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Question submitted by: John on Monday December 02, 2002
The question asked was: Evolution, even theistic evolution, doesn't seem to leave room for a morally perfect couple to have plausibly arisen who wouldn't have died if they hadn't sinned. So does this mean there was a creation, via evolutionary processes, but there actually wasn't a fall? If not, what do you think happened? And if there never was a literal Adam and Eve, how do you explain the fact that both Jesus and the apostle Paul assert in Scripture that they were actual, historical personages and not mere mythical-poetic symbols of something?

Scibel's response is:

QUESTION Evolution, even theistic evolution, doesn't seem to leave room for a morally perfect couple to have plausibly arisen who wouldn't have died if they hadn't sinned. So does this mean there was a creation, via evolutionary processes, but there actually wasn't a fall? If not, what do you think happened? And if there never was a literal Adam and Eve, how do you explain the fact that both Jesus and the apostle Paul assert in Scripture that they were actual, historical personages and not mere mythical-poetic symbols of something?

Scibel's response is: This response will be fairly long - but you have chosen to ask one of the most difficult questions facing theology today so it cannot possibly be answered in a short paragraph. There is, of course, no "official Scibel view" on this issue, there may be divergence of views amongst those who hold the Scibel view of the inspiration of Scripture and the basic truth though certainly not infallibility of modern science. It may, however, be worth reaffirming that the present response is written from the viewpoint of one committed, born-again, evangelical Christian who accepts the inspiration of Scripture as originally written. It also takes the view traditional amongst evangelicals and early fundamentalists (as well as Jesus in Lk 24v27) that the inspired word needs to be interpreted in the light of theological and scholarly understanding.

In reality we find, even on purely theological issues, that there are different interpretations of aspects of doctrine taken by different bible-believing Christians - even when these are seeking divine wisdom (James 1v5) and spirit-filled. It should therefore come as no surprise to find that committed, evangelical, bible-believing Christians differ on aspects of interpreting the Adam and Eve accounts. The various views which have been taken include:

(a) "Adam and Eve" stand for everyman and everywoman and were not intended to represent specific individuals but the universal human condition in its sinfulness. Spiritual death is the universal result of human sin.

(b) "Adam and Eve" were literal individuals who committed the first sin and were "federal heads" ie representative of others who likewise fell. They were not the unique progenitors of all present humankind, but the first humans to have a moral conscience and commit sin. Sin led to spiritual death for all humans because all sinned.

(c) "Adam and Eve" were literal individuals and the unique origins of present humankind. They committed the first sin, which resulted in spiritual death, and their heritage is passed down genetically in the form of a propensity to sin and experience spiritual death, which has been the universal experience of humans since that time.

(d) "Adam and Eve" were literal individuals and the unique origins of present humankind. They committed the first sin, which resulted both in physical and in spiritual death, and their heritage is passed down so that both physical and spiritual death has been the universal experience of humans since that time. This inheritance can be seen either as: (i) Inherited guilt from Adam's sin (first taught by Augustine) (ii) Inheritance of a fallen nature which is bound to sin (taught eg by Wesley and implicit in the Church of England Articles)

Evangelicals tend to assume that we should be guided in our interpretations of Genesis by the New Testament, particularly by the words of Jesus and Paul who refer to Adam. One of the problems with understanding Jesus is that he is usually concerned with the doctrinal point of the account, not its literality or otherwise. Thus, for example, in Matt 19v4-6 Jesus affirms that God's original intention was for permanent monogamous heterosexual marriage, putting together here Gen 1v27 and 2v24. This is a crucial passage in today's climate - as I have explored in my books "The Biblical Family", "God and the Family". “Christians, Divorce and Remarriage” etc. But does Jesus’ point depend on the literality of Adam and Eve as individuals? Surely his point depends rather on the belief (shared by Jesus, the apostles and all contemporary Jews) that the Genesis accounts were inspired by God and were "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (1 Tim 3:16). But the accounts eg of the "good Samaritan" or the "Prodigal Son" are profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness" - none of which depends on whether or not Jesus' was describing actual events. The account of the "prodigal son" is indeed a parable - but we should not say it was "only a parable". Most of the time Jesus chooses to express himself in parables in his teaching, to say it was "only a parable" would be to denigrate our Lord. Would you like to assert that eg the prodigal son and elder son were "mere mythical-poetic symbols of something"? If we are truly to respect the person, words, and teaching of Our Lord (as you seem to wish to do in your question) then we have to respect the way in which he (above all others) chose to communicate. Repeatedly throughout the gospels he speaks in picture imagery (which personally as a Christian I would tremble to call "mere mythical-poetical symbols of something") - and continually he is misunderstood to be speaking "literally". This happens eg in Mk 15v29, Jn 2v19-21 Jn 3v4, Jn 4v11, Jn 4v33, Jn 6v33-4, Jn 6v52. The predominant lesson of the NT teaching of Jesus is that divine communication (whether from prophets inspired by the Father or direct from the divine lips of the Son himself) is likely to be mistaken to be "literal" when it is speaking about things that are spiritually discerned.

This is not, of course, to say that nothing in the gospels is literal - that would be absurd. When eg Jesus offers the woman at the well "living water" he is not speaking literally, when he asserts that she has had five husbands he is speaking literally. When Jesus says (Luke 22v19) "this is my body" he is speaking spiritually, but when Luke 24v3 says they "found not the body" it is speaking literally. To decide when it is literal and when not is a matter of spiritual discernment in interpretation. Unlike the two on the Emmaus road we do not have Jesus in physical resurrected presence to "interpret" the OT Scriptures and show us exactly how they speak to us of "things concerning himself". This means all the more that we need to take great care as we come to understand and to "interpret" the Scriptures as Jesus himself implied we must. We cannot simply dismiss the possibility that a certain part or passage of Scripture is speaking spiritually or symbolically rather than literally by sneering at it in terms of "mere semi-poetical symbols". Historically, the bible-believing church has done no such thing - though admittedly it has now become a part of much of modern church culture, which tends to be tinged with an arrogance which neglects serious efforts to understand the sacred Hebrew writings in their own terms. I do not accuse you of any such thing, but it is an infection in today's church that is easy to pick up. As I have said, the force and power of the teaching of Jesus on the meanings of repentance and forgiveness in the account of the prodigal and elder sons are not lessened in any way by whether it was based on a historical incident. Similarly, even if one took, say, view (a) above, even if "Adam and Eve" were the divinely inspired picture of everyman and everywoman, would this in any way lessen Jesus assertion that the inspired account as given was intended to convey the intention of God for lifelong committed heterosexual monogamy? No it would not. Jesus is absolutely convinced (as I am) that the Genesis accounts were inspired by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, doctrine etc. But his concern here it to discern from the accounts the intentions of God for marriage. Whether "the man" was a literal single individual or not in no way affects this, and it is not relevant to Jesus point. I am not, of course, suggesting that Jesus words show that he definitely did not see "the man" in Genesis 2-3 as a single individual - just that his reference gives us no definite answer either way because this was not the concern of his reference. If we look at the teachings of Paul, one of the problems is that in the passages in which he refers to "Adam" he plays on the singular/plural ambiguity of "Adam" - which, as just indicated, was not in the Hebrew a name but means "the man". Actually, in modern translations of Genesis this is rightly recognised in rendering it "the man" and "the woman" - only in chapter 4 does "Adam" seem to become clearly a name.

