans, made them immortal, but this immortal period lasted temporarily because they sinned--which is the traditional view--then _of course_ we would find no confirmation in the fossil record. We're talking about two people, here, who _did_ eventually die! What in the world would you expect to find in the fossil record? A pair of carefully preserved skeletons with little "his" and "hers" Original Immortality But Blew It medals pinned to them??

THAT is a point I had not considered, so thank you for making it. That gives me something to chew on.

[Wittgenstein] once greeted me with the question: "Why do people say that it was natural to think that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth turned on its axis?" I replied: "I suppose, because it looked as if the sun went round the earth." "Well," he asked, "what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the earth turned on its axis?" E. Anscombe, An Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus (Harper & Row, rev ed.,1965), 151.

Lydia,

Are you not aware that natural history and the development of human life is a continuum? Your idea of exempting Man from the record is more than astonishing but credulous to an unhealthy degree.

You are aware that not only was death built into the system, but morality (and love as well). Animals have an innate moral sense, and can sin in their own semi-conscious manner. You believe Adam caused that?

Whether you are calling it a “traditional view” or not (traditional to Western Christians and not Greeks or Eastern peoples), any tradition that flies in the face of fact is a claim requiring extraordinary proof. You are talking pure fantasy about “a broken reed of premise” regarding human ancestry, and playing the role of condemning Galileo anew; beside piling absurdity upon absurdity.

You seem entirely ignorant of the science (and branches) and common sense. No one is arguing Darwinian evolution here, either. Nor do you seem to know anything about God from actual experience.

What a disaster of rhetoric you have extruded out of whole cloth.

You are talking pure fantasy about “a broken reed of premise” regarding human ancestry, and playing the role of condemning Galileo anew; beside piling absurdity upon absurdity.

Be careful with your comparisons. Galileo was an arrogant fool who pretended his theory was gospel when it was anything but - smart, but a fool nonetheless. At the time I can think, off the top of my head, of at least one other astronomical model that also fit all of the available data, Tycho Brahe's. That Galileo ended up being correct was pure dumb luck.

Are you not aware that natural history and the development of human life is a continuum? Your idea of exempting Man from the record is more than astonishing but credulous to an unhealthy degree.

No, I'm not "aware" of that, because nothing that definite and dogmatic has been shown by science. There are those who _claim_ that, but their claims are *scientifically* overblown.

Animals have an innate moral sense, and can sin in their own semi-conscious manner. You believe Adam caused that?

No, nor have I claimed it. I'm talking about human death and real sin--aka sin by those like humans truly capable of sinning. (I suppose there may be some aliens somewhere who can sin, but at most any behaviors of animals are merely generally analogous to sinning.)

You seem entirely ignorant of the science (and branches) and common sense.

Actually, I've studied the science quite a bit. In my present experience it is the theistic evolutionists who are refusing even to _read up_ on the science. The idea that it is "common sense" that death is natural to man is rather amazing, considering all the markers in "common sense" that death is a horrible tragedy and sadness for man.

In any event, I think you need to back off the high-falutin' insults. They are not adding value to the thread.

You seem entirely ignorant of the science (and branches) and common sense. No one is arguing Darwinian evolution here, either. Nor do you seem to know anything about God from actual experience.

Mark, to echo Lydia's remarkably restrained caution: You are not saying anything worthwhile in your comment of 10:41pm. Every criticism in it is (a) overwhelmingly general, so that its breadth makes it impossible to take seriously, or (b) lacking in any kind of support that we could discuss and work at. You are OBVIOUSLY starting with premises that you know darn well Lydia does not agree with (nor I, for that matter), and then spouting conclusions 12 steps away as if they were the obvious and only possible conclusions of universally observed facts. Without mentioning all the in-between reasoning, nor the un-agreed premises. That's not useful. That's not conversing WITH someone, it's spouting AT someone.

Worse, you make claims about Lydia's relationship with God. Mark, even on your own basis of experience with God, you should know that God's relationship with each person when He is present to their soul as its spiritual, supernatural vitality, is in some ways unique. (Note: this is a PREMISE I propose, because I think you probably would agree on it, or could agree with it with further thought, not a mere position I state AS CERTAIN). If so, then it is possible that Lydia's experience of God - however it may be compared to some others - is not so insignificant as you say, and much MORE to the point, you cannot know. Going around making claims of this sort, based not on your personal knowledge of Lydia but only of her arguments on W4, is truly arrogant.

Even if you are unable to resist the temptation to make such personal judgments, good sense and courtesy require that you keep them to yourself.

