Creationist Views on Human Origin

Believers in God’s creation of mankind have developed a wondrous variety of interpretations through the years. For brevity we can divide them into two major positions: (1) those who hold that God created mankind comparatively recently, say, a few thousands of years ago, and (2) those who find acceptable an earlier date for Adam’s creation, say, hundreds of thousands of years ago.

The first group, those who maintain that Adam must have been created within, say, the last ten thousand years, may themselves be divided into two main branches according to how they interpret the geology and the fossil remains: (a) those who accept the geological antiquity of the earth and who therefore interpret the ancient fossil types as pre-Adamic forms: (b) those who do not accept the geological antiquity of the earth and who therefore interpret the fossil types as the descendants of a recent Adam.

Those of category 1a, who accept geological antiquity but insist upon a comparatively recent Adam, have developed quite a wide variety of interpretations. Let us begin with the most unorthodox. J. M. Clark claims that “when Adam was created and placed in Eden, the human race was already long established.… (“Genesis and Its Underlying Realities,” Faith and Thought, Vol. 93, No. 3, p. 146). To arrive at this position Clark distinguishes between the creation of the first men (Gen. 1:26) and the creation of Adam (Gen. 5:2). His entire thesis rests essentially on this distinction. He examines all the Genesis references to Adam and concludes that separate meanings are necessary, “Adam” as “mankind” and “Adam” as the man put into Eden. Both of these he finds in Genesis 5:1, 2, holding that since God called the name of the first created men “Adam” they shared the nature of the later “Adam” of Eden. Clark concludes: “We may therefore take Gen. 5:1 and following, as applying to the couple in Eden without in any way committing ourselves to the view that they were the first human beings on earth, from whom all others are descended” (p. 152). As for the first or original man, for Clark, “the expression ‘called their name Adam’ indicates that the original man, like ourselves, was reckoned to share in the nature of Adam, and therefore to share in his sin and in his condemnation to spiritual and physical death” (p. 153). Clark must assume, however, that “the results of Adam’s sin may operate backwards in time as well as forwards, in the same way as the saving work of Christ. Thus men who lived long before Adam would be under the same dominion of sin and death as those who have lived since” (p. 154). After examining the New Testament references to Adam, Clark concludes that “we cannot anywhere find a clear and definite statement to indicate conclusively that Adam was the first man on earth, nor can we find a clear and definite statement that all men now living are descended from him” (p. 151).

Another example is the explanation offered by J. Stafford Wright, writing in Faith and Thought (Vol. 90, No. 1): because he cannot see any evidence of religion in the prehistoric fossil sites, he questions the “spiritual capacities” of “man-like creatures” before about 6000 B.C. and calls all fossil men before Neolithic times “pre-Adamic” creatures that “do not have the status of men in the Biblical sense.”

A third example is the view of T. C. Mitchell (Faith and Thought, Vol. 91, No. 1), who tentatively holds that “only the fossil remains which have been unequivocally described as Homo sapiens [modern men], men of the upper Palaeolithic period,” are “to be called ‘man’ in the Biblical sense.” Non-sapiens fossil forms “would not be pre-Adamite men, for they would not be men.” A very similar position is espoused by Gleason Archer, professor of Old Testament studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, who cannot accept the extension of the genealogical records of Genesis 5 and 11 over any longer period of time (A Survey of Old Testament Introduction). James Murk also takes essentially this position, basing it upon a thesis held by some anthropologists that previous forms did not have true language and therefore were not truly human (Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, Vol. 17, No. 2).

Summing up these positions, we find that all but Clark hold that Adam must be considered the first human being for theological reasons. All, however, put Adam at such a position in time that the pre-Adamic forms must be at least accounted for because of Adam’s relation to all mankind in the Fall. Clark does this by assuming their humanity by an exegetical and theological device; Wright demotes them from humanity by discounting their religious capacity, Murk by discounting their linguistic capacity, and Mitchell and Archer by simply being forced to assign them a non-human status by reason of their assumed pre-Adamic existence. Here, too, we could insert the extreme position of Robert Brow, author of an article in CHRISTIANITY TODAY entitled “The Late-Date Genesis Man,” who holds that Adam’s creation was about “3900 B.C.” and who demotes all previous beings to animal status (Sept. 15, 1972, issue).