So can we look to Paul for some guidance on understanding Adam and the death which resulted from sin? I believe that we can but that first we need some background. God warned Adam concerning the forbidden fruit that "in the day you eat of it, dying you shall die." The latter phrase is a common Hebrew construction emphasising the certainty of the event, thus the NIV 'you shall surely die'. Clearly Adam did NOT die physically in the day he took the fruit but lived on to reach a great old age. So what does Genesis 2v17 mean? One early view did take the "death" as physical - arguing that the "day" was actually a thousand years. Others have taken the primary reference to be to spiritual rather than physical death. The clearest clue comes in Rom 7v9 where Paul says: "I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died". In the context of Rom 5-8 what Paul is picturing is a re-enactment in his own individual life of the Adam account. The only difference is that in Adam's case it was the first sin, in Paul's case sin revived - the sin that was already in the world leapt back into action to "kill" Paul. The tense is simple "I died" - so what kind of death" was it? Surely Paul must mean spiritual death? He did not die physically when he first sinned. Paul "died" spiritually when he first sinned, in his case breaking the Laws given to Moses. But, if we look back to Rom 5:14, we are told that "death reigned" between the explicit law given to Adam and the explicit law given to Moses. Surely here also, then, Paul must also be referring to spiritual death that results from sin? Adam died (spiritually) on the day he disobeyed the explicit command of God not to eat, Paul died (spiritually) when he broke one of the explicit Mosaic commands - but others also died (Spiritually) in the times between Adam and Moses where the commands were not explicit divine ordinances but God was speaking through conscience? It is hard to conclude that Paul saw Gen 2v17 other than as referring at least primarily to spiritual death.

Now I am well aware that some modern young-earth creationist commentators try to interpret Gen 2v17 to mean physical death. They sometimes even assume that there was no animal death (even in the depths of the oceans) until Adam sinned (or was it Eve who first sinned? – taken literally there would be a contradiction between Rom 5:12 and 1 Tim 2:14) and they believe that the whole ecology of the planet was in that instant changed. Leaving aside the ecology issue for now, can it really be taken that the "death" for Adam and Eve was purely physical? Well one problem would be that if there were no "death" at all in the world, Adam would have had no idea what the word "death" meant anyway. We understand "spiritual death" by an analogy with physical death – but, without any kind of death at all, the words would be meaningless to Adam when God said them. Even more seriously, however, Gen 2v17 says that IN THE DAY Adam eats of the forbidden fruit he will die. Because young-earth creationists insist that the "days" are literal then cannot have any recourse to the view (mentioned by Justin Martyr) that the "day" was a thousand years. Generally they have two interpretations of it therefore. The first is that the Hebrew phrase "dying you shall die" refers not to an event but to the beginning of a process. This suggestion is quite simply incorrect. The idiom implies certainty and finality, not process. The second "young-earth creationist" interpretation is generally that "from the moment Adam sinned a (physical) death principle began to operate in his life". They claim that from that moment (or at least sometime during the same day) the processes of decay not previously present in Adam's body began to operate. So is this plausible? Well, it is not only a very non-straightforward understanding of the text of Genesis, but brings serious problems to understanding Rom 7v9. It would imply that until the first moment in which Paul (presumably as a child) became conscious of the law and committed sin, there were no processes of decay operating in his body. We all know that this is scientific nonsense. Modern babies (which we can assume are no different from Paul as a baby) have the processes of cell-decay and the second law of thermodynamics operating both before and after they first sin.

I would have also to add that the young-earth view sometimes held that animal death and predation resulted only post fall presents very great problems in understanding parts of the Psalms and Job in which God is assumed to have made THE PRESENT creation and not some world in which the whole biology and structure were incomparably different. It is GOD who made the young lions and the leviathan (which sounds to most of us very like a crocodile in spite of some fanciful suggestions). Certainly aspects of the creation - in particular as humans relate to it and have dominion over it - were intended to be different, but nevertheless the present creation is the one God made and the heavens declare the glory of God and the earth shows forth his handiwork.

For my own part, then, to be faithful to Scripture and the theology of Paul I cannot accept that physical death was intended in the warning made by God to Adam. I do not accept (d) above, and my reasons are theological and biblical rather than scientific. What Adam's relationship would have been to physical death had he never sinned I cannot say - but clearly a life of unbroken communication in love with God would have made release from this present physical body a very different experience from that we all presently go through.

What, then, about the issue of the literality of Adam and Eve as individuals? As already indicated, the teaching of Jesus refers back to Adam with a different intention, and is not decisive. Paul, in contrast, certainly emphasizes the "one man" elements of Adam and Christ in Romans 5. We look at this passage in some depth in our book Reason Science and Faith (Wipf and Stock, 2000), and at some of the theology in our other work God's Strategy in Human History (Wipf and Stock, 1999). One of the problems is that often Paul used typically rabbinic forms of teaching (hardly surprising since this was his background and training). If we look, for example, at 1 Tim 2v11-15:

“Let a woman learn in silence with all subjection. I permit no woman to teach or have authority over a man, she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. Nevertheless she will be saved through the childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with self control.”

Several key points about this need to be made. First, Paul's concern is with the practice in the contemporary church. The Adam and Eve part is introduced simply to reinforce Paul's ruling in his own day.

Secondly, his reference to the order of the creation is selective. In Genesis 1 the animals are made first, then man and woman together. In Genesis 2 the order is first the man, then the animals, then the woman. Ironically modern young earth creationists generally take Genesis 1 as indicating the order of events ignoring the identical tenses in Genesis 2 - if "taken literally" Paul confirms here the Genesis 2 order as chronological! If, however, historical priority in itself would indicate primacy then the Genesis 1 animals would have primacy over the man - which would be absurd. Surely Paul's whole point is that the way in which God gives us the account in Genesis 2-3 is intended to convey some teaching to us - not merely to record a sequence of historical events which in themselves would have no particular implication for the first century church order and which would contradict the Genesis 1 order? Paul is speaking and thinking rabbinically, not as though he were a modern American or Brit.

A third point about his words is that he slips easily (as does Genesis 3 itself) into prophetic/spiritual meanings. The "seed of the woman" in Genesis 3 is surely Jesus the Messiah who "crushed" the non-literal head of the non -literal serpent Satan on the cross. Paul's words "the childbearing" must surely refer to the seed of the woman - Jesus - and he signals this by the odd construction in the sentence, which switches from the singular "she" to the plural "they". She will be save through "the childbearing" - not meaning some absurd idea that childless women cannot be saved but emphasizing that through the virgin birth a woman played a part which no man played in bringing "the seed" (Jesus) into the world. Based on this Messiah - brought into the world by a woman without male help - women can be saved if they continue in faith etc.