Back off on the personal commentary. And limit yourself to constructive criticism that leads to investigating truth through courteous disagreement, in which you politely bring up ideas that you think might be discussed fruitfully (with a view to eventual changing some minds because you have identified agreed foundational truths), or don't bother.

Dr. McGrew,

(I suppose there may be some aliens somewhere who can sin...)

Would those aliens need their own first-to-sin 'Adam', and need to be descended from that 'Adam' via blood? This seems a bit weird to me, but it might match up with C.S. Lewis' space trilogy. I do worry about the possible need of Jesus to die multiple times, though—one for each planet with creatures capable of sinning who did indeed Fall.

My own preference for this problem,

Suppose that one holds that the image of God in man is entirely an immaterial matter.

, is to say that what makes one imago Dei is that which allows one to become increasingly like God, a la 2 Cor 3:18. It strikes me that a necessary condition is the ability to be "called out" (Isaiah 6:8, church = ekklēsia = ek-klēsiaek-kaleō = "to call out"). Called out of what? Well, perhaps any static situation, such as the "everyone did evil continually" of the Flood[ed] generation. God seems to want life, and that requires the ability for growth (and not merely of repetition). I'm reminded of the difference between formal languages, which are closed and dead†, and informal ('natural') languages, which can always be extended. David Braine talks extensively of the importance of this characteristic, in both The Human Person and later his magnum opus, Language and Human Understanding: The Roots of Creativity in Speech and Thought.

† I first came across the metaphor 'dead' in Interpretive Social Science: A Second Look (12); the point is drawn from Paul Ricoeur's "Structure, Word, Event" in Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974), 79. I can include a quotations from one or both if requested; the general thing being critiqued in both is the closedness of structuralism.

Incidentally, the above focus on language provides a possible solution to the very real problem you mention:

Epistemologically, how do we now know that some member of the species homo sapiens is in the image of God?

I'm reminded of the treatment of Native Americans as children if even human, as well as the treatment of Africans as sub-human, un-souled, and thus suitable for enslavement in the New World. Curiously enough, some of these Africans were then converted to Christianity, which would seem impossible. What is even more curious is that the OT slave laws mandated release of Hebrew slaves ever seventh year; per Paul in Romans 9–11, all who trust in Jesus Christ are Israelites by faith. By this logic, both slave and American Southerner could both be Hebrews. And yet, the [converted] slaves did not get released every seventh year. So it seems like this problem of figuring out who is imago Dei is more serious than your argument indicates, here.

If one were to switch focus from "can this person accept Jesus as Lord and Savior?" to "can this person learn new things with language?", that would seem to be a way to very quickly include those races which were at one time thought to be sub-human. We can also take into account Helen Keller, who learned to communicate via language, even though she was blind, deaf, and dumb. Humans really are quite unique in how they use language. (For those who would disagree, I would point them to Mortimer Adler's discussion of language in The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes, and ask them what new empirical evidence and/or philosophical arguments have made his claim obsolete.)

Would those aliens need their own first-to-sin 'Adam', and need to be descended from that 'Adam' via blood?

That cannot be decided a priori. Nor do I say what I say about mankind a priori but rather on the basis of special revelation.

If one were to switch focus from "can this person accept Jesus as Lord and Savior?" to "can this person learn new things with language?", that would seem to be a way to very quickly include those races which were at one time thought to be sub-human.

It would include races but not all relevant individuals. Deeply disabled newborn humans (e.g., those born with severe brain damage) are not as individuals capable of learning new things with language. Nonetheless, the are members of mankind and as such in the image of God.

If you were to say otherwise (and I do not know if you would), LB, that would merely confirm my concerns about the connection between a denial of the importance of special creation of mankind and bioethics.

Dr. McGrew,

That cannot be decided a priori. Nor do I say what I say about mankind a priori but rather on the basis of special revelation.

If your chosen method of interpretation possibly requires there to be multiple deaths of Jesus—and I think it might—that is a problem, is it not?

It would include races but not all relevant individuals. Deeply disabled newborn humans (e.g., those born with severe brain damage) are not as individuals capable of learning new things with language. Nonetheless, the are members of mankind and as such in the image of God.

When you say "learning new things with language", do you allow for Hellen Keller's style of communication, which I claim employs 'language', even though at first it was neither spoken, written, nor signed (that is, using traditional sign language)? We would appear to be looking for something between brain-dead 'vegetable' status (which itself is questionable), and fully functioning human. Do you have some helpful exemplars?

