June 29, 2015

Eden Revisited #4: Humanity’s Origins

The Bible says God formed a living man from dust and Breath.  That is not very detailed.  Yet, for the last several centuries, believers have insisted on a scientific understanding of our origins that match it—it and a long list of additional stipulations.  Without the unbiblical constraints of perfectionism, science actually aligns with the Bible.

Genesis One is a wide-angle overview of everything.  God created all the animals then did “something” to make humankind into His image.  Chapter two gives a few more details as a close-up scene.  However, both chapters imply that God started with the same process to make animals (dirt) that He used for people (dust).  Humans are not separated from nature.  We are not lofty entities.  We are part of this world.  Only God’s choice makes us different from any other animal.  Even Adam had to realize that he was different.

Dust and dirt are not clay.  Genesis does not say God sculpted a human-form from clay then magically turn it into flesh and blood.  Scientifically, humans come from a long lineage of almost-humans, not-humans, and not-even-mammals.  That lineage reaches back to the first living thing.  It formed from the same molecules that make up Earth and the rest of the universe.  Dust and dirt works very well to describe that event.  The Bible leaves out all the interesting details described by science, but the two begin at the same place.

The molecules that make up RNA and DNA are easy to come by, even in space.  God constructed everything from the same building blocks.  Yet no one knows why or how such common components became cellular with the capability to eat and multiply.  Biblically it is simple.  God made creation so that it would.  Scientifically, we have a lot to learn, yet even among atheists the consensus is, life is very likely to form anywhere the right conditions occur.  If God exists, then His will designed life to arise and evolve from dust.

Genesis One says a new creation would be God’s “image.”  Genesis two and three do not use that term.  However, verse 3:22 says that the people became like God after they received the knowledge of good and evil.  Being like God in this chapter is the “image of God” from Chapter one.  God made us to become His image, yet we were not the “image,” until we were able to think like God.

To be continued:

1 comment:

  1. Love that last line, "God made us to become His image, yet we were not the “image,” until we were able to think like God."

    ReplyDelete

Please Comment