Other references to "Adam" are similarly complex. Paul says in 1 Cor 15v21-2: For since through a man came death also through a man a resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die so also in Christ all will be made alive. Paul's main point in the context, of course, is to argue for the reality of the resurrection. Once again he is concerned not so much with the Genesis events in themselves, but with the implications for doctrine. Moreover his use of "Adam" (and he transliterates the Hebrew "the man" here into Greek) seems itself to be plural. The tense is not past "as in Adam all died" - if this were his intention it would contradict Romans 7v9 asserts that the moment of his own spiritual death was when he sinned. It is that "in Adam" - in the "old humanity" we all die - in the natural course of events this is both spiritual and physical death. The physical death of the old humanity in us is the only way finally to deal with the spiritual death outworking in us and rise again to full newness of life. Spiritual life is life eternal, and if there were no actual resurrection this could not be so. In the same passage, of course, he warns us against understanding the resurrection to be simply a reversal of physical death. 1 Cor 15v44 "It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body". The phrase "spiritual body" (soma pneumatikon) is virtually a contradiction in Greek. But here is no simple reversal of the physical death process, but something that transcends it. So did Paul believe "Adam" was an individual? Though it is possible to read what Paul says in another way, I personally think that he probably did.

Did Paul believe that the literality of Adam as one individual was essential to his Christian doctrine? This is a more difficult question - largely because it may well never have occurred to him to ask such a thing. We are trying to make his teachings inform us on issues which were not their primary concern, which is always dangerous. In summary, then, the issue of whether "the man" was an individual or was eg a "federal head" may not necessarily be decisively indicated by the New Testament.

Personally, though, I believe that Adam was indeed an individual as well as representative of humankind, and this is the position taken in our book. If we do take "the man" as an individual, then is this reconcilable with an evolutionary view of organic nature? Historically, of course, many key late nineteenth century evangelical teachers and early Fundamentalists did accept organic evolution but (like Darwin's contemporaries the geologist Charles Lyell and the spiritualist A R Wallace who independently discovered evolution by natural selection) made some kind of exception for the first humans. Would such a view be at odds with mainstream modern science?

Current thinking seems to be that humankind (very much against expectation) passed through a narrow "bottleneck" in the very recent past (which in geological terms means tends of thousands of years). Mitochondrial DNA indicates the probability of a single female ancestor - and parallel Y chromosomal studies that there was a single male ancestor around roughly the same period. The accepted anthropological view would be that our present homo sapiens sapiens originated from maybe under a thousand breeding pairs at that time. Many theologians have wondered whether this kind of picture is actually much more in tune with Genesis 4 anyway. If Cain really were the old child of Adam and Eve in existence at the time of Gen, or even if he had a couple of sisters, Gen 4v14 would be very odd: “I shall be a fugitive and vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me.” Who was he frightened of? Gen 4v26 seems to indicate strongly that Cain's mum Eve had no other sons apart from Cain and Able until Seth was born some time later. So whom did Cain fear would find him and kill him? He must have been looking a long way in the future to speak in such generalities if the only other living humans were an unmentioned sister or two and mum and dad when he said this. Then in Gen 4v17 Cain built a "city" - apparently just for himself, his wife and their one son. What the Scripture seems to be doing here is giving very strong indications that Adam, Eve, Cain, Cain's wife, Able and Enoch were not the only people around at the time. It is certainly possible to argue that all this fits much better with a picture of a fairly small but perhaps in hundreds group of early humans, of which "the man" in Genesis 2-3 exhibits the first moral consciousness, and commits the first clear sin. Plainly, as Paul wrote in Rom 5v12: death spread to all men because all men sinned. Letting the sin-principle loose in the human world and culture was a serious thing - perhaps it even affected the genetics of "the man" in which all of us live today share. But plainly everyone in fact experiences what Paul testifies of himself in Romans 7v9: "sin revived and I died".

Supposing that we were to accept the possibility that "the man" in Genesis 2-3 was not the only human alive at that point. Would not the very concept of any "evolution" be incompatible with a Hebrew-Christian Creator God? Well there are indeed people today (both atheists and Christians) who try to set "evolution" and "creation" in total opposition. In essence, however, "evolution" describes a process, whilst "creation" describes divine intention and ultimate purpose. When Amos 4v13 uses the strong word for "create" in saying that God "creates the winds" the prophet does not mean to set this against the science of meteorology as though they were in opposition. Presumably one could perfectly well describe the physical processes by which the sun draws causes currents of air, which in turn cause winds. But "nature" is neither to be identified with God (pantheism) nor is it independent of God (deism) - God can choose to work through it because it continues to exist only because he upholds it with his word of power. I have no time at all for atheists who portray "evolution" as though it were some kind of metaphysical causal principle. At most it is no more than a description of a process. Everyone, young-earth creationists included, believes that evolution happens at SOME levels. Few if any would believe that each individual species of Darwin's finches were independently designed and made ex nihilo. But could it then be said that God was only involved in the creation of the finch "kind" and is not involved in the continual creation of new finch species? Surely this would be to have an incredibly small God - especially as Jesus himself explicitly asserted that God was still working (John 5v17). On another level, we can now have a fairly good idea of the genetics of pigmentation in lilies. Does this contradict Jesus' claim (Matt 6v30) that God clothes the lilies of the field? Surely not? Genetics and God's creation of the colour of lilies are not in opposition, they are describing different aspects of the same phenomena. Likewise if "evolution" properly means a description of a natural process rather than some kind of pseudo-metaphysical force it is not IN PRINCIPLE incompatible with creation. What we need, then, to consider, is whether any particular kind of "natural process" is inherently incompatible with a particular creative event described in Scripture. This is a quite different level of question. I have spoken of the classic Fundamentalist view of a general organic evolution with a special intervention by God at the time of the first true human with a moral conscience and awareness of God. Would Scripture also be compatible with a view in which humans evolved "slowly"? One of the most interesting aspects of modern genetics is that we discover that a very small change in genetic coding can dramatically affect the functionality of the organism. There is nothing physically impossible in a process by which in a particular offspring or set of offspring there was a genetic "jump" which produced quite new features of conscience and God-awareness. Whether you call this "creation" or "evolution" depends on your metaphysics. Plainly in Scripture God works as much through natural processes as in suspension of them. He used eg a "strong east wind" to part the Red Sea, and in any case he "creates the winds" (Amos 4:13) even though winds occur through "natural processes".

It is, of course, possible that the first modern man appeared like Charlton Heston in a film, being formed as an adult directly out of earth. But other Christians may think that the first "true human" came to a new awareness of morality and sin in a context of an organic family where such things had not previously been known. Would this mean that there was "no fall"? No it wouldn't. Obviously if we believe, as we do, that there is presently sin in the world, and that at one time there was none, then there must have been a first sin. In that sense there has to have been a "fall". The kinds of things, however, read into this unbiblical term "the fall" by some commentators have been fanciful, and are not taught in Scripture. The idea, for example, of inherited guilt from the sin of a single ancestor was invented by St Augustine based on a Latin mistranslation of the Greek phrase "eph ho" in Romans 5:12. I would reject any such idea as anti-Scriptural irrespective of any science. The reading by others into Rom 8:20-21 of a reference to "the fall" when the text itself makes no specific allusion to it is also unjustified. What we see in creation are "birthpangs" - Paul surely would never have denied the teachings of Job and the Psalms that the heavens declare the glory of God and the earth shows forth his handiwork. Paul himself claims that the eternal power and divinity of God have been manifested "since the creation of the world" in the things which God made (Rom 1:20). He makes no indication that the creation was so changed at "the fall" that it now reflects something quite different ie a process of decay and savagery where previously there were none. If, then, by "the fall" we mean some humanly invented doctrine which goes well beyond the words of Scripture, then the scientific picture may well contradict it. But if we mean that there was a first human sin, and that this sin let loose a new principle into God's world and had disastrous effects on the future humankind, then I see no problem with a viewpoint of organic origins which is broadly "evolutionary".