Now those in category 1b, who do not accept the geological antiquity of earth or mankind, also hold firmly to the orthodox position that Adam was the first man. However, in assigning not only Adam but all of Creation otherwise a very recent date, they must treat the fossil remains of ancient man either (a) as non-human animals, (b) as largely fraudulent or fictitious, or (c) as appearing morphologically very very modern and entirely within the scope of the present human races.

Perhaps the best-known representatives of this position are Arthur Custance, a Canadian who is the author of the series called “The Doorway Papers”; members of the British Evolution Protest Movement; and members of the American-based Bible-Science Association, Creation Research Society, and Institute for Creation Research. John C. Whitcomb and Henry Morris have stated the position most plainly:

We say, on the basis of overwhelming Biblical evidence, that every fossil man that has ever been discovered, or ever will be discovered, is a descendant of the supernaturally created Adam and Eve. This is absolutely essential to the entire edifice of Christian theology, and there can simply be no true Christianity without it [The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications, Presbyterian and Reformed, 1961, p. 457].

But Morris insists that “the Biblical record indicates creation to have taken place only a few thousand years ago.” He admits a “possible range of uncertainty” of “about 15,000 years ago,” but considers “a more likely limit to be “not more than 10,000 years ago.” In fact, he concludes, “there is nothing really impossible or unreasonable about the traditional date of 4004 B.C.”(Evolution and the Modern Christian).

Turning now to position two, the acceptance of a geologically ancient creation of man, we may first point out, as William Kornfield did in his CHRISTIANITY TODAY article “The Early-Date Genesis Man” (June 8, 1973), that those who are familiar with the abundant data, both anatomical and cultural, strenuously resist the idea of assigning these types to a pre-Adamic position. They object to this on the grounds of the very evident humanity of these remains, as inferred by modern primitive parallels. Kornfield says, “The concept of a pre-Adamic creature looking like man but not being man appears to be a way of avoiding the implications of all the fossil and cultural evidence for the existence of man early in time.”

Those who hold this position—and I am among them—therefore insist that Adam must have been created before the earliest of those forms that, by both anatomical and cultural evidence, may be interpreted unequivocally as human and as geologically ancient, according to the findings of human paleontology. With very few exceptions, anthropologists who are creationists hold this position. And although the American Scientific Affiliation does not have an official position on human antiquity, nor can it be said that there is a consensus on the matter among its members, it appears that a great many of them are in substantial agreement with this position.

There are many cultural and anatomical remains that are both clearly ancient and clearly human, with continuous-occupation sites well back beyond ten thousand years in both hemispheres. The question may be asked, why are these remains objected to? Why do those of the late-date Adam position feel it is necessary to compress them, debunk them, or omit them from the ranks of progeny? So many of the doctrinal fundamentals of the Christian faith are held in common by those of both these creationist positions that many find it perplexing that the issue of the antiquity of the creation of mankind should so divide the testimony before the Christian and scientific worlds.

Let us briefly review the beliefs we hold in common. First, parties on both sides of this great debate believe that God created the first man as an individual human being by supernatural means. The historicity of an individual Adam is a fundamental doctrine of each position. This, in turn, is directly tied to the second fundamental belief held in common, that man was created as a creature unique from all other creatures not only in his discontinuity from them genetically but also in his distinction from them spiritually and culturally after the image of God. Paul A. Zimmerman in his chapter in the Baker Symposium on Creation and John C. Whitcomb in his book The Early Earth describe most effectively and fully the arguments for the distinctiveness and historicity of Adam, with excellent presentations of the biblical data that undermine the position of theistic evolution. And R. J. Rushdoony in The Mythology of Science points out correctly that “when the historicity of the first Adam is undercut, then the historicity of Christ—and the validity of all history—is also destroyed.”

These three authors hold the position of a recent or late-date Adam. The essential nature of the historicity of Adam is also subscribed to wholeheartedly by those of us whose interpretations of Scripture allow for a much earlier date for Adam’s creation. Among these are Cora Reno, S. Maxwell Coder, George F. Howe, Donald England, and Francis Schaeffer.

These doctrinal base lines are tied also to the third doctrine held in common, the doctrine of the Fall, and in turn to the New Testament passages in First Corinthians 1 and Romans 5 that make the supernatural creation of a perfect man and his subsequent fall a necessary condition for the role of Christ in redemption.

