If evolution is true, is Christianity false? Were Adam and Eve real people or mythic figures? Are we fallen bearers of the divine image or just adolescent animals?
In previous posts we have explored C.S. Lewis‘ views of Scripture in general (here and here), and his view that Genesis 1 is ancient mythology in particular (here and here). Now we turn to Lewis’ take on Genesis 2 & 3, and the Christian doctrine of the Fall, subjects which he treats at length in the fifth chapter of his book The Problem of Pain.
Lewis makes it quite clear that he takes the Eden story, as he takes the first chapter of Genesis, to be sacred mythology. It is worthy of reverence, contemplation, and theological reflection but is not, in his estimation, strictly historical. It narrates deep truths about the human condition but not necessarily historical facts about the first humans.
The story in Genesis is a story (full of the deepest suggestion) about a magic apple of knowledge; but in the developed doctrine [of the Fall] the inherent magic apple has quite dropped out of sight, and the story is simply one of disobedience. I have the deepest respect even for Pagan myths, still more for myths in Holy Scripture. I therefore do not doubt that the version which emphasises the magic apple, and brings together the trees of life and knowledge, contains a deeper and subtler truth than the version which makes the apple simply an solely a pledge of obedience. But I assume that the Holy Spirit would not have allowed the latter to grow up in the Church and win the assent of great doctors unless it also was true and useful so far as it went. It is this version which I am going to discuss, because, though I suspect the primitive version to be far more profound, I know that I, at any rate, cannot penetrate its profundities.
Whatever its theological profundities, though, Lewis is clear that Genesis 2-3 is probably not a straightforward narrative of historical events. ”What exactly happened when Man fell, we do not know,” he later writes. ”We have no idea in what particular act, or series of acts, the self-contradictory, impossible wish [to be our own masters] found expression. For all I can see, it might have concerned the literal eating of a fruit, but the question is of no consequence.”
What, then, is of consequence, we might ask? The real story of the Fall, says Lewis, is not the surface narrative about “the magic apple,” but rather the depraved condition of humankind:
According to [the doctrine of the Fall], man is now a horror to God and to himself and a creature ill-adapted to the universe not because God made him so but because he has made himself so by the abuse of his free will. To my mind this is the sole function of the doctrine.
You might call this the “Mere Depravity” view of the Fall.
Throughout the chapter Lewis displays a remarkable degree of comfort with evolutionary accounts of human origins. But for Lewis evolution is no real objection to the Christian doctrine of the Fall, or, at any rate, to the Fall taken as mere depravity.
Many people think that this proposition [that we are fallen creatures] has been proved false by modern science. ”We now know,” it is said, “that so far from having fallen out of a primeval state of virtue and happiness, men have slowly risen from brutality and savagery.” There seems to me to be a complete confusion here…. If by saying that man rose from brutality you mean simply that man is physically descended from animals, I have no objection. But it does not follow that the further back you go the more brutal–in the sense of wicked or wretched–you will find man to be.
Lewis goes on to note that the categories of virtue and vice simply do not apply to the animal kingdom–and therefore not to our pre-human ancestors either–because animals as such are not moral agents. Moreover, Prehistoric man is not to be presumed to be altogether reprobate simply on account of using only rudimentary tools and the like. Being primitive ought not be confused with being sinful. Who knows? Perhaps, the first bearers of the divine image were more like neanderthals than like modern humans?
I do not doubt that if the Paradisal man could now appear among us, we should regard him as an utter savage, a creature to be exploited or, at best, patronised. Only one or two, and those the holiest among us, would glance a second time at the naked, shaggy-bearded, slow spoken creature: but they, after a few minutes, would fall at his feet.
It should be born in mind, too, that Lewis’ mere depravity view of the Fall does not commit him to a historic first human pair going wrong at an easily identifiable moment.
We do not know how many of these creatures God made, nor how long they continued in the Paradisal state. But sooner or later they fell.