When someone asks the kind of admittedly difficult, question which you asked, there may be several different sets of assumptions.

First, the question could be asked by someone who is hostile to Christian faith, and sees any such analyses as I have attempted above just as a "let out" to avoid the "plain unscientific nonsense" in the Bible. To such a one I can only say that the principles of interpretation which I would seek, under the Holy Spirit, to use, are broadly similar to those used throughout church history. Crass "literalism" is largely a comparatively modern invention, and this is analysed in more detail in our book.

Secondly, the question could be asked by a Christian who is already shut in to the idea of a "literalistic" approach to Scripture, and does not want there to be any answer. To such a person "evolution" is inherently evil, and any attempt to question a "literal" interpretation of Genesis is "liberal" - even though it may have been done by all the key important early Fundamentalists (who thought organic evolution of animals probable) and reflect the approach of the bible-believing commentators throughout most of history. To such a person I can only urge them to look carefully at the way in which our Lord chose to convey teaching, to be careful not to denigrate Jesus' approach as "mere symbolism", and to wait on the Holy Spirit. To someone who does not want there to be an answer there never can be.

Thirdly, the question might be asked by someone who will not accept an answer that is not totally "watertight". Unfortunately, systems of "watertight" theology are usually found amongst the cults. Mainstream theology has always recognised that "we know in part" (1 Cor 13v9), that this will always be so, and that the only thing which can be perfect and eternal is agape love. Faith has to mean that we trust God in spite of knowing only in part. This does not mean that faith is "irrational", but that it knows in part, understands in part, and trusts for the parts which are unknown or not understood. I cannot offer watertight-ness, only Christian faith.

Finally, the question might be asked by a Christian who is genuinely concerned to find God's truth, and is willing to be led both by the Spirit and by the example and teaching of Jesus, which is spiritually discerned. It might be asked by someone who is willing to admit that on some issues (s)he has been mistaken, or at least to see that other Christians may well have genuine reasons for believing that the truth is somewhat different. There is, of course, ultimately only one truth - I am not a "relativist" or "postmodernist" who believes we all have the truth in our different ways. But I do believe that, to the Christian, Christ is ultimately the truth, and if we have him, then many other issues may be incidental and we can agree to differ. 1 Cor 13v13 promises me that, whilst I now know all things - even God - only in part - one day I will know fully, even as God presently knows fully my heart and soul. My hope is that you are in this final group - and that one day we may reach that hoped for "knowing" together, whatever your present views may be and whatever they may change to.

With best wishes. Paul Marston December 2002

Question submitted by: Matthew on Thursday June 17, 2004
The question asked was: "If life is found on other planets, wouldn't this disprove everything that has been written in the Bible, bearing in mind the Bible only remarks about life on earth? There are millions of galaxies so it is quite possible." (point made by a non-Christian friend)

Scibel's response is:

When we read the Bible we have to be careful not to press it into answering questions that it was not intending to address. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" tells us about the origins of our world, and the rest of Genesis 1-3 tells us about the reason for our human origins and that we are in the image of God. Deuteronomy 4:15 makes it clear, of course, that our "image" of God is in the personal, moral and spiritual sense - not that God has a body like we do. Where, however, in the account of creation, or anywhere else in Scripture, does it say or imply that God could not, if he chose, create life elsewhere in the universe or, indeed, in other universes?

The question, of course, never really arose until about 1543. Until then, scientists (at that time termed "natural philosophers") generally believed in Aristotle's scheme which (logically enough) held that things on earth were radically different from things above the moon. On earth there was change, decay, development, and life, whilst above the moon everything was changeless. This was never held as a part of Christian dogma, but it was what people believed for what seemed good observational reasons.

In 1543 Canon Nicholas Copernicus published his mathematical system with the earth as one of six planets circling the sun. The other planets might, then, logically, be like other earths, and life might exist on them or the moon. Speculation about this began immediately. Galileo, for example, was negative but cautious about the possibility of life elsewhere. The devout Lutheran and brilliant mathematical astronomer Johannes Kepler (a Copernican who formulated the correct mathematics of our solar system in 1609-1619) wrote the first work of science fiction (Somnium) - an account of the voyage to the moon to meet the inhabitants (drafted 1609, published 1634). The devout Rev John Wilkins (master of Trinity Cambridge and later a bishop) was also a Copernican, who wrote about a voyage to the moon (Discovery) in 1638.

If you want to know more about the debate then read the book "The Extraterrestrial life Debate" by Michael J. Crowe (1986). The short of it is that, whilst some Christians opposed the idea, probably the majority - even amongst the devout and Bible- based Christians - saw no objection to it. So much was this so, that when in 1853 the learned and devout Master of Trinity College Cambridge, Rev William Whewell, wrote a book arguing for human uniqueness, he was apologetic for taking a line different from that taken by most Christians. The book produced a very critical response eg from the evangelical physicist Sir David Brewster (1781-1868), who thought it inconceivable that God would create so vast a universe and not use it for other life forms. This, indeed, was the general view of those learned Victorians who were devout.

In the twentieth century, of course, writers like the great Christian C.S.Lewis wrote various "science fiction" books, most famously "Out of the Silent Planet" (1938), writing fictionally of life on other planets.

One issue which Christians have raised since 1543 is whether, if there is INTELLIGENT life elsewhere, it too is "in the image of God". If so, then has this life fallen into sin? If so, then would Jesus' death on this planet bring them forgiveness, or would God have to become incarnate on each planet on which there were fallen life forms? Opinions on this have differed, though realistically it seems impossible to imagine that we could have information to answer it, and frankly it is really none of our business anyway. The Scripture is not written to satisfy our idle curiosity, but to "tell us our own story".

As far as concerns theology, then, the majority view of Christian thinkers since the subject was first raised has been that there are some issues but no particular problems for theology if life exists elsewhere. Whether it actually DOES exist is another question. Life involves replicating systems, and the basic chemistry (which since Newton we have assumed pretty well is that which operates throughout our universe) would indicate that these can be built only using a carbon base, and that water is pretty well essential to life. Venus, though similar is shape and size to ours, is very inhospitable, and probably never open to life. Mars has raised most speculation. The current probes, particularly the "Discovery" which sent back results earlier this year, have discovered fairly good indications that water has been a feature of Mars. It could possibly have held microbes at one time - though few if any believe that intelligent life has ever existed on Mars or any other of our solar system planets. We are, however, in process of discovering that other stars besides our sun have planets. The main way of telling this is that the mutual gravity of a large planet (eg our own Jupiter) and its sun cause a "wobble" in the sun's position, and several of these have been observed. It should be noted, however, that the conditions for life are fairly precise. Our planet has water, the right kind of range of temperatures, and a good system in which the big outer planets (Jupiter and Saturn) "sweep up" the incoming comets and stop them annihilating life on earth too often.

At my own university we had a big international conference around the day of the transit of Venus (8th June), and, when, pressed, one eminent scientist who was giving a talk on other planets, gave as his own view that we will probably turn out to be unique. Certainly this is not a silly view to take at the preset time - though it is not necessary to take this view in order to be a devout Christian.

