Message Body:
I read in your article that you believe that Adam being made of dust was a reference to his being mortal, in this case “Why There’s No Conflict Between Evolution and a Historical Adam”, I have a doubt about that, first of all, wouldn’t that violate the Ecumenical councils? In here:
“That whosoever says that Adam, the first man, was created mortal, so that whether he had sinned or not, he would have died in body — that is, he would have gone forth of the body, not because his sin merited this, but by natural necessity, let him be anathema.” (Council of Carthage +419, Canon 109)
“[God] made everything that he made very good {cf. Genesis 1:31}, and cannot ever be the maker of evil. But if there is any evil, that is to say, sin, that comes about contrarily to the Divine Will, in man or in demon, — for that evil is simply in nature, we do not acknowledge, — it is either of man, or of the devil. For it is a true and infallible rule, that God is in no way the author of evil, nor can it at all by just reasoning be attributed to God.” (Council of Jerusalem +1672, Decrees IV)
“As all Mankind, during the state of Innocence, was in Adam; so in him all Men, falling from what he fell, remained in a State of Sin. Wherefore Mankind is become, not only subject unto Sin, but also, on Account of Sin, unto Punishment; which, according to the Sentence pronounced of God, was (Gen. ii. 17), In the Day that thou eatest of the Tree, thou shalt surely die. And to this the Apostle alludes {Rom. v. 12), Wherefore as by one Man Sin entered into the World, and Death by Sin, and so Death passed upon all Men, for that all have sinned. So that we are conceived in our Mother’s Womb, and born in this Sin, according to the holy Psalmist (Psal. li. 7), Behold, I was shapen in Wickedness, and in Sin hath my Mother conceived me. This is called parental, or original Sin, first, because that, before this, Man was free from all Sin; although the Devil was then corrupt, and fallen, by whose Temptation this parental Sin sprang up in Man; and Adam becoming guilty, we all likewise, who descend from him, become also guilty. Secondly, this is called original Sin, because no Mortal is conceived without this Depravity of Nature.” (Council of Jassy +1642, Question 24)
“The earth, created, adorned, blessed by God, did not have any deficiencies. It was overflowing with refinement. “God saw,” after the completion of the whole creation of the world, “everything that He had made: and, behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). Now the earth is presented to our eyes in a completely different look. We do not know her condition in holy virginity; we know her in the condition of corruption and accursedness, we know her already sentenced to burning; she was created for eternity. The God-inspired writer of Genesis says that the earth in its original condition did not have need of tilling (Gen. 2:5): it brought forth by itself grains and other nourishing grasses, vegetables and fruits overabundantly and of superb worth. There were no harmful growths on it; plants were not subjected either to decay or to diseases; both decay and diseases, and the weeds themselves, appeared after the alteration of the earth following the fall of man, as one ought to conclude from the words of God to Adam as he was being exiled from Paradise: “Thorns and thistles shall it [the ground] bring forth to thee” (Gen. 3:18). According to its creation, there was on it only the splendid, only the wholesome, there was only that which was suitable for the immortal and blessed life of its inhabitants. Changes in the weather did not exist: it was continually the same-the most clear and favorable. There were no rains. A spring came forth from the earth and watered its face (Gen. 2:5-6, Septuagint). The beasts and other animals lived in perfect harmony among themselves, nourishing themselves on plant life.” (Homily on Man, pg. 19)
And what about the fact that the majority view of the Church Fathers, medieval theologians, and Reformers were Young Earth creationists? For documentation, see creation.com/fathers.
I ask this as a matter of theological consistency since our core beliefs like the Trinity, Christology and many other positions clearly come from the Ecumenical councils and the Church Fathers. That is why we reject outliers who believed in positions like Modalism and other heresies.
* Henrique
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To those unfamiliar, what Henrique is referring to is The Archetypal view of Adam and Eve that John Walton defends in his book “The Lost World Of Adam and Eve”. I have defended it in writing in places such as the blog post Henrique referred to, but also my much longer paper “Genesis 2-3: Adam and Eve as Archetypes, Priests In The Garden Of Eden, and The Fall”, and in my livestream “Genesis 2: Archetypes, Priests In The Garden Of Eden, and The Creation/Evolution Debate”.
Old Testament scholar Michael Heiser says it well: “…there is a pervasive tendency in the believing Church to filter the Bible through creeds, confessions, and denominational preferences. That’s not a bad thing. It’s a human thing. Creeds are useful for distilling important points of theology. But they are far from the whole counsel of God, and even farther from the biblical world. This is something to be aware of at all times.
Lest I be misunderstood, I’m not arguing that we should ignore our Christian forefathers. I’m also not saying that we’re smarter. They were prodigious intellects. The problem isn’t their brain power—it’s that they were simply too removed from the world of the biblical writers and had little chance of bridging that gap.
It might sound odd, but we’re actually in a better position than any of our spiritual forefathers in that respect. We live at a time when the languages of the major civilizations that flourished during the lifetimes of the biblical writers have been deciphered. We can tap into the intellectual and cultural output of those civilizations. That output is enormous—millions of words. We can recover the worldview context (their ‘cognitive framework’ in scholar-speak) of the biblical writers as never before. The same is true of the New Testament writers because they inherited what had come before them and were part of a first-century world two thousand years removed from us.”1
If you have any questions about Christian theology or apologetics, send Mr. Minton an E-mail at CerebralFaith@Gmail.com. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Christian or Non-Christian, whether your question is about doubts you’re having or about something you read in The Bible that confused you. Send your question in, whatever it may be, and Mr. Minton will respond in a blog post just like this one.
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