All that matters for Lewis is that God made humans (perhaps via evolution, perhaps not) and that we humans have gone quite wrong–so wrong, in fact, that it is beyond our powers to repair ourselves.
I will have more to say soon about Lewis’ account of the Fall, but I am curious as to your thoughts. Is mere depravity a sufficient account of human fallenness? Why or why not? For my part, I think Lewis demonstrates that whether such an account is ultimately satisfactory or not, it ought to at least be considered a legitimate evangelical theological option.
In any case, if you’re a Christian who’s beginning to think that Genesis 2-3 isn’t “historical” (whatever that means) or that evolution might be more than “just a theory,” fear not. You’re standing with C.S. Lewis, the dean of modern Christian apologists and one of the best Christian thinkers of the last century, and that’s not so bad.
Great post. It warms the cockles of my cynical heart whenever I come across Christians doing good work in the Triangle.
Posted by Jeremiah | June 13, 2012, 12:59 amThanks, Jeremiah! I’m glad you liked it.
Posted by dmwilliams83 | June 13, 2012, 7:43 amAnother hit over the fence.
The Dino Adam & Eve graphic is fabulous! (This may be the only time I’ve ever used the adjective that it’s been both literal and figurative. How cool.)
Posted by Nan Bush | June 13, 2012, 8:09 amThanks, Nan! I love that graphic, too. You coming to the Triangle anytime this summer?
Posted by dmwilliams83 | June 13, 2012, 8:30 amSolely due to individuals freely making bad choices? No, I don’t think so: there are structural problems, which is where the requirement for grace comes in. Men of good will working together cannot solve all problems. In the myth, due to having been expelled from Eden to which we were perfectly fitted (adapted) into a much more complicated world.
Posted by Marshall | June 13, 2012, 7:11 pmYeah, I don’t think Lewis disagrees with you and I’ll probably need to clarify that in my next post. He seems to see the Fall as a sort of Pandora’s box type of thing: once sin was released upon our race, it was beyond our capacities to get it back in the bottle. And I think he would say that that goes for both the evil indwelling the hearts of individuals and the evil built into the very structures of our world. Does that sound better?
Posted by dmwilliams83 | June 13, 2012, 7:23 pmI think Lewis is on the right track towards something in considering the “apple” not to really be of consequence, in considering the potentials of Genesis as myth. From there, though, I find the conjecture a bit untenable – if man was savage before his/her “fall” – even more savage than after the “fall” – then “the fall” really means nothing at all than the construct of a morality, and one that does not fit the creature for whom it was intended. While there is some possibility there, it seems to lack something too.
I think the problem here is trying to work “the fall” into some sort of timeline. Like supposing it marks a “time” in human history when all the sudden, the animal that preceded the “man” became sentient, and with that, became morally aware. While the tree of “knowledge of Good and Evil” seems to mildly suggest this, I think as myth this story should be freed from the timeline approach.
Instead, I think the story to be timeless. It does not stand as a moment in history, it stands rather as an explanation of condition. There are ALWAYS a set of trees to be chosen from, both in the garden in Genesis, and in the subtleties of eating shewbread when it is forbidden, and in the extremities of choosing the Spirit instead of the law in Galatians. Genesis is not time oriented, it is condition oriented. “IN the beginning” happens not just once in the Bible, but explicity three times (2 times in Genesis – and once in the New Testament), and less directly, many, many times throughout the spiritual language of the Bible.
Posted by Heather Goodman | June 15, 2012, 1:59 amI just discovered your blog today and love it! The C.S. Lewis articles you have are very interesting.
This topic in particular has aspects of it that have puzzled me for a while. I come from a fundamentalist and then later evangelical background. I grew up believing in a young earth and 6 literal days of creation. I eventually walked away from these views actually after having read C.S. Lewis at the end of high school and the beginning of college. I am still a Christian and have no real problem believing that the universe is 14 billion years old or that God may have used evolution to create human beings.