Coming back to the question your non-Christian friend asked, the suggestion that extra terrestrial life would disprove "everything written in the Bible" is simply not tenable. I personally have an open view on whether or not God has created intelligent life elsewhere, but I know of nothing in the Bible which would indicate that God has not done so. There are, as you say, innumerable galaxies, and if there is life elsewhere in one of them it is extremely unlikely to affect us. Dr Paul Marston

Question submitted by: Matthew on 29.08.2005
The question asked was:

Scibel's response is:

1. The selective breeding of Jacob and Laban's flocks:

There are in effect two versions of this story – perhaps the J version in Genesis 30 and the E version in Genesis 31. I believe that these are complementary: 30 indicates Jacob’s actions and 31 his understanding that it was really God who was at work in prospering him.

Jacob is dealing with the slippery Laban, who is effectively refusing to let him and his family depart. Usually goats are black and sheep white (or what passes for it in dusty Israel). What Jacob proposes is that Laban remove any with speckles (or white lines on their fetters) and leave the pure colours. Then Jacob will attend these pure coloured ones, and will take for his wages only any that are born speckled. We can ask concerning the branches etc he set up:

1. Did it have any actual genetic effects?
2. Does Scripture ascribe the results to the effects of the rods?
3. What was in his own mind – was it an unscientific view of genetics
4. What was the real reason for his prospering?

(1) Clearly any visual input during mating has no effect on offspring. If speckled animals resulted from pure colours, it may be likely that recessive genes were involved. My daughter once illustrated this by breeding gerbils! The black gene seems to be recessive, so if two black are bred you always get black because it indicates two black genes. A brown gerbil can have either two brown or a black and a brown gene. However, this means that if you breed two brown gerbils who have one of each gene, you have a one in four chance that the two black genes will coincide in which case a black one will result. Possibly the striped and speckled animals were effectively resulting from recessive genes, and were hybrids. The only way in which the striped posts could have any effect at all would be if it affected the selectivity of the mating process, and encouraged the hybrids to breed together. The wording is not entirely clear, but there is some possibility that hybrids were stronger and bolder and if the rods acting as a scaring mechanism it is just conceivable that they could increase the tendency of these stronger hybrid sheep and goats to breed together nearer the water in spite of the posts – and for recessive genes to manifest.

(2) The difficulty is whether the words “and so” and “thus” are to indicate cause, or just what happened. Literally it just says that he made the strong ones mate near the rods and then adds “and the feeble ones have been Laban's, and the strong ones Jacob's”. Scripture, then, does not clearly assert that Jacob’s actions were the determining effects – and Genesis 31 comments on where the main cause was.

(3) Scripture simply does not tell us why Jacob set these striped rods up, it just says that he made the strong ones mate near the rods. Clearly Jacob did not understand Mendelian genetics, so from his viewpoint it is unlikely to have been genetic knowledge. It could have been an unscientific and wrong view of genetics, but it could simply have been either a response to the leading of God or some kind of acted appeal to God. It could, just conceivably, have been based on some kind of observation of the results of breeding over many long years tending the flocks, that the bolder stronger animals if they bred with each other produced more mixed colour animals. Whatever the reason, it would seem from 31 that Jacob was doing whatever he was doing in recognition that in the end it was God who determined the results.

(4) The Gen 31 text reads:

5 and said to them, "I see that your father does not regard me as
favourably as he did before. But the God of my father has been with me.

6 You know that I have served your father with all my strength;

7 yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times, but God

did not permit him to harm me.

8 If he said, 'The speckled shall be your wages,' then all the flock bore

speckled; and if he said, 'The striped shall be your wages,' then all the

flock bore striped.

9 Thus God has taken away the livestock of your father, and given them to me.

10 During the mating of the flock I once had a dream in which I looked up

and saw that the male goats that leaped upon the flock were striped,

speckled, and mottled.

11 Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, 'Jacob,' and I said,

'Here I am!'

12 And he said, 'Look up and see that all the goats that leap on the

flock are striped, speckled, and mottled; for I have seen all that Laban

is doing to you.

13 I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to

me. Now leave this land at once and return to the land of your birth.'"

Genesis 31 is presented as a vision – not as what actually happened (the speckled rams had already been moved out by Laban). God is inviting Jacob to look and see with the eyes of faith and vision not what is literally happening, but what God is doing. If you really want to stretch it you could say that God is looking on the genes which are speckled and mottled, and he is ensuring that mainly the hybrids breed! Apparently Laban kept changing the ground rules, and here Jacob recognises that whatever the purpose of his striped rod stratagem it is GOD who has stopped Laban from cheating him by ensuring that the animals produced meet whatever criteria Laban tries to set.

2. The sun and moon stand still:

For many years I have believed that the problems perceived with this passage are based on a misunderstanding of what it means. God could, assuming he is omnipotent, have literally stopped the universe for a few hours to extend Joshua’s day for him, but I simply don’t think this is what the text means.

The Hebrew word can either mean “be motionless” or “be silent” (cf the Butler Word commentary on Joshua). I have always understood it to be the latter. What is recorded is a surprise attack just before dawn, where God extended the half-light darkness to increase the panic amongst the enemies. This really darkened sky was associated with a hailstorm of gigantic proportions (hailstones can be 2 inches across in that area). The sun was “silent” and “hasted not to go in - as a perfect day'. An unnaturally extended darkness and horrific hailstorm must have been pretty scary for Israel’s enemies, and the compiler is emphasizing the point that God was fighting the battle for them. The words “there has never been a day like it…” are simply Hebrew hyperbole, they are no more intended as a scientific statement than Jesus’ words about the mustard seed giving rise to the “greatest of all trees”. Of course Jesus knew that really there were bigger trees, it is just as when someone says: “last week my brother caught the biggest fish you ever saw!” We would not criticise them because in fact the said brother had not caught a great white shark.

3. Jesus' temptation on the mountain:

I really don’t see a problem with this at all, though it is a verse in the past that I have had controversy over with supposed biblical literalists. I have very little time for biblical literalism – it is not only associated with unlikely science but it is at fundamental variance with the way in which Jesus himself used language. This is explored eg in my book Understanding the Biblical Creation Passages”.

The educated first century world, of course, knew that the earth was round. The ancient Greeks had measured its size, and the kind of nonsense you find in the media (eg that in the days of Columbus people thought it was flat) are pure fantasy (fuelled by Columbus’ 19thC American biography who invented the tale to spice up his book!). It seems fairly likely that Paul – fluent in Greek and well educated in Helenistic thinking – would have known that the earth was round, and even more likely that Luke (a Macedonian physician) would have known this. Even without this, Israel based Jews would know perfectly well that even from Israel’s highest mountains one could not see eg Parthia. In any case, what Jesus is being shown is not the physical geography but the “kingdoms”. You can’t see kingdoms physically, and no one in the first century would imagine that you could literally see all their “splendour” – one would need not only incredible eyesight but X ray vision as well to see inside the palaces. Plainly the gospel writers intend us to understand that Satan gave Jesus a vision from this high vantage point. Modern writers might refer to being on the top of Everest as being “at the top of the world” – but this does not mean they think the world has a literal top. All of us, on very high mountains or from aeroplanes, may get that feeling of a broad perspective, and Satan utilised this to give Jesus a vision of all the world’s kingdoms. The writer did not mean it to be taken crassly literally. This does not mean that it is a “parable”, for a parable is a story which may have no bases in historical events but which tells us some spiritual lesson. Jesus really did go up the mountain, he really did look out on a fantastic panorama, and he really was given at that point a vision (it says “Satan showed him” – not that he could see for himself!) of the power and the splendour of worldly kingdoms. Again, it would be crass literalism to imagine that he saw every one individually, this is just not how we use language. We may eg say that David Beckham is famous throughout the world – but doubtless there are parts of it where no one has ever heard of him.