If you were to say otherwise (and I do not know if you would), LB, that would merely confirm my concerns about the connection between a denial of the importance of special creation of mankind and bioethics.

I have not at all made up my mind on such matters; if I had, I wouldn't be commenting, here. I'm somewhat aware of bioethics concerns; one of my own I see rarely discussed is that of all the fertilized eggs created by IVF which are effectively killed, although sometimes we perma-freeze them to salve our consciences. Anyhow, one solution which I currently find plausible is the Aristotelian-Thomistic "actuality and potentiality" argument, which implies that "those born with severe brain damage" still have the potential for being capable of ever-deepening relationship with God.

Perhaps a story is in order. I had the privilege of visiting a man doing remarkable work with autistic children. Doctors had told the parents of these children that they would never advance beyond their current state of development. This man was skeptical, and provided the kids with computers to create basic animated movies, and art materials to e.g. make dioramas. The kids flowered, and defied fact-claims of the doctors. I got to witness an interview with a mother who was telling of how her son had hugged her, for the first time, after spending only a few weeks making art; she said that her son's doctor had warned her that this would never happen. So, I am skeptical of the claim, "are not as individuals capable of learning new things with language". You can see similar skepticism and validation of it, with allegedly brain-dead patients who magically became un-brain-dead.

It's just not clear to me that one needs the kind of special creation you talk about, to do the reasoning I have articulated. Biological relation does help establish Aristotelian-Thomistic "potentiality", which underpins my argument above. But such relation is not the only way to argue. Demonstrated openness in language (taking 'language' carefully, so that Helen Keller's first communication was 'language'), which I claim is required for openness to God, is another way to argue. So far, it seems as possible valid & sound to me.

Dr. McGrew,

To add to my previous comment on the following,

It would include races but not all relevant individuals. Deeply disabled newborn humans (e.g., those born with severe brain damage) are not as individuals capable of learning new things with language. Nonetheless, the are members of mankind and as such in the image of God.

, I would assert: "That which and whom God created, God has a plan to redeem." Perhaps the most glorious scripture for this is Rom 8:16–25. I start with v16 instead of v18 because suffering of Christians, and not just Christ, seems required. Anyhow, we followers of Jesus have reason to believe that even "those born with severe brain damage" can be "set free from... bondage".

Those who hold to an evolution which God did not in any way guide can only conclude that sometimes evolution makes mistakes and some branches of the evolutionary tree must be pruned. Those who really believe the words in Rom 8:16–25, on the other hand, do not need to conclude any such thing. We have reason to suspect that there is nothing that the resurrection of Jesus Christ cannot touch. (See, for example, Roger Olson's "Resurrection, Cosmic Liberation, and Christian Earth Keeping" in Ex Auditu, Volume 9 (1993).)

If your chosen method of interpretation possibly requires there to be multiple deaths of Jesus—and I think it might—that is a problem, is it not?

My method of interpretation has solely to do with human beings, who are the only beings whose salvation God has revealed anything to us about. The Christian theology is what it is. To extrapolate some implausible conclusion from this (that it would "possibly" require Jesus to die multiple times) and then to use this to undermine the perfectly normal interpretation of what God _has_ told us is an absurd approach. For that matter, _any_ Christian believes that Jesus _did_ have to die for human sin, including theistic evolutionists, so that is not even a point at issue. Once we start saying, "If there were aliens, would Jesus have to die for them multiple times?" and making that a problem, it would be a problem for Christian soteriology regardless of what one thought about Adam. It is an entirely profitless enterprise, and I refuse to have my time wasted by it.

When you say "learning new things with language", do you allow for Hellen Keller's style of communication, which I claim employs 'language', even though at first it was neither spoken, written, nor signed (that is, using traditional sign language)?

Yes, I'm taking that into account, and I am saying that a sufficient degree of brain damage would prevent what Helen Keller did, though of course the person would still be alive.

We would appear to be looking for something between brain-dead 'vegetable' status (which itself is questionable), and fully functioning human.

I'm glad you put the v-word in quotation marks and express skepticism about it. In fact, it is a dehumanizing term which should never be used of any human being. I would include those who, in fact, are unconscious and will never awaken in this life. There are many such, sad to say. I share your caution about concluding that some individual _will not_ later be able to function better in this life or _will not_ awaken. Indeed, many stories lead to such justified caution. However, _even if_ it were true that they would never in this life gain normal functions, they would still be fully in the image of God. (As I believe John H. Walton agrees with me on, in fact. See quote in main post.)