The one question I still have though relates to sin, death, and Paul’s relating the two together in his letters. Paul seems to suggest that death and decay has entered the world because of human sin. However, if one takes seriously the fossil record, there was clearly death and decay in this world before Homosapiens or Neaderthals ever came about. So, it leaves me wondering if God started out creating plants and creatures to die and, if so, how does this affect the broader Christian narrative about a new heaven and new earth with resurrected bodies that will live forever? What was God’s original intention for humankind if humankind had never fallen. Would they have still died? If so, why and to what end for them after that? If I held some Greco-Roman body/spirit dualism, I might be able to answer this question, but because I tend to agree with N.T. Wright (and others) that argue for an embodied existence on an embodied earth after Christ returns, I am left not being sure of how this all fits together.
If anyone has any insights on this or articles or books to refer me to, I would greatly appreciate it.
Again, keep up the good work with your blog!
Posted by David "Trigger" Steinbrenner | June 15, 2012, 5:27 pmThe way I’ve always reconciled that is that “death and decay” wasn’t referring to physcial death, but to spiritual death. In fact, if the millions-of-years/evolution scenario is true, then if physical death wasn’t an issue for all that time, we would be standing on a layer of other living organisms; everything would have multiplied like crazy if there was no physical death.
Posted by Steve C. | June 17, 2012, 1:09 amThanks, David! I’m glad you like the blog. For your issues with Paul, I would refer you to Pete Enns’ book The Evolution of Adam which is recommended above.
I think God’s ultimate intention is for human immortality, but for now immortality is off the table because of the inevitability of human sinfulness. I think there are ways in which we might frame this that have not yet been adequately explored. For instance, think of Alvin Plantinga’s notion of “trans-world depravity,” which is the idea that in any possible world containing free moral agents, those agents will fall into sin. If that is true, then we might suppose that God would create the real world with death built into it because He foreknew that we would sin. Death would still be a logical consequence of sin, but wouldn’t be tethered to a specific historical moment, per se. That’s just one possibility for talking about the relationship between sin and death in non-historical terms and I’m sure there are more.
Posted by dmwilliams83 | June 17, 2012, 12:05 pmWhat about the genealogies in Luke 3? Doesn’t it imply that Adam was a literal person? I agree that the Genesis creation stories cannot be taken in a wooden literal way, but the genealogies in Genesis, Chronicles, and Luke (especially Luke since it includes Jesus) indicate that Adam was literal. Maybe Adam was the first covenant man.
Posted by Frank | June 17, 2012, 12:52 amThanks for commenting, Frank. Biblical genealogies are usually more theological than strictly historical in their import. I’ve talked about this with reference to Matthew’s genealogy, here: http://resurrectingraleigh.com/2012/01/19/a-word-on-the-skipped-generations-in-matthews-genealogy/
We have quite a few ancient genealogies that trace the lineages of historical persons to mythical or legendary figures, and so we shouldn’t be too surprised if the biblical writers did something similar.
All that’s to say that you’re right to raise the issue of the genealogies, but the genealogies themselves don’t really work as evidence for the historicity of the Adam story.
Posted by dmwilliams83 | June 17, 2012, 11:50 am“But it does not follow that the further back you go the more brutal–in the sense of wicked or wretched–you will find man to be.”
It might not follow in CS’s logic, but empirical research has shown that logic fails. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/books/review/the-better-angels-of-our-nature-by-steven-pinker-book-review.html?pagewanted=all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature
Posted by Mark Erickson | June 23, 2012, 12:32 amI’m not so sure about that, Mark. For one thing, Pinker’s research focuses almost exclusively on active violence and completely misses implied and passive violence. Let’s bear in mind that a large part of the “long peace” that Pinker is so impressed by was the Cold War, where the USA and the USSR more or less only avoided attacking each other because of the mutual implied threat of nuclear holocaust. That hardly bespeaks our becoming more morally evolved. I also think that the relegation of more than a billion people to grinding poverty is a sort of passive violence which Pinker doesn’t quite take into account. Humanity may be becoming more humane, generally speaking, but it seems to be quite a stretch to chalk that up to some sort of inevitable evolutionary moral progression.