I think that the basic point on this one is the way in which we use language. I have read many sceptics arguments which are based on the assumption that language in Scripture is being used fundamentally differently from the way in which we commonly use it in everyday speech. There are of course literary genres, but the supposition that biblical language is uniquely literalist if both mistaken and can be demonstrated to be so from Scripture itself and the way in which Jesus uses language.

If we compare eg the vision of the kingdoms with the virgin birth, we find that something quite different is involved. All the details of the account make it clear that Mary really was a virgin, she really did have a vision of an angel, and she did not have sex until after Jesus was born. It is the context that indicates whether any particular word is being used literally or not. The illustration IO often use in class is that I say “I am broken hearted that the technician broke his promise not to mend the broken projector for me.” The same word is used once literally and twice metaphorically. Likewise, when Luke says “the found not the body” this is literal, but when he says “take eat, this is my body” it is not (I hope you aren’t a Catholic – but to me “this is my body” is on the same level as “I am the vine”). It is context that indicates whether something is being used (i) literally (they found not the body) (ii) metaphorically (take eat this is my body) or (iii) in common speech which may involve hyperbole (it will become the greatest of all trees). Sometimes it is not clear which sense is intended (and Jesus’ hearers often “took him literally” when he was speaking symbolically) though usually the literary and cultural context will indicate this to us. Often the same word can have very different meanings Eg “God made the world” “love not the world” “God so loved the world” “the whole world went up to be taxed”(but not Parthia which was never conquered by Rome). Language is a complex thing.

I understand, then, the virgin birth literally (it doesn’t seem any great deal to me), and likewise the walking on the water. Having seen the a lame person walk and a deaf one hear in my own church during the last year this does not seem all that difficult for God.

Question submitted by: Milton Picon on Saturday September 20, 2003

Subject: Life Sciences

Scibel's response is:

I take it that you are referring your question here to mamallian life, and perhaps in particular human life? Plainly trees, flowers and amoeba are “alive” and do not reproduce by “conception”.

The basic technicalities of the process are as follows:

(1) Being Human

All cells of living beings contain DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) which are special to the type of organism and unique to the particular organism. Human cells – in sperm, ova, and any other human product are fully human .

(2) Fertilisation

In natural conditions, the ripe ovum is expelled from the ovary by rupture of the follicle and is in the fallopian tube where it migrates toward the uterus. En route it meets the sperm which will fertilize it. As soon as the sperm enters it (normally at least) its wall becomes impervious, and none of the other sperm there can enter it.

(3) Morula (blackberry)

The fertilised ovum (zygote) divides over the next few days as it travels up fallopian tube. At three days a “morula” of sixteen cells.

(4) Blatocyst

By Day 6 it is a multi-cell blatocyst

Between day 6 to day 13 it is embedding in the uterus wall. Late in this time it may divide to form identical twins – genetically identical except in mitochondria.

(5) Embedded

Day 14 – by Day 14 it has been decided whether the entity is to be one person or twins, and it has become embedded in the uterus wall.

It is because normal fertilization occurs in a tube, with ovum and sperm floating freely inside the liquid, that test tube babies are possible. Indeed, in vitro fertilization uses a tube of glass instead of a tube of living tissue, but the process is, in other respects, identical. Fertilisation, as such, does not depend on the woman in the same way as it is dependent aftr the completion of embedding at 14 days.

This is partly why, in British law, there are much stricter rules on what can and cannot be done on embryos after the 14 days. I am not defending British law (the present abortion laws seem to me in some instances to be licensed murder) but to note that the Warnock committee noted and what was used in framing the laws on embryo experimentation.

The Christian Views of the Process

Some biblical data:

• Job 10:8-11: Your hands made me and fashioned me…etc
• Jer 1:5: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you…
• Gal 1:15: It pleased God who separated me from my mother’s womb…
• Lk 1:15 he shall be filled with the spirit even from his mother’s womb…
• This really tells us little. “From the womb” means after birth, and none of this says anything about the time at which it becomes a person. Jeremiah says before he was formed in the womb!
• Luke 1:41: It happened that, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary that the babe [John the Baptist] leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit… At this point John is a six month (24 week) old foetus (note verse 24) – this is possibly 4-7 weeks after the “quickening”.

Discussion

So the first basic question we can ask is:

Is there a time at which the blatocyst/embryo/foetus is “ensouled” and becomes a full human person?

Actually the concept of a “soul” is not clear in Scripture. A person is a soul, they do not “have” one. The “spirit” is the “breath” and this does not happen until after birth.

There is, then, no clear time in Scripture – though it would seem to be before 24 weeks if John the baptist is indicative.

Some Christians argue that people like Job/Jeremiah speak of themselves as being “in the womb” so they must already be full persons from fertilisation. This is dubious.

Looking back it was “me” – just as the separate sperm and ovum were “me” (in a manner of speaking). At one stage I was a twinkle in my dad’s eye – but had he decided to remain celibate it would not have been my murder!

The second basic question is:

Is “conception” something which happens to the embryo or to the woman?

Note first that actually many blatocysts do not reach implantation.Also, until implantation it may turn out to be twins – so it cannot be said to be already an individual person.

The bible seems always to speak of the woman as conceiving, not the baby. The fertilisation does not even take place “in the womb”, which is where the Bible says the baby is “formed”.

All this leads many of us to conclude that it is the time of implantation (around 12-14 days) which is the time of “conception”, and that “conception” is something which happens to the woman in her womb when the embryo is implanted.

Beginnings of Life

You ask about the beginning of life, and I am not entirely sure that I can answer this question, because it does not seem to me that the Bible quite thinks in this way. Eternal life begins when we accept the Lord Jesus as our personal saviour and we are born anew into the family of God. Yet many Christians are unable to say exactly the moment when this happens. In physical life I cannot really say that the millions of sperm produced are “alive” – though in one sense they are. The newly fertilised ovum carries both DNA strands, and in one sense is “alive” – though it has not yet been determined whether it is one life/person or two. In Animal experiments the entity can be artificially divided at this stage to form two organisms. In that sense, then, the 7 day old blatocyst is “alive” but it not necessarily a unique individual “life”. It becomes that only after about 12-14 days, after conception.

Hope this helps. Dr Paul Marston

Question submitted by: Jack

Subject: Life Sciences

Scibel's response is:

You have actually asked a number of questions here, and the answers are not all related.