It's just not clear to me that one needs the kind of special creation you talk about, to do the reasoning I have articulated. Biological relation does help establish Aristotelian-Thomistic "potentiality", which underpins my argument above. But such relation is not the only way to argue.

St. Thomas Aquinas in fact explicitly affirmed the special creation of man. I think that there is a natural affinity between Thomism and the special creation of man, though I am not myself a Thomist. Indeed, I think any Aristotelian should say that it does not make sense to envisage *literally physically type-identical* individuals, one of whom has the image of God and one of whom does not.

Demonstrated openness in language (taking 'language' carefully, so that Helen Keller's first communication was 'language'), which I claim is required for openness to God, is another way to argue.

But there are some individuals incapable of demonstrating any such capability, qua individuals, who are nonetheless human and in the image of God.

one of my own I see rarely discussed is that of all the fertilized eggs created by IVF which are effectively killed, although sometimes we perma-freeze them to salve our consciences.

You need to gain more information. We have living children running around on the earth today who previously were thus frozen. So they weren't "effectively killed."

That a person does not presently, as far as we can tell, have linguistic capacities tells us nothing about what God may give that person after death or in a resurrection body in heaven, when all sickness and sorrow will be done away. What we can tell, however, is that such a person is a human being like ourselves, and hence equal in human dignity with ourselves.

Dr. McGrew,

My method of interpretation has solely to do with human beings, who are the only beings whose salvation God has revealed anything to us about. The Christian theology is what it is. To extrapolate some implausible conclusion from this (that it would "possibly" require Jesus to die multiple times) and then to use this to undermine the perfectly normal interpretation of what God _has_ told us is an absurd approach.

Fair enough. I personally don't like having a theology which could possibly be exploded by aliens showing up, but I realize that not all parts of the body of Christ need to be concerned with such things, to fulfill their functions.

I'm glad you put the v-word in quotation marks and express skepticism about it.

I don't have a rigorously thought-through stance on this matter. Ultimately, I expect that one has to use one's resources wisely, and if one can keep one hundred children from starvation for the same cost as keeping one coma patient alive, one may have to make the uncomfortable decision. But of course there are utilitarian dangers here (e.g. kill the one person and use his/her organs to save five). These are tricky waters.

St. Thomas Aquinas in fact explicitly affirmed the special creation of man.

Is that affirmation required to undergird the act–potency system of thought? I'm not aware of any such connection.

But there are some individuals incapable of demonstrating any such capability, qua individuals, who are nonetheless human and in the image of God.

Yep, see my subsequent comment ("To add to..."), in which I actually question said 'incapable', in much the same way that you question whether all permanent comas are indeed permanent.

You need to gain more information. We have living children running around on the earth today who previously were thus frozen. So they weren't "effectively killed."

If it remains the case that, say, 99% of frozen eggs will never be implanted, my argument would still seem to be valid. One way to investigate this issue is to see what kind of guarantee there is that the refrigeration of batches of thousands if not millions of fertilized eggs has triple if not quadruple redundancies. I suspect that there is some doublethink going on, when it comes to pro-life argumentation and how IVF fertilized eggs are handled.

In fact it's said that there's a critical period after which children lose the ability to master a language–if they were deprived of linguistic exposure. Yet that wouldn't make feral children subhuman.

steve hays,

In fact it's said that there's a critical period after which children lose the ability to master a language–if they were deprived of linguistic exposure.

I question the truth of this. See my comment about autistic children.

Ultimately, I expect that one has to use one's resources wisely, and if one can keep one hundred children from starvation for the same cost as keeping one coma patient alive, one may have to make the uncomfortable decision. But of course there are utilitarian dangers here (e.g. kill the one person and use his/her organs to save five). These are tricky waters.

No, they're actually not. Providing nutrition and hydration is just taking basic care of a human being. If you are the person responsible for that human being, it is murder to make the decision dehydrate him to death. If that is what you mean by not "keeping alive," then, no, these are not tricky waters. But I suspect it will not be profitable for you and me (specifically) to discuss this further.

Is that affirmation required to undergird the act–potency system of thought? I'm not aware of any such connection.

Too vague a question. If in fact humans have a different essence than non-humans, and if there is an intimate connection between mind and body in Aristotelian thought (which of course there is), and if only God can make a new essence (which I know many Christian Thomists declare) and unite it to substance, then, yes, special creation, including of the body, would be entailed by an Aristotelian approach to mankind. But as I said, I am not myself a Thomist or an Aristotelian.

