A recent Gallup Poll indicated that 42% of Americans believe God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago. Conversely, half believe humans evolved (i.e. they developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life), albeit God guided the evolutionary process.1 Billy Graham shared about being open to models that find compatibility between evolution and a historical Adam and Eve, whereas other Christian thinkers, such as Alister McGrath and C.S. Lewis, suggested non-historical models of the first man and woman being compatible with evolution.2 Are the biblical Adam and Eve historical people? Is evolution compatible with a historical Adam and Eve? My humble opinion is that Adam and Eve were historical people and that Darwinian Evolution, as we know it, is a bankrupt idea.
Adam and Eve
Genesis 1:1-2:3 narrates the creation week. It is on the sixth day that God decrees, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” and the first male and female divine image bearing dyad come into existence (Gen. 1:26-27).3 Rather than a strict chronological sequence of events, there is a literary framework employed in Genesis 1:1-2:3. The first triad of days presents the creation of kingdoms: light on the first day; sky and sea on second day; land and vegetation on the third day. The second triad of days presents the creation of rulers of the kingdoms: luminaries (sun, moon, stars) on the fourth day; sea creatures and flying creatures on the fifth day; land creatures and humans created in the image of God on the sixth day. The seventh day then highlights the glory of the King of Creation.4 Regardless of the chronological sequence, the reality of the Creator and the first biological human male and female dyad created in the image of God are undeniable. The origin of the universe in general and humans in particular came as the result of divine fiat.
Divine creation of humans is recapitulated and expanded upon in Genesis 2:4-3:22. Here God plants the Garden of Eden, forms Adam from dust and fashions Eve from the man’s rib. Adam is caretaker of the Garden and Eve is “mother of all living.” Beguiled by the serpent, Eve and Adam partake in the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they are expelled from the Garden the fall and kept from partaking in the fruit from the tree of life. Genesis 2:4-3:22 does employ figurative language to communicate truth, as in the case of the snake which depicts the craftiness of the deceiver, but such never precludes the historicity of Adam and Eve and their falling out with God.5 C. John Collins puts it this way: “We have plenty of reasons from the text itself to be careful about reading it too literalistically; and at the same time we have reasons to accept an historical core.”6
Genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 are symmetrical. The former presents the generations from Adam to Noah with Noah being a man with three sons — Shem, Ham and Japheth. The latter presents the generations from Shem to Terah with Terah being a man with three sons — Abram (Abraham), Nahor and Haran. Interestingly, the Septuagint (ancient Greek translations of the Old Testament often abbreviated with the Roman numeral LXX) include the name Cainan between Arpachshad and Shelah in Genesis 10:24, and Luke 3:35-36 does too, which makes ten generations from Shem to Terah.7 The ten generations from Shem to Terah will then match the ten generations from Adam to Noah, which further emphasizes the symmetry between the two genealogies. It is a mistake to suppose these genealogies present every single generation from Adam to Abraham. The two genealogies are deliberately edited to be symmetrical. Nevertheless, the historical kernel of Genesis 5 and 11 informs us that Adam is the progenitor of all humanity, and while the first man’s lineage was nearly snuffed out by the flood, his descendants continued on through the sons of Noah, according to the grace of God provided. In so far as the Book of Genesis is concerned, Adam is the progenitor of all humanity.
Adam is also named as progenitor of all patriarchs, rulers, and priests — particularly those of the descendants of Abraham returning from Babylonian exile — in the genealogies of 1 Chronicles 1:1-9:44.
Paul even presupposes both a historical Adam and Christ. During the address to the Areopagus, the Apostle said, “[God] made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him” (Acts 17:26-27). This is an affirmation of God being the creator of humans, and all humans coming from one man — that man being Adam.
A historical Adam and Christ is presupposed in Pauline teaching on the despair of human sin and death and being resolved with the hope of resurrection life. The apostle writes, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ” (1 Cor. 15:20-23).
