Dear Sir,
Macaulay and Martin (October en) may have good points to make about the nature of humanity in the ‘image of God’, but this is a separate issue from their attack on what they call ‘Theistic evolution’, which is nothing of the kind. ‘Through purely physical forces, they suggest, organic life gave rise to ape-like creatures …’ No, a theistic evolu-tionist believes that God gave rise to them. ‘We conclude, therefore, that God’s image-bearers didn’t just evolve. They were designed …’ But theistic evolutionists would agree they were designed. They would say, ‘They didn’t just evolve by chance.’
Personally, I believe there had to be an actual Adam for Christ, the second Adam, to correspond to him. But if Christ was brought about by a divine intervention in the natural human process of conception, could not Adam and Eve be brought about by a similar divine intervention in natural processes? If Adam is described in poetic language as being formed ‘of the dust of the earth’, is not the conception and gestation of any human being described in such poetic language in Psalm 139.15?
‘Adam and Eve … did not need to graduate to a higher form of existence.’ Actually, Christian theology before Augustine believed that they did, because such a view was more scriptural. ‘He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’ (Genesis 3.22) So Adam did not ‘fall’ from eternal life (and the Bible nowhere describes his disobedience as a ‘Fall’), he fell short of it, just as, ever since, ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’ (Romans 3.23) Such a view fits even better with God forming man by an evolutionary process.
Yours faithfully,