If it remains the case that, say, 99% of frozen eggs will never be implanted, my argument would still seem to be valid.

False. What will in fact be done to Joe or not done to him is not definitional of Joe's present metaphysical state. Otherwise you would be "effectively killed" already today if the mafia were going to bump you off tomorrow. Obviously, those children now living weren't "dead" when they were frozen, unless you are literally going to say that God happened to raise them from the dead by miracle when they were thawed.

One way to investigate this issue is to see what kind of guarantee there is that the refrigeration of batches of thousands if not millions of fertilized eggs has triple if not quadruple redundancies.

I don't know what you could mean by that. Human beings are unique even if genetic identical twins.

I suspect that there is some doublethink going on, when it comes to pro-life argumentation and how IVF fertilized eggs are handled.

Here we go with "I suspect" again. I warn you: Do not waste my time with your made-up "suspicions." If you want to tell me that you have found some specific "doublethink" in what I have actually said, then good luck finding that and pointing to it. Otherwise, bag it.

Luke Breuer

"I question the truth of this. See my comment about autistic children."

Your comment on autistic children doesn't interest me. How's that even comparable?

On the one hand are children with normal brains, but no exposure to speakers during the critical period of language acquisition.

On the other hand are children with underdeveloped brains (in some respects) who are exposed to speakers during the critical period.

In addition, autistic kids range along a continuum. Some are savants.

You're somebody who disagrees for the sake of disagreement.

Fair enough. I personally don't like having a theology which could possibly be exploded by aliens showing up, but I realize that not all parts of the body of Christ need to be concerned with such things, to fulfill their functions.

I don't think that you need have any deep worry on this score. Even if we had strong evidence of aliens, (which we don't), and evidence that they had sin (which is not a necessity), and that God either had already or was going to redeem them (which is a free choice by God and thus not a given), it STILL would not be a necessity that Christ take on their nature and die for their sins. Many of the great early Fathers of the Church, who looked at the question of Christ and the necessity of redemption, concluded that God could have redeemed us in a multitude of different ways. Some suggest that even the merest moment of suffering a pin-prick would have been sufficient. Others suggest yet more simply: it would be sufficient that Christ became man, period. Nowhere is the proposed necessity that of any sort of absolute necessity, it is always conditional necessity, and the conditions always presume that God wanted to do more than JUST redeem men.

Still more importantly, there is no clear necessity that (if there were aliens in need of redemption) God the Son take on the nature of the race to be redeemed to accomplish it. That surely is a fitting way for Him to have fulfilled his promise in our case, but there is no basis for thinking that this is the only way. We just don't know - revelation does not tell us "what if" for all ifs, and does not tell us the salvation story of OTHER people / races of beings.

But there are some individuals incapable of demonstrating any such capability, qua individuals, who are nonetheless human and in the image of God.

I think, Lydia, that you and Luke may be speaking at cross purposes with "incapable". On the one hand, as long as a human being has a human, rational soul, there is a theoretical possibility that their innate capacity to achieve full function can be made actual even in this life: future medicine might repair who knows what awful disastrous brain damage. But for now, there are human beings whose genetic code is so scrambled, and whose brain and nervous system is so thwarted of being anything like normal, that nobody can foresee correcting the evils thereof to the point where they will so much as learn to eat, drink, and smile, much less talk. Nervous system disorders far more grave than autism (say, bad case of trisomy 13). Yes, there is a theoretical possibility of correcting the damage, but our hope of doing so currently or with any developments now under research is effectively nil.

But even these are human beings, they are "made in the image of God", and they can go to heaven and have their disorders repaired in the resurrection of the dead, whereupon they will be fully functioning as rational beings because they are rational beings in kind even now.

steve hays,

Your comment on autistic children doesn't interest me. How's that even comparable?

In the case of autism, and very specifically the autistics kids I discussed, doctors said something was impossible—viz., the growing of a child past a certain point of maturity—was actually proven to be possible. I suspect that something similar is actually the case, with so-called "feral children". Scientists are finding all sorts of amazing things about neuroplasticity, that things are not so set in stone as was once claimed. Furthermore, I have theological reasons to suspect that "feral children" are no closer to being "lost causes" than so called brain-dead 'vegetable' humans. We humans just like to give up easily, on other humans. We like to declare other humans "lost causes", because it means we have no obligation to love them, even if that love requires sacrifice, as Jesus' love of us required sacrifice.

You're somebody who disagrees for the sake of disagreement.