Posted by dmwilliams83 | June 23, 2012, 1:32 pmFirst, Pinker doesn’t say that historical moral progression was inevitable (Robert Wright does say this) and certainly not evolutionary. He only says humanity has become more humane, as you put it. He posits reasons why this is so, not that it had to occur or that it involved natural selection.
Pinker’s work was compiling empirical research. That he was able to do it for active violence back to pre-historic times is impressive enough. Although passive and implied violence was actually covered to the extent possible – that bullying is now unacceptable is an example of moral progress. But he couldn’t cover those over the length of the human condition.
Still, your examples are poor. The Cold War was cold. Doesn’t active violence being changed to passive violence a moral progression, regardless of the cause? As for crushing poverty, previously, all humans lived in crushing poverty. Now 1/6 do. That’s progress.
Posted by Mark Erickson | June 24, 2012, 12:47 amSome of Pinker’s research and methods are pretty dubious. The simplest example is that in the FAQ on his website, he cites a death toll of 350,000 for the inquisition. This number is ludicrously high, as any expert on the Middle Ages (or even undergrad student!) would agree.
Also, he puts WWII behind the Atlantic/Middle Eastern slave trades on his death toll chart. This is apples and oranges. The slave trades spanned centuries (over a milennium in the Middle East!), while WWII took a mere six years.
Posted by Joel | June 30, 2012, 10:18 pmFinally, Pinker puts the An Lushan Revolt in China as the worst atrocity ever with 36 million dead. The problem is that he arrives at this number by subtracting by subtracting census figures from before and after the war. But Sinologists say that a large proportion of this population decline was due to a severe breakdown in centralized bureaucracy and an inability of the government to collect taxes. So the war was clearly devasating, but his figure is wildly inflated.
Posted by Joel | June 30, 2012, 10:22 pmI think in Lewis’ day evolution theory had different scope than today. It was mostly about how species evolvewd into new species and things like that. If he would be presented the contemporary model including cosmology, evolution of the mind, theories of the very beginnings and how life came from non-life etc. I think he would object at least to some of the newer additions.
I have read that some atheists think with destroying belief in historical Adam and Eve they also destroy belief in the fall, original sin and the need for a redeemer, and so undermine Christianity completely.
I do not think so, there are many who implicitly deny the ongoing fallen condition of humankind without ever touching Adam and Eve. They often do so by declaring that in the events of good friday and easter “God reconciled the whole world with himself” (or similar phrases) and mean both the offer and the consummation of reconciliation for all mankind.
“Paul insisted that when Jesus died on the cross, he was reconciling ‘all things, in heaven and on earth, to God.’ All things, everywhere (…)
This reality then isn’t something we make true about ourselves by doing something [or receiving something?]. It is already true. Our choice is to live in this new reality or cling to a reality of our own making”
(Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis)
Apart from implying human ability to choose to live in this reconciled reality (sounds strange to me) I would find an already consummated reconciliation of “all things in heaven and on earth” unreal if it allows me to still exclude myself from it (“…cling to a reality of our own making”).
Posted by gandalf | September 15, 2012, 6:57 pmI can personally see the “fall of man,” from a theistic evolutionary standpoint, as analogous to any human person and his original and actual sin concerning his loss of innocence as he moves through childhood. He is already sinful by nature, and when he is sophisticated enough to know right from wrong, he will inevitably sin later on. That “original sin,” centrally embedded in our “fallen nature,” perhaps similarly rose from the evolution and development of human civilization.
Pretty neat when you think of it.
Posted by Frank Wm Carr | September 21, 2012, 6:28 pm