Phrases like “in Adam” and “in Christ” refer to covenant representatives. Christ is a covenantal representative of one group of people whereas Adam is a covenantal representative for another group of people and “what happens to the representative affects all members of the group, and vice-versa” but “there is no evidence that one can be covenantally ‘in’ someone who had no historical existence.”8 Put it another way: “Something happened to ‘all’ as a result of Adam’s deeds as a representative, just as something will happen to ‘all as a result of Christ’s representative deeds”9 and “one person did something to cause the problem for those he represented, a later person did something to rescue from the problem those he represented. Jesus’ bodily resurrection is the down payment on the final restoration of the entire physical world from the problems of sin and death — problems that, according to Paul, were introduced by the sin of Adam and Eve.”10
The same idea of covenantal representatives whose actions affect the people being represented is further expounded upon in the comparison and contrast between Adam and the last Adam in 1 Corinthians 15:42-49 along with the teaching on the transgression of Adam that brings sin and death in opposition to the righteousness of Christ that brings justification and life in Romans 5:12-21. If there is a historical Christ that connects the Christian to justification and resurrection, then it stands to reason there is a historical Adam that connects humanity to the perennial problem of sin and death.
What Scriptures declare about the human species coming from a single couple — Adam and Eve — is even scientifically plausible. Research scientist Anne Gauger says, “The science as we know it shows that it is mathematically possible for us to have come from just one man and one woman. That is based on population genetics, a field that keeps track of genetic diversity in populations over time.”11
A historical Adam and Eve is the best understanding of what is communicated from the abovementioned passages from the Scriptures.
Darwinian Evolution
Evolution is a theory initially proposed in the nineteenth century by Charles Darwin (1809-1882). Darwin contended that all life evolved from simple to complex lifeforms. Undirected forces bring about random variations in lifeforms. In other words, mutations occasionally happen when species reproduce. These mutations can be either harmful or beneficial. Natural selection (i.e. the survival of the fittest) determines whether a mutation promotes the lifeform’s continuance. The diversity of species existing and thriving today, for the most part, are the ones with the random various that made them well-fit for survival in their respective environments. Newer species better fit for survival in their environment will supplant older lesser fit species in the same environment.
The evidence for Darwinian evolution is tenuous at best. Even the known fossil record betrays the basic paradigm. For example, if evolution is true, one expects to find the remains of lifeforms in the strata near the surface to be the most complex and divers, but the remains of the life forms in strata descending further from the surface to gradually become less complex and diverse. The gist of the idea is the strata gets older descending from the surface, and the fossils found closer to the surface are newer than those further below the surface are older. The deeper strata should have the older and simpler lifeforms whereas the remains of the lifeforms should gradually grow more diverse and complex ascending towards the surface, according to the story of evolution.
What actually exists in the strata is completely different. Instead of finding fossil remains gradually becoming more complex and divers ascending towards the surface, we find a blooming of diverse and complex lifeforms in the strata from the Cambrian period. The fossil record reveals that “almost all of the animal body plans that have ever existed on earth abruptly appeared within the Cambrian period, about 530 million years ago.”12 This blooming of diverse and complex lifeforms is referred to as the Cambrian explosion.
Lots of fossil remains of extinct hominids have been excavated; however, the reports given about those creatures typically say more than what the remains actually reveal. Biologist Jonathan Wells says, “One of the major problems with paleoanthropology is that compared to all the fossils we have, only a miniscule number are believed to be creatures ancestral to humans…often, it’s just skull fragments or teeth.” He goes on to say, “So this gives a lot of elasticity in reconstructing the specimens to fit evolutionary theory. For example, when National Geographic hired four artists to reconstruct a female figure from seven fossil bones found in Kenya, they came up with quite different interpretations. One looked like a modern African-American woman; another like a werewolf; another had a heavy, gorilla-like brow; and another had a missing forehead and jaws that looked a bit like a beaked dinosaur.”13 The popular illustration of upright hominids walking in line with examples becoming more ape-like towards the back line and Neanderthals and modern humans towards the front tells us more about artistic license coupled with fertile imagination than what the fossils actually reveal. There is simply a lack of any evidence for there being evolutionary precursors to modern humans.