It's not clear how I am acting any differently than you are. Every single one of your comments in response to mine appears to disagree with mine. Indeed, I just reviewed all of them and I saw no attempt to seek common ground. So, you appear to be calling on me to do something that you have not demonstrated in your interactions with me. Would that be a fair analysis? Indeed, I think your own words, from Dr. McGrew's "Review of John H. Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One", is apropos:

You have an amusingly oblivious habit of faulting others for the very thing you yourself indulge in.

However, perhaps I am wrong, and you could point to some of your own comments as exemplars of not "disagree[ing] for the sake of disagreement". Show me by examine, in the opposite spirit of Mt 23:1–4.

LB, all of us here would be very happy if anyone who is regarded as permanently unconscious, unable to talk, etc., were healed on this earth. Moreover, we have an advantage in that, unlike you, we are not undecided or unsure about what the human status of such persons would be even if never, on this earth, would they be able to learn to talk.

Their prognosis on this earth is not (repeat not) definitive of their human status. I'm sorry if you are unsure about that. You shouldn't be.

If indeed you are happy with thinking of them as "capable" of language if that includes heaven, then I am able to use the word "capable" in that way. My point is merely that their human status on this earth should not be and must not be tied to their prognosis on this earth. That is so far from giving up on them that I, unlike you, do not waffle on the question of making some kind of utilitarian calculation about the cost of "keeping them alive" (which in many cases means merely giving them basic care such as food and fluids).

In any event, this is all getting us a bit off-topic. I would only say that hesitations on these very issues tie in, I fear, all too well with the notion of sub-human hominids, which is yet another reason to believe that man, the species, is absolutely and qualitatively different from animals, that every member of our species has that qualitative difference in value, and that this is not _only_ a matter of a purely non-physical soul which can appear and disappear without a trace.

Dr. McGrew,

No, they're actually not.

I guess I'm confused at how you think it is not at all tricky, that with the same X resources it takes to save one life, you could save one hundred lives. But we are diverging quickly from the blog topic.

False. What will in fact be done to Joe or not done to him is not definitional of Joe's present metaphysical state.

I don't think my argument needs this to be sustained.

I don't know what you could mean by that.

We go to great lengths to save human lives once they have been born. If there are not triple and quadruple redundancies on the refrigeration systems for keeping IVF fertilized embryos safe, then this is a de facto admission that those 'lives' are worth much less than post-birth human lives.

Here we go with "I suspect" again. I warn you: Do not waste my time with your made-up "suspicions." If you want to tell me that you have found some specific "doublethink" in what I have actually said, then good luck finding that and pointing to it. Otherwise, bag it.

I was not targeting what "[you] have actually said". If you want to see actual data of what I suspected, see Embryo disposal practices in IVF clinics in the United States. You are awfully quick to think ill of me, Dr. McGrew.

I now understand what you meant by redudancies in the refrigeration systems. Please recall that the people actually keeping cryopreserved embryos are not, by and large, pro-life! Far from it. They are storing property, which is how cryopreserved embryos are regarded (unfortunately) in law. So the use of "we" is very strange there.

In any event, I cannot tell you how uninterested I am in getting into the whole, "If you pro-lifers really believed _____, you would advocate ______, and you don't, so you must not really believe _____, which just shows how implausible _____ (e.g., the humanity of early embryos) really is." I'm familiar with it. Been there, done that, have the T-shirt. That you are trying such a move tells me a great deal.

Let me emphasize that the point that got us off on this rabbit trail arose from the fact that, in my post, I was writing _to_ people who _do_ have a robust sense of the equal human value of _all_ human beings, regardless of their abilities, age, and status. Since you have said multiple times that you are unsure about that, you were not the target audience for that argument. I meant to write _to_ such people to point out that theistic evolutionist views place a strain upon their commitment to that pro-life position. I did not write it to encourage a "let's bait the pro-lifers about embryos" session in the comments thread. So, don't do that.

Dr. McGrew,

Please recall that the people actually keeping cryopreserved embryos are not, by and large, pro-life!

No argument there. But how much brouhaha is being raised about these lives, by pro-lifers? God is not a respecter of persons. Are pro-lifers? But recall how I brought this up: it was to demonstrate how I interpret act-potency metaphysics and apply them to personhood and imago Dei. The general idea here, I believe, is to be consistent, so that there is no slippery slope were we e.g. slip into infanticide, because the boundary made at birth is an entirely artificial one.

In any event, I cannot tell you how uninterested I am in getting into the whole, "If you pro-lifers really believed _____, ..."

