Joshua knows I’ve talked with him in the past about his GAE model for human origins. Our communication has been through email but I would also like to raise further discussion on this forum. I’d like to also bring in William Lane Craig’s model and his take on the GAE model. My criticism of the GAE in the past focused quite a bit on the de novo creation view because it seemed to me that you were assuming this in so much of your book. You’ve made it clear, however, that this is just one option of several. I’ll take it that we are not considering de novo creation, and with that I’ll try to clarify exactly what difficulties I still see in your model. Before I do so, I need to say that I hope you understand that I do think the GAE is a viable model and it should be added to the table for discussion of possible explanations for a biblical view of human origins.
I think that more than anything else, what does still bother me is this idea that there were two distinct humanities. I think this is the main difficulty most other evangelical Christians would have with your view. If the age of A&E does not concern you (whether they existed 6kya or 500kya), I would think the idea of two humanities is Craig’s biggest difficulty with your model as well. (Or would you think something else might be of greater concern to him?) So let me focus on the dual humanities issue. It just seems to me to be more likely that the Bible teaches that A&E were the first ancestors of absolutely all people. Assuming a first human couple, the main alternative is that A&E would have children who were mating with non-humans. This you find too disturbing whereas I find two distinct types of humanity too problematic. I’ll number my basic questions and issues of concern.
- If we had some good evidence for two humanities in the Bible, I would be much more open to the GEA model. In fact, if I could read the scripture as being completely silent on the issue, neither hinting that there are or are not two humanities, I think your model would be much stronger as well. But even if this were true, I still have an issue with the intuitive persuasiveness of your view. That is, it seems to me much simpler to accept a normal evolutionary view and say the A&E came into being by that process (with a small amount of providential intervention and spiritual in-breathing of course) than to posit a second humanity stemming from A&E with A&E being created separately or created from the earlier human population (simply chosen from that population, or chosen and spiritually and/or physically refurbished).
Other than the simplicity issue, Occam’s razor, the big issue is the biblical data. In my next post let me bring up some discussion we had by email and ask you and any others on this forum to respond. I’ll look at the biblical passages specifically and also consider some of Craig’s statements.
- On Bertuzzi’s “Capturing Christianity” YouTube video of your dialogue with William Lane Craig (YouTube) you asked Craig about the problem of how we distinguish humans from non-human predecessors. But don’t you have the same problem? The humans outside the garden (call them H1), what made them human as distinct from their predecessors? If you want to maintain that they are not non-humans in order to avoid accusations of bestiality (since A&E’s descendants, H2, later interbred with them), then these H1s have to be distinguished from their non-human predecessors by some characteristics. Or would you honestly attempt to argue for something other than a structuralist view of humanness?
In your book you suggest at one point that H1 could be unfallen yet subject to death as all other animal forms are. On the other hand, if you are open to the possibility that they are fallen, it seems that this must be because A&E sinned and as H1’s representatives chose for them to be bound by original sin. This view is open to its own special difficulties. Again, a simpler approach to either of these alternatives would seek to eliminate this special form of humans if at all possible.
- After hearing Craig’s current model, or at least a rough form of it, it seems to be very similar my own. I do see some minor differences but also possibly one major difference. A couple of statements Craig made I find a little confusing. On Bertuzzi’s video, Craig admitted that there would be interbreeding between A&E’s descendants and their closest non-human contemporaries. Craig mentioned that this was a result of human wickedness. I have to admit that that is a good explanation and a real possibility. Perhaps I should have brought up this idea in my previous post when defending my own model. However, in his podcasts on this subject (16mr20) he said that if we go back to 500k to 700kya, we can get back to an originating population of two and we do not need an interbreeding population of 10,000 to fit current genetic evidence. In fact I believe he mentioned in your dialogue that it was you, Joshua, who demonstrated that we could reduce the time from a couple of million years to 500k. (Do I have that correct or have I misstated Craig?) If that is true, why would Craig think there is reason to think A&E’s descendants interbred with non-humans?
Craig does have the date of A&E near the time of H. Heidelbergensis prior to the split between Neanderthal/Denisovans (N/D) and the modern human linage. (Was that 770–550kya?) I favored something closer to 130kya since this was a time when all of the species was either in one area (south central Africa) or there was migration back to this area from coastal and possibly other outlying groups. This was followed by migrations out of this area. This may also have been a time when the first signs of modern human genius begun to develop. The cultural big bang of 40k to 50kya in Europe showed its first signs in Africa thousands of years earlier. If this could have gone back to 130kya, the single location and the advanced cognitive abilities fit together to suggest that this was where the first humans originated. (Here I’m largely following the recent work of Vanessa Hayes and colleagues. If her view does not stand up, I will modify the date and scenario.)
Craig favors a time prior to the split between N/D and modern human linage. He does so, I take it, because of current evidence that Neanderthals were close or equal in intelligence to modern humans. I’m not opposed to going back this far, I just find the evidence for a 130ky date very attractive at the moment. Much depends on how strong the evidence turns out to be concerning the intelligence of the Neanderthals. Some have questioned the evidence for sophisticated Neanderthal artifacts and art, artifacts requiring the same or very similar intelligence to that of modern humans. For example, Fuz Rana (and others) have questioned the effectiveness of the dating methods used to place these artifacts prior to the presence of modern humans. Another issue to consider, just as our closest human predecessors could have had the same intelligence or almost the same intelligence or cognitive abilities as the first humans, so Neanderthals may have been very close to modern humans in intelligence. Neanderthals could have still lacked humanness. Other factors such as moral awareness may be more important than mere technical intelligence.
BTW, just one final side comment. In your dialogue with Craig you questioned whether Jesus had a Y chromosome. Might Mary have been an XY female? On the possibility that the virgin birth occurred by God allowing Mary to have a clone which with only a little genetic engineering on God’s part had the Y chromosome activated, Jesus could have been formed an XY male.