This is a Horrible Reason to Keep Believing in a Literal Adam and Eve

Todd Wilson is a pastor who doesn’t accept Young Earth Creationism. That, to his church, is tantamount to heresy because “Pastor Todd thinks we came from apes!” (Not exactly how it works, but okay…)

In a piece for Christianity Today, adapted from a book he wrote, he argues that there are ten ideas about Creation/evolution that most Christians ought to support, regardless of whether they think we were poofed into existence a few thousand years ago or that God guides the process of evolution.

(He has nothing to say to people who actually know what they’re talking about.)

Most of the items are exactly what you’d expect from someone trying to build a bridge between two groups of people who cling to nonsense to explain the world around us — God created us in some way, humans are unique, Christians should respect the other (also wrong) side of the debate, etc. But I want to point out one item in particular because of how absurd it is.

He never really finishes the thought.

… The genetic evidence, at least as we now understand it, makes belief in an original human pair doubtful if not impossible.

I suspect in 20 years’ time, support for Adam and Eve as real persons in a real past will be a minority view even within evangelicalism. Should this come to pass, I remain confident that the Christian faith will survive, even though this will require some reconfiguration of our deepest convictions.

That being said, I personally don’t find the genetic evidence compelling enough to jettison belief in a real Adam and Eve in a real past. I admit that the evidence is mounting and at this stage looks (to my untrained eye) impressive. But two scriptural convictions keep me tethered to the historic Christian conviction about the original human pair. The first is the testimony of Scripture, especially Adam’s presence in genealogies (Gen. 5; Luke 1) and in Paul’s Adam-Christ typology in Romans 5. Even more compelling is the idea that the Christian view of salvation appears to hinge on the doctrine of original sin and the fall as an event, which in turn requires a real person to have transgressed and thus plunged humanity into a state of sin from which it needs redemption.

It may be the case that faithful Christians will develop biblically legitimate and theologically sensible ways of explaining the gospel apart from a real Adam and Eve. But until that point, the better part of wisdom is maintaining a spirit of engaged conversation on this issue.

That’s truly amazing. He knows the existence of Adam and Eve makes absolutely no sense in the light of science. But if that domino falls, then the premise of Christianity will crumble, and his faith will be destroyed… therefore everyone should just keep believing.

That’s religion in a nutshell, isn’t it? As Mark Twain famously said, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”

What a horrible defense of the faith. What a pathetic admission that you’re rejecting reality because you don’t like what it reveals. This guy is so close to getting it, but he can’t bring himself to admit that maybe the people who accept evolution without the guiding hand of God have a point.

His entire career requires him to avoid that truth.

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