Never did I intend to manipulate you into any such thing. My general sense is that we largely agree on the IVF fertilized embryo deal. There was a quibble about 99% of frozen embryos probably never making it to implantation, which I don't think is a particularly big deal? Let us remember not only that we disagree a bit, but that we appear to agree on several [germane] matters.

I meant to write _to_ such people to point out that theistic evolutionist views place a strain upon their commitment to that pro-life position.

I disagreed. My counter-proposal to blood descent from a single couple, Adam and Eve, is in terms of openness to God, which is precisely what informal—not formal—language allows. The discussion about IVF fertilized eggs was actually an attempt to establish common ground. I used the informality of language which appears to be unique to humans, plus act-potency metaphysics, plus belief in God having created reality such that it can be fully redeemed, to build an alternative model of imago Dei.

Whether this model suffices to achieve all you want to achieve, I'm not sure. You haven't convinced me that it isn't. You raised mental retardation, and I countered with severe autistic cases in which it was discovered that the doctors were hilariously wrong. We agree that allegedly brain-dead, 'vegetable' humans aren't necessarily so; after all, once in a while a 'miracle' happens and what the doctors thought was so, wasn't. Tony brought up more severe genetic issues, but I happen to be married to someone who is doing some of the basic research which will probably be required to heal such people. How fast it can turned into viable medicine, who knows.

I'm very interested in precisely your objections to "theistic evolutionist views". I used to be an ardent creationist, myself. However, I found that it didn't bear much in the way of fruit. Jesus was, among other things, a fantastic doctor. I see medical advances coming from belief in evolutionary theory, especially because of genetic similarities between certain animals and humans. I do not see medical advances coming from creationism. Jesus said to judge trees by their fruit; I do this and find creationism wanting. Now, I am sensitive to issues like you bring up, but I don't see that you've sustained a solid case against theistic evolution on the imago Dei issue.

But how much brouhaha is being raised about these lives, by pro-lifers?

Actually, the entire brouhaha about embryonic stem-cell research is a brouhaha about these lives, raised by pro-lifers. Heaven knows, I raise as much brouhaha as I can. I see pro-lifers as _extremely_ consistent on this point.

We agree that allegedly brain-dead, 'vegetable' humans aren't necessarily so; after all, once in a while a 'miracle' happens and what the doctors thought was so, wasn't.

Please stop using "brain-dead" in this way. That is a medical misuse of the term. I don't really have time to explain, but in medico-legal terms, whole brain death is not the same thing as an alleged persistent coma, sometimes dehumanizingly referred to as "vegetative state." In any event, as I've said again and again, prognosis *in this life* is not to the point. These "miracles" are great stories, and I"m all in favor of publicizing them, but the whole thing should not be made to turn on that possibility.

I'm very interested in precisely your objections to "theistic evolutionist views".

I gave them in the main post.

I used the informality of language which appears to be unique to humans, plus act-potency metaphysics, plus belief in God having created reality such that it can be fully redeemed, to build an alternative model of imago Dei.

My point concerned epistemology combined with the ensoulment view as defined in the main post.

I'm quite happy to grant you that someone who holds the ensoulment view would not be a good Thomist-Aristotelian. That, presumably, is why Christopher McCartney above said he doesn't believe the ensoulment view.


All right, let’s look at the idea of a “special” creation (or second creation), and first ask, is it necessary?

Is there something about Man that is essentially different than other animals that requires a fiat homo? Animals have instincts, Man has instincts. Many animals have a moral sense of right and wrong, are affronted by perceived injustice (won’t perform tasks when not rewarded while they see their fellows rewarded, will deceive a fellow for an advantage), Man has a moral sense.

“death is a horrible tragedy and sadness for man.” Not just for Man, but for many animals if you’ve ever seen a creature mourn the death of her offspring, or a dog lay on the grave of his master, or walk off and lay down and even die because of the death of their master (true story I know of personally).

Animals can love. Man can love.

But Man can love holiness. Hmm, it appears that so can animals

So what is qualitatively different about Man from animals, especially higher mammals? Nothing.

Every quality we find in Man, we find in animals (although humor is iffy, but then there are humorless people, too).

What is different in man is the degree of some qualities. His consciousness is greater having expanded into larger self-awareness (but not in all cases as some point out regarding brain damaged, autistic, the retarded, and perhaps even some folks who are so focused on instant gratification and lack all self-control of their actions that some wonder how human they can be).

