NPR recently published an article, “Evangelicals Question the Existence of Adam and Eve,” that notes a wave of evangelical scholars calling on the church to deny the historicity of an actual Adam and Eve. To remain intellectually respectable, these proponents argue, Christians should accept that evolution demonstrates humanity’s origins cannot be traced back to a single couple.
Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. offers a counter perspective, affirming an historic Adam is absolutely foundational to the Christian faith. Apart from an understanding of Adam bringing original sin into the world and infecting humanity with a sin nature, we do not understand our need for a savior, he explained, referencing such passages as Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15:
“Without Adam, the work of Christ makes no sense whatsoever in Paul’s description of the Gospel, which is the classic description of the Gospel we have in the New Testament,” Mohler says.
Those willing to accommodate to the views of modern science, however, think differently, arguing that it is not necessary to read the Bible “literally.” Dennis Venema, a biologist at Trinity Western University, is cited as holding such a view in the NPR article:
“There’s nothing to be scared of here,” Venema says. “There is nothing to be alarmed about. It’s actually an opportunity to have an increasingly accurate understanding of the world – and from a Christian perspective, that’s an increasingly accurate understanding of how God brought us into existence.”
Mohler warns toward the article’s conclusion that if Christians become willing to accommodate to the views of contemporary science they will not only fail to gain cultural respect but lose the faith itself.
“If so, that’s simply the price we’ll have to pay,” says Southern Baptist seminary’s Albert Mohler. “The moment you say ‘We have to abandon this theology in order to have the respect of the world,’ you end up with neither biblical orthodoxy nor the respect of the world.”