The first question concerns whether scientists have as yet been able to make life. A virus is not, in one sense “alive” because it requires another life form to survive. It is a simpler mechanism than (say) a bacteria, though it is, of course, still very complex compared with a simple inorganic molecule. The problem with the question is that it is not exactly clear what you are asking. In one sense genetic engineering is “making life”, though of course it uses already existing materials. In one sense breeding animals is “making life”. If you are meaning to ask whether scientists have as yet assembled a living being by individually placing atoms into a structure (like building a lego model from individual bits) then the answer is no. There are, however, very few today who would believe that this cannot in principle be done. No one believes that there is some kind of mysterious “life force” which only God can make and slip into each living animal. This, however, does not answer the question you really seem to be interested in, which is whether life originally arose “naturally” or be some supernatural design process. But to say that new life today could be created using great (human) intelligence and careful artificial construction, does not in any way challenge the view that God (in whose image we are made) originally did something much the same. The most ardent of modern “young-earth creationists”, who believes that God individually designed each original “kind” of animal by a rapid and supernatural process, need not deny that a modern scientist could repeat the process using his or her God-given intelligence.

Your second question is whether life could “survive the big bang”. Perhaps you do not entirely understand what modern science is saying. In 1927, the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître was the first to propose that the universe began with the explosion of a primeval atom, and this developed into the “big bang” theory. Before the big bang there was no time, no space, no matter, nothing (except possibly quantum reality or perhaps a “singularity”). The big bang (about 12 billion years ago) created large numbers of photons of energy, some of the photons became quarks, and then the quarks formed neutrons and protons. Eventually huge numbers of Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium nuclei formed. These came together under gravity to form stars and galaxies, and in the stars nuclear reactions formed heavier elements. Exploding stars threw out these heavier elements into space, and after cooling these elements came together (again under gravity) to form planets. Theoretical predictions about the amounts and types of elements formed during the big bang have been made and seem to agree with observation. Furthermore, the cosmic microwave background (CMB), a theoretical prediction about photons left over from the big bang, was discovered in the 1960's and mapped out by a team at Berkeley in the early 1990's. The other major element of evidence is the “red shift” in light from distance stars, which seems to indicate that they are going away from us. During the 1990’s the evidence for all this has built up.

Following this, the general view of science was summarised in my 1995 book Christianity, Evidence and Truth as follows:

• The matter arising from the big bang began a complex system in which stars and galaxies form and develop in predictable ways.
• Our solar system formed some 4-5 billion years ago (the earth about 4.6 billion) by mechanisms still under dispute

• Life began with tiny micro-organisms 3.5-4 billion years ago. Multicellular animals began around 700 million years ago. Land colonisation began some 425 million years ago.
• Varieties of living creatures evolved. Mutations in genetic codes (DNA) were occasionally beneficial and enabled the animals bearing those mutated genes better to survive and pass the genes on. This process of ‘natural selection’ led to accumulated changes and a divergence of life forms increasingly specialised to fit particular niches in a natural environment itself subject to change. This process is broadly reflected in the sequence of fossils in the geological strata.
• Mankind evolved, probably through a fairly narrow ‘bottleneck’ in geologically recent time, with modern man appearing sometime in the last 100,000 years.

No scientist has ever suggested that life could “survive the big bang”, they think it evolved after it.

Now concerning what God told Moses.

Firstly, concerning life on other worlds. I cannot find anywhere in the Genesis accounts which states that God only made life here and not anywhere else. The church has never taught that life existed only here, and in the mid 19^th century when William Whewell (a Christian) wrote a book claiming that this was the only place to have intelligent life he was very apologetic to his fellow believers. A book disagreeing with him was written by the famous evangelical Christian and physicist David Brewster – most Christians believed that there was life elsewhere, and certainly there is no biblical reason to suggest otherwise.

Secondly, on the time spans. If we understand the nature of the teaching of Jesus, he frequently spoke in a picture language or symbolic way. Time and again both his friends and his enemies thought we was “speaking literally” when actually he was not (see Mk 15:29, Jn 2:19-21 Jn 3:4, Jn 4:11, Jn 4:33, Jn 6:33-4, Jn 6:52 etc). When he spoke about the Sabbath he did not “take it literally” that the day was simply to commemorate God having a rest (as though God literally needed a rest anyway). ”. Genesis 2:3 quite clearly says that God “blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he rested from all His work which God had created and made.” This is repeated in Ex.20:11, making it quite clear that the Sabbath was made becaseu God rested on the seventh day. Yet Jesus says in Mark 2:27: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” There is nothing about the motive being just to commemorate God having a rest. Since I take Jesus to be the guide on how to approach the Old Testament, therefore, I approach the creation accounts entirely open to the idea that some of the language used may be intended symbolically. The great early teachers like Origen and Augustine (3^rd and 5^th centuries – well before modern geology) though that the text itself indicated that the “days” were not literal 24 hour periods. The insistence that the “days” are literal is a largely 20^th century idea, originating in America – the church did not believe this for most of its history. God’s intention in revealing the creation accounts to Moses was not to teach him biology. The account, for example, of the serpent in the garden of Eden, who lost his legs and started to eat dust, is not about the biology of snakes. The church has always take it that this was about the conflict of God with Satan – the “great serpent”. When the Genesis prophecy came true about “you shall bruise his heel and he will crush your head” it did not imply that anyone crushed literal snakes – it was about the triumph of Jesus the “seed of the woman” over Satan on the cross. God neither gave Moses a biology lesson on snakes nor an astrophysics lesson on galaxy origins. I am a senios lecturer in a university department of physics and astronomy. One of my colleagues is an evangelical Christian and an expert of solar physics (ie the sun). The Biblical description of the sun as a “great lamp” made on the fourth day was not to help him with his solar physics, but to downgrade the sun and moon (also described as a “lamp”) from the gods they were considered to be by so many of Moses’ contemporaries. They are not gods but merely “lamps” – not even made until the fourth day. But to try to make this into physics would be like the woman in John 4 asking “Where’s your bucket?” Jesus was not talking about physical water, she was missing the point.

You say that you doubt that God would have any reason to leave out the details. So exactly how much detail would you want? Would you want him, for example, to include all the solar physics my friend and colleague at my university is exploring – complete with the various mathematical equations? Would you have liked to open your Bible and find a set of Schrodinger equations from physics in the first chapter? How about the complete human genetic code, with all the bases stated? Do you yourself understand “time” in the sense that Einstein’s general theory of relativity implies – and if not would you have liked to have to read through the complex equations which formulate it before getting into anything else in the Bible? The details which are given are not to teach us physics but theology. The universe is an orderly place, designed and intended by God. We are made in the image of God – we have cognitive language, morality and the ability to enter uniquely “personal” relationships (as Genesis 1-2 indicates). Understood in its proper context the creation accounts in Genesis are crucial to our understanding of ourselves and our place in the universe – but they are not biology and physics textbooks. What the Bible does tell us is that to God a thousand years is as one day. Whether the universe existed millions of years or hours before the first man and woman arrived is not the most relevant thing to our understanding of what God wanted (and wants) from us.

What we do find from Genesis is that mankind is not living as God intended, because of sin. The account of the serpent is not to teach us biology, but that to defeat Satan and the powers of evil (including the “brood of vipers” which John said opposed Jesus) Jesus (the “seed of the woman”) had to die on the cross. Mankind was cast out of Eden and the place of direct fellowship with God. To get back into that relationship with God that he intended, we today have to accept personally that sacrifice of Jesus, and turn to him in repentance and faith. This is the real message brought to us by the creation accounts and by the New Testament.

Hope this helps.