It stands much more to reason to suppose (and include an enormous body of knowledge) that man is the product of a long line of production in the creature making business, and that life seeks to increase consciousness in its process through time and availability of resources; or say that life is providential in and of itself as an agency of God.

But Lydia says “death is a horrible tragedy and sadness for man.” Interesting claim of proof for her “special creation”. A purely emotional one, at that. One is insulted and pained by the awareness of death, therefore, God must have instituted it for Man alone.

That is not a rational assessment of the problem of pain or death. I’m sorry if the term rational is taken as an insult. It is meant to be descriptive of a conclusion that does not necessarily follow upon the premise. It fails as a syllogism.

Another interesting aspect of the claim of human culpability for his state of nature, so to speak, is the monomania of it in the sense of humans wanting to take credit for their condition. It is grandiose to think we can ruin everything for ourselves and posterity and all at once. Just wreck the universe because curiosity kills the cat.

Can anyone actually imagine a fully adult human being created shazam! with a complete personality, a will, predetermined knowledge like a preloaded computer with no continuity of being in mind, memory, instinct, and yet fully capable of making immortality destroying decisions? The preposterousness of the picture, the story, is amazing.

Humans are born, and have to be to become human adults. They can’t just be made complete, communicative by language, and intelligent from nothing.

All of creation is “special.”

Can anyone actually imagine a fully adult human being created shazam! with a complete personality, a will, predetermined knowledge like a preloaded computer with no continuity of being in mind, memory, instinct, and yet fully capable of making immortality destroying decisions?

Interestingly, that is EXACTLY what is postulated for angels, who are not "born" at all, who come forth fully complete.

Mark, your premises, metaphysical assumptions, your descriptions of "facts", (animals "will deceive a fellow for an advantage" means they have moral sense), your presumptions about what man is and what God could do if He chose to, are so far different from Lydia's (and mine, and everyone else here) starting points, that there is simply NO prospect of engaging you fruitfully on THIS topic. The task would have to begin vastly earlier in the inquiry process, not on a discussion of Walton's thesis in TLWOA&E and how the origin of man matters. It's like we don't share a common language. I recognize that you dearly want to engage with YOUR ideas. But they aren't close enough to the language being spoken here. Only confusion will result.

Mark Butterworth,

So what is qualitatively different about Man from animals, especially higher mammals? Nothing.

This is likely false. See Mortimer Adler's discussion of language in The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes; he shows how there is no known use of language in another species which matches how humans use language. David Braine talks about the animality of humans, plus the new dimension offered by non-innate use of language (see my above discussion of 'informality' of language) in The Human Person. He talks more extensively about language in his magnum opus, Language and Human Understanding: The Roots of Creativity in Speech and Thought. Note that Adler talks specifically about qualitative vs. quantitative differences. He comes down solidly on 'qualitative'.

Can anyone actually imagine a fully adult human being created shazam! with a complete personality, a will, predetermined knowledge like a preloaded computer with no continuity of being in mind, memory, instinct, and yet fully capable of making immortality destroying decisions?

Curiously enough, David Braine argues that continuity of the kind you discuss is evidence of God's existence: The Reality of Time and the Existence of God: The Project of Proving God's Existence. Furthermore, you're always going to need a "shazam!", whether it's Lawrence Krauss' "nothing" which really isn't "nothing", but then becomes "something", or some other theory where there wasn't, and then shazam! there was. Anything else opens you up to infinite regress, rampant unfalsifiability, or both.

Now, I would argue on grounds of rationality and comprehensibility that it is better for things to happen gradually, under the care of God or a secondary cause. I like C.S. Lewis' idea about Lucifer being an archon who failed to do his duty for Earth, thus making it "The Silent Planet". But you're going to have to get discontinuity somewhere, unless you want to say that there is no true change.

Y'know, Mark Butterworth, I think you need to take "rant" mode off your computer.

As I've said to multiple people on this thread: I'm not going to argue _here_ that man is special and is in the image of God. I was writing _to_ people who grant that fact. In non-religious terms (human specialness, human exceptionalism) it is quite obvious to common sense. The real absurdity is taking man to be nothing more than a highly developed animal. Moreover, if one takes man to be such, one undermines the natural light and, if one resolves the cognitive dissonance in the "just a highly developed animal" direction, one abandons any reason not to go Peter Singer's route. My point was to show that those who _do_ affirm human value and human equality (which John H. Walton does) should not be so casual about accepting full-scale human evolution. That was all.

Now, stop the contentless ridicule and purely personal attack, or I will start deleting your comments. And I mean that.

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