pondering creation

so this just came through on an email that goes out to students from a national evangelical student ministry. i'm not sure i am comfortable with it. the reasoning just seems a bit poor. adam's story is our story, the story of the human race. does it have to be a specific person? don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily saying Adam wasn't a literal person. I just think the argument isn't the best and not just on the Adam piece. also, the attitude and sarcasm which accompany the message don't give students a good picture of how to engage in an actual personal conversation with somebody on the issue.

First off, let's get to the heart of the issue. The Creation account in Genesis is either literal and true, or symbolic and false. We can't have it both ways, folks. So let's start with the idea that it's symbolic and mainly consists of figurative language. A nice idea, but one made up by people wanting to reconcile scientific “evidence” with the Bible—so naturally they came up with a way to make the word “day” possibly mean an “age” or long period of time. The truth is that you won't find an honest Hebrew scholar that sees Genesis as symbolic.

Oh, and a couple other things. If Genesis is symbolic, then Adam and Eve are characters on par with say, Bugs Bunny or Hercules. But if that's true, then what do we do with this verse?

When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. Adam's sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. (Romans 5:12)

In my mind, it's sort of hard to build a case for original sin stemming from a make believe character. I think it was tough for Paul to imagine that too, which is why he believed in a literal Adam—therefore, a literal Genesis. Notice too that Adam's sin brought death into the world—but wait a minute…if evolution is true, then death started a long time before that—which (once again) makes Paul out to be mistaken.

So now we have a problem. If we believe that the Genesis account is literal and true, what do we do with all the “evidence” that shows for sure it couldn't have happened that way? Because, of course, the scientists were there, right? And they caught it all on a tape, which you can check out at Blockbuster. It's called “I Filmed the Big Bang, but I did not film the Adam and Eve”… (note: this is sarcasm.)

No, they weren't there, and neither was I. So I guess both of us are looking at “theories,” and I just can't go with any theory that paints the God who gave us brains in the first place out of the picture.

So here's the picture. The Bible explains the origin of life, the universe, and everything as a six day miraculous series of events. Is this scientifically possible? Nope. Not from a human standpoint, which is maybe why it took GOD to do it? Imagine, a supernatural Being doing supernatural things…who would have thunk it?

Which reminds me, don't over think this issue. Better to use your brainpower on better ways to love God and love people, which is the greatest idea ever to evolve on this planet, wouldn't you agree?