Dr Paul Marston

Dear Dr. Marston,
Thank you for replying to my last question about origins of life. Sorry for the many related questions, but this is obviously a complicated matter. You made mention that life began with tiny microrganisms 3.5 - 4 billion years ago by mechanisms still under dispute. I thank you for your honesty, by adding still under dispute. My question to you is this: Is it at least possible that God created the universe in 6 days some 8-10 thousand years ago, and that He created it with the signs (amounts and types of elements, a cosmic microwave background, left over photons, existing red shift, etc)? Is that possible? I think it would silly to think that God would create a star by lighting a ball of gas, then having to wait several billion years while the ligt rays fanned out before He could create any new life. That seems like a god with many limitations. I was concerned about one other thing. Is there a reason why when you refer to God, in your response, that you didn't capitalize God? Is He not worthy of even a capital letter, like my or your name would be writen? Am I reading too much into your reference point for your conclusions? Jack Jackson - Founder Minister Where You Are

Dear Jack,
Firstly the easy question. There was no reason at all for me not to capitalise God other than poor typing. You will find that in my current two books (which are 476 and 386 pages respectively) God is always capitalised (unless in context of the god of this world etc). I don’t tend to capitalise pronouns, but this is purely personal style as in England this tends no longer to be done, irrespective of the piety of the writer. Obviously I tend to take less typing care in a personal response rather than a book, but I will make a note to spellcheck for capitalised God in future to avoid any possible misunderstanding. You spell ligt and writen wrongly in your question though I suspect no theological motive.

Now the real question about time spans. One interesting book is that called Cosmic Coincidences by atheists Martin Rees (British astronomer Royal) and John Gribbin. They actually note the number of independent and amazing “coincidences” in physical constants which are all essential for us to be in an inhabitable universe. They put this down (very implausibly) to the existence of multiverses – myriads of alternative universes – so that we are around in one that happens to be inhabitable. In my book Reason, Science and Faith (published by Wipf and Stock), we note the following:

People sometimes ask why would a God have made such a gigantic universe or kept it empty for so long before creating mankind. Gribbin and Rees (who are atheists) actually make the point that, in order for stars to generate the elements needed for us, both the size and time were needed:

Given the laws of physics that operate in our universe, all those billions of stars and billions of light years are necessary for our existence.

If, to God, there is sequence but not time as we know it, then not just a thousand but a million years is as one day. The choice of law-like preparation for us (and for any other sentient beings created in this universe in his image) carried the decision of a particular time-frame in our reference.

I do not believe that God has limitations, and would have no problem with the idea of him creating everything in six periods of twenty four hours if he wanted to. OI don’t think that God “had to wait” for things to happen, but he may have chosen to do so. The question is not what he could do but what he chose to do. You will probably be aware that in the nineteenth century Philip Henry Gosse wrote a book called Omphalos. This began by asking whether Adam had a navel or not – obviously he didn’t need one in order to be attached to his mother as he never had one. Gosse answered that of course he did. in other words, all miracles involve creating an apparent history. The wine which our Lord miraculously made out of water looked as though it had come from grapes. So, Gosse argued, that geologists were finding was not the actual geological remains of millions of years, but the apparent remains of an apparent history created by god in six literal days. Philosophically this is unassailable. As I think Russell remarked, we could all have come into existence a half hour ago complete with memories and socks which needed darning. The reason why his ideas did not find wide acceptance was that it just seemed a bit OTT for God to crated quite such an elaborate apparent history. It would be as though, when a miraculous healing was done today, all the hospital records were miraculously changed to a non-serious prognosis at the same time.

What should Christians believe about the timespans of the universe? Firstly, I do not believe that the six days are literal. My reasons for this are primarily exegetical rather than scientific. The most renowned of the early Greek Christian theologians Origen (182-251) connoted that the sun was made on the third day and concluded that the writer clearly intended us to take the days as a symbolic framework, not literally. The great Latin father Augustine (354-430) wrote a book called Genesis in the Literal Sense. He certainly believed that Genesis was historical, but did not believe in the literality of the six days – speaking about angelic days and morning and evening knowledge. Throughout most of church history most main theologians did not take –in the twentieth century from the Seventh Day Adventists who had obvious reasons to emphasize the literality. In my previous reply to you I noted that Jesus on the whole was not literal, and that he did not seem to take literally the idea of God actually needing a rest on the seventh day and commemorating it with a Sabbath.

Obviously the creation accounts in the Bible do not teach us that the universe is The creation accounts in the bible are not there to teach us science – neither astrophysics nor the biology of snakes. I don’t think that they tell us the time spans – but I do agree with Origen that there are indications that the days were not meant literally. For one thing the account in ch 1 has six days, in 2:4 has “THE day”. The order in ch.1 is with male and female mankind last, in ch.2 the order is man, plants, animals and then woman. This is not a “contradiction” because the human Genesis writer was not stupid and knew perfectly well that the two accounts had different orders and timescales. The point is that the orders and timescales were not the central point – it was the theological significance which was central – and the accounts are to bring out different points.

I would require very strong scientific evidence to abandon the age old understanding of the church that the six days were not literal, and such evidence is certainly not forthcoming. Genesis itself does not tell us how old the universe is, and if we worship a great God to whom a thousand years is as one day then we will not want to limit him by thinking of him as getting impatient as his plans unfolded over billions of years. To do so would be to reduce him to being like us – easily bored, distracted or changed.

It does seem to me that the scientific evidence against a recent creation is now very strong. I happen to have a lot of expertise in nineteenth century geology, which was mostly developed by a mixture of devout and nominal Christians – which included neither atheists nor evolutionists. They could not put an actual timespan on it, but by about (say) 1856 there were no leading theologians or scientists who thought it was a few thousand years old. David Brewster, for example, thought it might be a million or so (though he was later critical of Darwin whose Origin of Species was published in 1858) because Darwin wanted billions. Some of the assumptions of the radiometric dating methods which put actual years on it in the twentieth century may be dodgy, but none of that affects the main finding that it is very old. Astrophysics was also developed by men amongst whom were those prominent in Christian faith (Herschel, Huggins, Maunder etc), again with no anti-God ax to grind. Again the evidence for an ancient universe is very strong indeed, and in no ways depends on “evolution” or atheistic assumptions. It is, of course, always possible¸ that they could all be wrong, and that most of the science which has developed over the last 400 years is all mistaken, but I don’t think it likely. The empirical basis is now much too strong. This is not to say that elements of it may not turn out to need amending. Neither science nor theology are infallible, because both are human activities however much we may seek God’s help in doing them. But I cannot really see why anyone would find it very likely to expect such a massive “wrong turning” in so much of science. Certainly not because it is in conflict with the Bible, because I don’t think it is. Amongst my friends there are professors of astrophysics, genetics, geology, etc who are all devout Christians, and find no conflict. All that science can ever do is to tell us the probable way in which God did things – it cannot provide us with any kind of alternative meanings or morality or set of values. When the bible says God creates the winds it does not deny that he does it through natural processes. We do not worship Zeus who is a god alongside natural forces, we worship the God who is the author and sustainer of natural forces.

Perhaps if you really want to pursue this further you might get hold of our book Reason, Science and Faith. I am not sure what kind of ministry you have in “Minister Where You Are”, but I hope that what I have written may be of help to you.

Dr Paul Marston