\n<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been participating for years in discussions about evolution and Christianity, and I think I see more clearly what accounts for the deeply held, visceral, differences\u00a0of opinion about whether Adam was the first man or whether Adam is a character in a story.<\/p>\n
The reason for the\u00a0differences\u00a0is not simply that people have different theological systems or different ways of reading the Bible.\u00a0A more fundamental difference lies at the root.<\/p>\n
The God we read about in the Bible does not hesitate to participate\u00a0in the human drama and to encounter humanity within the limits of the human experience. This God even became enfleshed in the mystery of the incarnation. That is how God is fundamentally described in the Christian faith.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s one big reason why I\u00a0have no difficulty\u2014zero, zip\u2014in seeing the biblical writers as writing about the God they\u00a0encountered\u00a0as they understood God within their cultural limitations<\/em>.<\/p>\n Encounters with God,\u00a0interpreted through and expressed<\/a> in truly human, cultural, terms.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why I have no problem reading the Adam story in Genesis as an ancient origins story like other origins stories of the ancient world, or understanding Paul\u2019s take on Adam in Romans as an outworking of his Jewish world (where biblical texts are molded to fit an argument).<\/p>\n The Gospel teaches me that\u00a0this<\/em>\u00a0kind of Bible reflects the character of God. And this is the kind of Bible I have come to expect and in fact encounter each time I open it.<\/p>\n The Gospel\u00a0does\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>teach me that it is a problem for\u00a0God to enter into the human\u00a0experience\u00a0and allow that human\u00a0experience to shape\u2014from beginning to end\u2014how the Bible behaves. The Gospel teaches me exactly the opposite.<\/p>\n And the Gospel certainly does\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0teach me that\u00a0God is up there, at a\u00a0distance, guiding (micromanaging) the production of a remarkably\u00a0diverse collection of writings that nevertheless contains buried deep within one single finely-tuned system of theology that we are charged to excavate and guard.<\/p>\n So when it comes to debates over the historical Adam and evolution<\/a>, the question I have come to ask myself is, \u201cW<\/em>hat kind of God<\/em>\u00a0are you thinking of when you say X\u2026.?\u201d Is it<\/p>\n an incarnating God\u2014Immanuel, God with us, or<\/p>\n a Platonic god\u2014where you have to peel off the obscuring \u201cdown here\u201d hindrances to\u00a0get\u00a0to the untainted \u201cup there\u201d god, with the Bible as an encoded inerrant guidebook to get you there.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t like the platonic god.<\/p>\n You can tell something about the god people believe in by paying attention to how they talk about controversial issues of the Bible\u2014like Adam. \u00a0Do you see a system-dispensing administrator who keeps his distance or \u201cGod with us\u201d?<\/p>\n If you keep your eyes open, my bet is that you will see one or the other coming through loud and clear.<\/p>\n ***A version of this post last appeared in August 2013. I\u2019ve written more about evolution in\u00a0The Evolution of Adam<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(Baker, 2012) and the Bible in general in The Bible Tells Me So<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(HarperOne, 2014) and \u00a0Inspiration and Incarnation<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(Baker 2005\/2015). Check out also my most recent book,\u00a0The Sin of Certainty<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(HarperOne, 2016).***<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\nI don\u2019t think Jesus did either.<\/h2>\n