Here the early-Adam creationist would insist as strenuously as his late-Adam counterpart that, in the words of Emil Brunner,

The surrender of the idea of the Fall … would mean nothing less than the shattering of the foundations of the whole Biblical doctrine of man, and indeed, the whole Biblical doctrine of revelation and salvation.… Apart from the doctrine of the Fall it is impossible to understand Sin as the presupposition of the New Testament message of Redemption. Only a fallen humanity needs a Redeemer [Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, Westminster, 1952, pp. 50, 90].

Since these crucial doctrinal issues are agreed to, we return to the question, Why is there such decided rejection of an early or ancient date for the creation of Adam, which seems to fit the scientific date with the fewest problems? The answer lies in the interpretation of one set of biblical data, the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11. This is virtually the sole unresolved scriptural issue over which the remaining confrontation exists.

The late or recent-date Adam creationists insist (a) that the great age of the earth understood by conventional geology constitutes an “evolutionary chronology” and therefore invalidates any attempt to articulate a creationist position within its scope; and (b) that it partakes of extra-biblical perspectives and data not provided for within the text, and that the text of Scripture should be the only source for our interpretation of human origin. Henry Morris is most explicit on this: He writes, “In the Bible which is the word of God, He has told us everything we need to know about the Creation and earth’s primeval history” (Evolution and the Modern Christian, Baker, 1967, p. 54). He further claims that “within the framework of … three great events of history—Creation, the Fall, and the Flood—can be explained all the data of true science and history” (p. 66). And, with specific reference to the genealogies, he says:

The general method of Ussher—that of relying on the Biblical data alone—is the only proper approach to determining the date of creation. The genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 provide the most strategic data in this connection. If these are taken at face value, they indicate that Ussher must have been correct at least in order of magnitude [p. 63].

The early-date Adam creationists, on the other hand, claim to stand with some of the classic stalwarts of the faith—William Henry Green, B. B. Warfield, and others—whose contributions on the inspiration of Scripture constitute some of the most revered and scholarly documents of fundamentalism, but who at the same time argued just as cogently that the genealogies were not intended to be considered as chronological devices for counting the years between Adam and Noah and between Noah and the time of Abraham, and that the matter of how long ago Adam was created is theologically irrelevant. Furthermore, Green points out in his “Primeval Chronology” that when the Bible is silent on a matter one should search for extra-biblical evidence for enlightenment. Cora Reno has put this into perspective for the modern creationist position:

Since the Bible is not specific about a date for Adam, most scholars are willing to look to science for help in determining man’s antiquity. In no way is science being set above the Bible for we know that harmony exists between God’s created world and His written word. It was God who set into operation the various laws that govern the dating methods [Evolution on Trial, Moody, 1970, p. 127].

S. Maxwell Coder and George F. Howe also point out that “in Genesis God does not reveal the date of creation” and that “there is nothing incongruous in the biblical account of creation when we consider the existence of fossils in various strata of the earth’s crust, apparently of great antiquity” (The Bible, Science, and Creation).

Kenneth Taylor, the paraphraser of The Living Bible, writes:

From the Creationist viewpoint at this time, the picture is this: All fossil men and women are descendants of Adam and Eve, who were created directly by God, so Adam and Eve are older than the earliest human fossils. The Bible gives no evidence upon which we can draw to determine the time of Adam’s creation [Kenneth Taylor, ed., Evolution and the High School Student, Tyndale, 1974, p. 37].

Francis Schaeffer, after a detailed consideration of the arguments, concludes that “prior to the time of Abraham, there is no possible way to date the history of what we find in scripture” (Genesis in Space and Time).

Finally, Donald England points out:

To get a value of 6,000 years for the age of the earth one would have to assume an error of 99.9998 percent for each of the major radioactive methods. Inasmuch as the different methods employ different techniques, and … different assumptions, an error of such magnitude as this is quite incredible. [A Christian View of Origins, Baker, 1972, p. 105].

We find then, a continuing and, in the opinion of many, unnecessary breach between those holding the two major creationist positions. Their doctrinal orthodoxy is sound and largely shared, their activities in evangelism and Christian education and scholarship are fruitful and effective, their personal testimony and devotion to Christ are unquestioned, but they oppose each other. The early-origin creationists consider their opponents to be far too conservative and unrealistically defensive; the late or recent-date creationists see their opponents’ position only through their own premises, which cancel out any appreciation of their opponents’ claims to Christian orthodoxy.

May we creationists in each position work and pray for increased empathy and communication as we are led by the Holy Spirit, to the strengthening of our testimony for the faith we hold in common.

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