I’m currently writing a paper for my English class about how traditional Christianity and evolution are compatible with each other. One of the main points I wish to make is that Adam can be a real person and evolution can be true at the same time. At the moment I find Derek Kidner’s model for Adam to be the most attractive. Does anyone have any thoughts or criticisms about his model?
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Would you mind summarizing Kidner’s view? I’m not familiar with it.
Of course. As I understand it, he proposes that God took a Hominin (that was the result of evolutionary processes) and elevated him to being human and gave him the Image of God. Then God created Eve from Adam and made them his vice regents in the garden. After this, God elevated Adam’s contemporaries to also being human and bearing the Image of God who inherited Adam’s sin when he fell since they were under his federal headship.
I’m getting my information about his view from Tim Keller’s article on Biologos, [Creation, Evolution, and Christian Laypeople - BioLogos]
And Gavin Ortlund’s article on his website, [Thoughts on Adam and Eve - Truth Unites]
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It sounds to me like this is unfalsifiable, so there’s nothing incompatible with the data. That is, as long as the ‘raising’ of Adam and his contemporaries isn’t supposed to have caused some kind of genetic / biological effect.
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I think it could make sense if the raising was mostly an immaterial thing. As in God specially created the human soul when he elevated them to being Human. I also wonder how much of our minds are physical versus immaterial, but that’s a different discussion.
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There are several other such models, and on this web site it would be a dereliction not to mention the genealogical Adam and Eve or GAE model. Poke around here and you will find it. Most of them are untestable and so can’t conflict with any scientific data.
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I wish you well, but part of me wonders if you (and others) are not starting off on the right foot.
While the various models (those mentioned here) may have some merit from a Christian point of view, I wonder if they miss the point.
I used to favor the kind of quest that you are on, but I am not sure that it will ultimately satisfy. I am of the opinion that those (two different) stories in Genesis are not meant to tell us that we can identify a unique pair of real individuals at some point in history.
I realize that to try to do so is to satisfy other doctrinal needs such as how Paul uses the text, but that quickly complicates the conversation.
Good luck to you, but I fear you may find yourself with more questions than answers.
@HunterBernard, I second @John_Harshman’s suggestion. Our host here, @swamidass , wrote a book that will give you a unique perspective. I am not sure it can help align science exactly with theology, but it should get you thinking more about geneology and history.
Maybe @swamidass can stop by and elaborate.
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First of all, human evolution is true. Check out the results of ancient DNA and fossils of multiple species of humans that intermingled over the past million years. Your DNA probably has records of this intermingling. So my question for you is what species of human did God specifically evaluate to be in the image of God? And when did your Adam fall from God’s graces?
I accept human evolution, ERVs already convinced me. In the hypothetical model I summarized above, I don’t think it’s particularly important which species of human it was (I’d tentatively lean towards a Homo sapien maybe 70k years ago). But concerning the Image of God, it wouldn’t have been something that the creature became advanced enough to have, it would have been a gift from God that came with whatever spiritual renovations that the creature needed to fulfill the status of being God’s representative on earth. Finally, Adam would have fell when he decided that his ways were better than God’s ways. I prefer to think of this as him literally eating from a forbidden tree but it didn’t have to play out that way.
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All models miss the point in one way or another, but most of them all end up in the same place, more or less. 
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I’ve read some about the GAE and it seems intriguing. However, Jack Collins’ work on Genesis has convinced me that Adam and Eve should be placed at the headwaters of human history. I wonder if GAE can be reconciled with this idea.
The GAE shows how Kinder’s moves here aren’t necessary. He thought incorrectly that we could not all descend from Adam and Eve. But we can.
Likewise, Adam could have been de novo created. That isn’t in conflict with evolution as he thought at the time.
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A bit off topic, but it seems that whether the God of Christianity plucked an existing hominim out of the crowd and “enhanced” him or did a parallel, “de novo creation” of Adam co-extensive with the existence of other hominims “outside” the garden of Eden, seem to both beg the question: Why would a God with the attributes ascribed to him by Christianity do such a thing? The Christian God exists in perfect aseity, without needs, wants, desires, urges, compulsions, wishes, proclivities, etc., etc., etc., thus creation serves no purpose, no wish fulfillment, fills no need, but rather seems gratuitous. I shot this question to WLC’s blog, but it has gone (not unexpectedly) unanswered. To me, although a theological question, it is a much more important question than the historicity of Adam and Eve. Perhaps someone on this forum can edify me, or at least direct me to a forum where this issue has been addressed.
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What if creation was an act out of love and compassion? Creation can be seen as an act of divine love to bestow blessings and allow beings to know and worship Him, not out of necessity for His own existence. In other words the creatures need creation in order to know(and love) The Creator, who is free of need.
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I just today saw this post and question. Sorry for the delay.
I’m a retired seminary professor and I am surprised by your descriptions of God. To break down a few excerpts from your post:
OK. That means God is the uncaused cause and is complete in himself and has no need(s).
There are plenty of scriptures which speak of God wanting/desiring various things, such as relationship with humanity (Gen 3:8; Rev 3:20), and desires for justice and righteousness (Isaiah 1:17, Michah 6:8), a desire for worship (John 4:23ff.) And probably among the most well-known of those desires of God is “that all should come to repentance” and salvation. (2Peter 3:9; 1Tim 2:4.)
God wishes all kinds of things for Israel and Jesus (whom Christians consider to be God, obviously) expressed wishes for Jerusalem (among them peace.)
The Bible says God has inclinations towards righteousness and justice. And there’s plenty of scriptures about God’s proclivities towards love and mercy (HESED in Hebrew, the loving-kindness of God.)
I can’t speak for William Lane Craig (although we were hired by the same seminary within just a few years of one another, though I was associated with different academic departments in a different building so I never got to know him as well the OT/NT/ST faculty) nor can I speak for those on his blog----but I think it is safe to say that readers where probably baffled by your question and didn’t want to write a long answer about the problems with the assumptions of your question. That said, I do think it an excellent question because it is a good way to clear up some of the popular misunderstandings surrounding the term ASSEITY.
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If these creatures were created by an omnipotent god, they could have any attributes that god wanted them to. If they “need creation in order to know(and love) The Creator”, that is only because this god made them that way. It would have been just as easy to create them without such a need.
For that matter, why the need to know and love “The Creator” in the first place?
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Perhaps “a good way to clear up some of the popular misunderstandings surrounding the term ASSEITY” would start with spelling it correctly…
A perfect being would have no need to be worshiped. In fact, I would argue just the opposite–the need to be worshiped is indica of deep insecurity…
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From the perspective of a classical theist, for whom God is purely actual and impassible, he cannot have wants or desires except in an analogous way. Therefore creation is indeed gratuitous, in the sense that it isn’t for the benefit of God himself, but is a gift for creation’s (our) own benefit. I’m pretty sure that’s standard Christian theology, at least the last part if not the first.