A Literal Adam Is Not the Issue

Dr. Carter is right that the evolutionary story is unbiblical,

Christianity, however, begs to differ. The Bible says that God created the cosmos, and it was very good. It is in a bad way now, admittedly, but the evil in the world is not native to the good creation—it was introduced into the cosmos after creation. This makes it feasible to conceive of a redeemed cosmos, a new heaven and a new earth freed from the curse of sin and death. This is the basis of the gospel; the world is bad, but the world has not always been this way, and it won’t always be this way because of Jesus Christ.

All true. But this also means that the millions of years (not just biological evolution) is a “scientific” myth—really a lie. It is impossible with theological, biblical, and hermeneutical consistency to think that God’s original “very good” creation before sin and the curse involved hundreds of millions of years (as evolutionists claim) of animal death, disease, carnivory, extinction, as well as thorns and thistles and other natural evils such as earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and asteroid impacts.

All old-earth views . . . are unknowingly and unintentionally subverting orthodox, biblical Christianity.

Therefore, it is not just theistic evolutionists’ denial of a literal Adam and fall that is an assault on orthodox Christianity, as Dr. Carter rightly believes. All old-earth views (gap theory, day-age theory, framework hypothesis, analogical days, cosmic temple view, etc., that are tolerated or promoted by evangelicals such as Wayne Grudem, John Piper, C. John Collins, John Lennox, JP Moreland, Sean McDowell, the Gospel Coalition, etc.) are unknowingly and unintentionally subverting orthodox, biblical Christianity. And the unintended consequences are plain to see in the moral insanity, growing spiritual darkness, and political self-destruction of the once-Christian Western nations of Europe and North America. The church’s 200-year compromise with millions of years has not caused people in these countries to be more open to the gospel and biblical morality but rather more closed and opposed.

Dr. Carter also says,

The issue isn’t just whether a man named Adam lived a long time ago. The issue is whether humans were specially created by God and then fell into sin, thus plunging the entire race into damnation and subjecting the cosmos to the curse imposed by a holy God on a fallen creation.

Yes, those are issues. But no, the fundamental problem is the authority of the Word of God in all of Genesis 1–11, which clearly teaches (along with the rest of Scripture) young-earth creation just as clearly as it teaches what Carter says about Adam and the fall and the future redemptive work of Christ in the whole cosmos. Cosmological evolution (a.k.a. the big bang theory) and geological evolution (4.5 billion years of earth history) are just as antibiblical and unscientific as are biological evolution (all plants and animals are descended from a single-cell creature) and human evolution (we are descended from apes).

The age of the creation (6000+ years as the Bible teaches versus 14 billion years as evolutionists claim) is not an unimportant side issue that we can ignore and not an issue in which Christians can agree to disagree.

Either all of Genesis 1–11 is a myth, or all of it is straightforward and literal history.

Either all of Genesis 1–11 is a myth, or all of it is straightforward and literal history. We cannot, with exegetical consistency, pick and choose to take only some of the statements in those chapters as literal and historically true but ignore (or symbolize or mythologize) the other statements. The Bible teaches creation in six literal days, a cosmos-altering fall and curse, the global catastrophic flood of Noah, and the language division and judgment of the people at the tower of Babel.

The trustworthiness of Jesus and the apostles is at stake because they all clearly took Genesis 1–11 as inerrant history and were young-earth creationists (see Coming to Grips with Genesis, chapters 12 [Jesus] and 13 [Apostles]).

To see how very inconsistent all old-earth compromise is, I urge readers to carefully consider my critique of Wayne Grudem’s excellent but seriously flawed critique of theistic evolution.

Evolution is a three-part theory attempting to explain all of reality: cosmological, geological, and biological (including human) evolution.

Evolution is a three-part theory attempting to explain all of reality: cosmological, geological, and biological (including human) evolution. We cannot divide up the theory and just accept parts of it. As I show here, it is all based on the Bible-denying, philosophical worldview assumptions of naturalism (i.e., atheism).

So, Dr. Carter is right to criticize the CT article that affirms Haarsma’s book on Adam. Haarsma and his wife (who leads BioLogos) and Christianity Today promote heresy in the church. But the issue is not just Adam, although there is overwhelming biblical, theological, historical, paleontological, genetic, anatomical, and social evidence that human evolution is a lie, as shown here.

The issue lies in the authority of Scripture, particularly all of Genesis 1–11, over the authority of the claims of the scientific majority.

The issue lies in the authority of Scripture, particularly all of Genesis 1–11, over the authority of the claims of the scientific majority. Therefore, the millions of years matter, and the big bang and evolutionary earth “history” must be rejected along with all the old-earth views in the church that try to accommodate those lies. The character of God and the truth of his Word, including the gospel, are at stake.