Complex information stored in codes of the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) of complex lifeforms poses another insurmountable challenge to Darwinian evolution origins story. Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, indicates that “just as letters in an English sentence or digital characters in a computer program may convey information depending on their arrangement, so too do certain sequences of chemical bases along the spine of the DNA molecule convey precise instructions for building proteins” but “to date, no theory of undirected chemical evolution has explained the origin of the digital information needed to build the first living cell. Why? There is simply too much information in the cell to be explained by chance alone.”14
Information rich DNA, the basic building blocks of all species of biological lifeforms, is more consistent with an intelligent cause as opposed to unguided evolution. Dr. Meyer writes, “Whenever we find specified information and we know the causal story of how that information arose, we always find that it arose from an intelligent source. It follows that the best, most likely explanation for the origin of the information in DNA is that it too had an intelligent source.”15 Elsewhere Dr. Meyer states, “So the realization that building the animals attested by the Cambrian fossil record required huge infusions of new functional information into the biosphere provides strong grounds for inferring that a designing intelligence played a role in this event in the history of life, even if we weren’t there to observe the first animals coming into existence.”16
Chances of life emerging on this planet through unguided processes are statistically improbable to the extreme. For example, consider the odds of a protein molecule forming by chance. Dr. Meyer says, “First, you need the right bonds between amino acids. Second, amino acids come in right-handed and left-handed versions, and you’ve got to get only left-handed ones. Third, the amino acids must link up in a specified sequence, like letters in a sentence.” The odds of this occurring are “one chance in a hundred thousand trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion,” which is equivalent to “a ten with 125 zeroes after it!” But this is just producing a single protein molecule by chance. Dr. Meyer also points out that “a minimally complex cell would need between three hundred and five hundred protein molecules. Plus, all this would have to be accomplished in a mere 100 million years, which is the approximate window of time between the Earth cooling and the first microfossils we’ve found.” 17 The odds one protein molecule forming by chance are astronomically improbable. Forming enough protein molecules to make up a cell is more unlikely. It is doubtful to the extreme that that unguided processes would produce humans, dinosaurs or complex lifeforms. Whether we have a young earth of 6,000 to 10,000 years old or an old earth of 4.5 billion years old, the odds are against life on Earth emerging from unguided processes. Let the chips fall where they may on the age of the Earth discussion.
God and Evolution
The idea of God using evolution as a means of bringing about all biological lifeforms is commonly called theistic evolution. Evolutionary Creation or BioLogos similarly holds “that God created all things, including human beings in his own image” and “that evolution is the best scientific explanation we currently have for the diversity and similarities of all life on Earth.”18
The idea of God using evolution is actually a significant departure from the blind watchmaker thesis inherent in Darwinian’s theory. The blind watchmaker thesis is “the idea that all organisms have descended from common ancestors solely through unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material processes such as natural selection acting on random variations or mutations; that the mechanisms of natural selection, random variation and mutation, and perhaps other similarly naturalistic mechanisms, are completely sufficient to account for the appearance of design in living organisms.”19 To say that God uses evolution, a sort of Cosmic Bioengineer, implies teleology or purpose, which is the antithesis to the blind watchmaker thesis. How can God guide an unguided process?
There is also an unsettling element to the notion of God using evolution. Hank Hanegraaff writes, “It is one thing to believe in evolution, it is quite another to blame God for it” but “an omnipotent, omniscient God does not have to plod painfully through millions of mistakes, misfits, and mutations in order to have fellowship with humans.”20[xx] For further reading on BioLogos and theistic evolution see, “Deflating Darwinism” by Jay W. Richards, “No God-of-the-Gaps Allowed: Francis Collins and Theistic Evolution” by Paul Nelson, and “The New Theistic Evolutionists: BioLogos and the Rush to Embrace the ‘Consensus’” by Casey Luskin.
