Indeed, and I appreciated that insight. I had already been confronted with that point and have been working through it. And it was such a good point that I posted this redux in order to tease out some more specific ideas like that one. This is the sort of stuff that I need to know, concerns of which I need to be aware, take seriously, and understand properly.
My response to this point is as follows (from an article I am working on that addresses Grudem’s 12 problems with theistic evolution): In all that is essential to Christian orthodoxy, is anything jeopardized by Adam being born to human parents? Not anything of which I am aware. Someone suggested that if Adam was born and raised in some Neolithic community prior to God calling him as an adult, he could not have enjoyed original righteousness because he would have accumulated a history of wrongdoing by that point. However, it would seem to follow from the biblical witness that there is no such thing as sin apart from a covenant relationship with God. Humans alone are capable and culpable of sin. Chimpanzees, earth worms, ravens, whales, these and all other creatures are neither capable nor culpable of sin, despite the fact that many creatures demonstrate characteristics of moral agency. Arguably, this state describes mankind prior to a covenant relationship with God, capable of wrongdoing even though sin at this point is a meaningless term, just as it is for chimpanzees. But once that covenant relationship was established, sin became a potential—but it was not an actuality until Adam disobeyed God (posse non peccare et posse peccare). This fits the description by Derek Kidner, of God conferring his image upon Adam’s collaterals, bringing them into the same realm of being. “Adam’s ‘federal’ headship of humanity extended, if that was the case, outwards to his contemporaries as well as onwards to his offspring, and his disobedience disinherited both alike.” Thus, one is not committed to denying original righteousness under evolutionary creationism.
True, unfortunately.
I mean that it’s assumed “for the sake of argument,” so that we may have this discussion about Adam and Eve without having to first defend inerrancy. That is the sense in which it is an assumption.