Did Adam and Eve exist? Yes, they did. We are their progeny. The first man and woman were created in the image of God, and image of God is within all their progeny. We are more than just modified monkeys that came about through unguided impersonal evolutionary processes. We are made in God’s image. This is what is truly beautiful about the divine creation of mankind.
We are also organically united together to our first parents — Adam and Eve. We are more than just an insignificant speck upon specks that formed from unguided processes; rather, we are the handiwork of a Maker. God is the skillful potter and we are the clay being molded into vessels meant for honor.
If we are created in the image of God, then we have intrinsic worth. Our individual worth goes beyond personal assets, accomplishments, abilities, accolades or aesthetics; rather, our individual worth is grounded in being made in the image of God. We are divine image bearers who are to treat one another with dignity and respect. When people discriminate, segregate and eliminate other people, they ultimately desecrate and deface the image of God in themselves and others.
Even though Adam and Even fell from grace, and all humanity struggles in sin until death, God became a man to give us redemption and resurrection life. This is the mark of humanity’s true worth! We can become sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father through the work of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
— WGN
Frank Newport, “In U.S., 42% Believe Creationist View of Human Origins,” https://news.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx
BioLogos, “Were Adam and Eve Historical Figures?” https://biologos.org/common-questions/were-adam-and-eve-historical-figures/
All Scripture cited from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), unless noted.
Lee Irons with Meredith G. Klein, The Genesis Debate ed. David G. Hagopian (Mission Viejo, CA: 2001), 217-253
For further discussion, cf. Hank Hanegraaff, The Creation Answer Book (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2012), 57-64.-
C. John Collins, Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? Who They Were and Why You Should Care (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011),66
Meredith G. Kline, Genesis: A New Commentary (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2016),51.
Collins, 79-80
Ibid., 80.
Ibid., 81.
Justin Taylor, “Does Science Disprove Adam and Eve? An Interview with a Biologist and a Mathematician,” https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/new-scientific-study-showing-come-original-adam-eve-interview-authors/ cf. Ola Hossjer and Ann Gauger, “A Single-Couple Human Origin is Possible,” https://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2019.1/BIO-C.2019.1 and Ann Gauger, “Adam and Eve Redux,” Christian Research Journal, 35, 1 [2012]: https://www.equip.org/article/adam-eve-redux/#christian-books-3
Hank Hanegraaff, The Creation Answer Book (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2012), 212.
Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence that Points Toward God (Grand Rapids, MIL Zondervan, 2004), 62. For further critique on purported evidence for evolution from fossils, cf. Jonathan Wells, Zombie Science: More Icons of Evolution (Seattle, WA: Discovery Institute Press, 2017) and Hank Hanegraaff, The FACE The Demonstrates the Farce of Evolution (Nashville, TN: Word Publishing, 1998).
Stephen C. Meyer, “Unlocking the DNA Enigma,” Christian Research Journal, 35, 1 [2012]: https://www.equip.org/article/unlocking-dna-enigma/#christian-books-1
Meyer, “Unlocking the DNA Enigma.”
Stephen C. Meyer, “Darwin’s Doubt and the Case for Intelligent Design,” Christian Research Journal, 37, 1 [2014]: https://www.equip.org/article/darwins-doubt-and-the-case-for-intelligent-design/#christian-books-1
Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 229.
BioLogos, “What is Evolutionary Creation?” https://biologos.org/common-questions/what-is-evolutionary-creation
Jay Richards, “Thinking Clearly about God and Evolution,” https://www.equip.org/articles/thinking-clearly-about-god-and-evolution/
Hank Hanegraaff, “Neither Human Evolution nor Theistic Evolution,” Christian Research Journal, 34, 1 [2011]: https://www.equip.org/articles/neither-human-evolution-nor-theistic-evolution-1/
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