Again some Church Fathers like Origen believe Adam to be representative of humanity in general rather than a specific individual. To assume anything particularly historical like a certain number of people is to miss the entire point and to evade that the story is wrapped in mystery and presented to us in an intelligible way to represent something deeper and mystical and much harder to understand. On this last point almost all the Fathers were united.
God Bless
Hence why we don't accept all the teachings of Origen, St Augustine, etc. But take only what they wrote in sound spirit and in accordance to the consensus patrum. There are certain fathers who we have to be cautious about when quote mining.
Entertaining the possibility that Adam and Eve didn't exist in the historical and anthropological sense is in my estimation the spirit of the Antichrist who aims to shake the very historical remembrance and acknowledgment of the existence of an abstract history between God and man so that all else afterward is malleable and changeable. And when history is changeable, theology and faith change accordingly.
The Gospels clearly provide a clear genealogy right down to Adam which if going by your logic, the disciples simply started out with historical names and then descended into the allegorical. It is ludicrous. And there simply isn't an acceptable defense for it.
Also, in our tasbeha prayers we mention Adam and recall him as the first man . Are we praying to allegorical figures? or in your explanation, many Adams? Again, it is indefensible and the fathers rejected this line of thought.
Furthermore, St Paul tell us in Romans "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned"
It is clear that death came through one man & after sin and in that very sense and in the language St Paul spoke in it can not be contended.
So St Paul doesn't disagree with you that all sinned through Adam. In fact the Church has always taught this, but not without the initial truth. Now, who am I to act as a theologian or historian because i am not, but I believe just St Pishoy did, we ought to exit from our caves and abodes and fight any ideas that seek to dismember the very core of our faith.
I recall this warning by Archibishop Averky
The fundamental task of the servants of the coming Antichrist is to destroy the old world with all its former concepts and "prejudices", in order to build in its place a new world suitable for receiving its approaching "new owner" who will take the place of Christfor people and given them on earth that which Christ did not give them ..one must be completely blind spiritually, completely alien to true Christianity, not to understand all of this!
This quote of course isn't directed at you nor am I calling you Antichrist, but we need to be careful the tides we choose to be swept with and the kind of ideas that very clearly go against some core history and faith. There's certainly room in Orthodoxy for speculation and contemplation on certain issues but to be absolutely sure about something that cant be historically observed, tested in a lab, nor having the actual mechanism of it(evolution) being understood, as even admitted to by top scientists and chemists, is in my opinion a greater leap of faith, ironically, than anything discussed prior.
First, let me be clear that I am not trying to prove evolution here. I am simply defending that honest scientific inquiry and its resulting findings cannot be at odds with Scripture. Point in case? Evaluate these verses:
1. "He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." (Psalms 104:5)
At one point science was pointing to the Sun being the center of our solar system and the earth revolving around it. This was met with opposition at first due to verses like this one.
2. "The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it arose." (Ecclesiastes 1:5)
There have been Christians who at times held that this meant the sun moves around the earth.
3. "He will set up a banner for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." (Isaiah 11:12)
Although a tiny minority, some Christians even held the earth was flat because of verses like these.
Then you have verses like these:
"Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us." (Matthew 1:23)
“The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and the third day He will be raised up.” (Matthew 17:22-23)
At the end of the day, we must understand that the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ is Absolute Truth and as He says Himself, "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me." (John 5:39) This is why the Fathers read the Old Testament in an entirely Christologically-focused way, everything is about Christ, the Logos.
However, the written word of God, the Scriptures, though God-breathed, are written and communicated by humans in imperfect human language. The Bible is therefore is infallible in its message but not in its words, "...for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." (2 Corinthians 3:6) What does this mean? It means that the Holy Spirit communicates the message of salvation through holy men through various ways as attested in the Bible but it does not dictate the wording but uses the language, expressions and even science of its times. Like minasoliman said, the Bible is not the Qur'an, it is not dicacted verbatim by God in an exact specific language that cannot be properly translated (which is why they argue that the English translation is not actually the Qur'an).
So wait, does that mean we can do away with the miracles? Only context can tell us that. The parts that speak about the earth being fixed and the sun moving around and the four corners of the earth are only using ideas, expressions and the science of its times to talk about the normal occurrence of things to convey a deeper message, not to teach science. It refers to it as natural phenomenon, NOT a miracle, without caring to explain how, or what that phenomenon is. On the other hand, miracles are always referred to as something supernatural, especially something like the Incarnation and Resurrection where the heart of all our dogmatic theology lies. The resurrection is shown to be a miracle, an obvious break from all what normally occurs in nature, to prove that this will happen to all of us as well, and it is where we base our entire faith. We must always understand where the message lies.
Moreover, science is not pitted against God. Honest scientific inquiry, using the scientific method, is a form of God's revelation to us, "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead" (Romans 1:20) and again, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork." (Psalms 19:1)
I want to make sure that we know what the difference between symbolism and allegory is. Symbolism is like the manna representing Christ as the Bread of Life, or the Ark of the Covenant symbolizing the Theotokos. Allegory on the other hand is a representation of an abstract or spiritual reality through concrete or material forms, in this case in the form of a story. Before you cry blasphemy, abstract in no way means less real but harder to understand, kind of like God being an abstract idea in the thought of people, who then becomes flesh to show Himself in a concrete way, though His flesh IS not the Divinity, but it is the means through which He shows us Himself (having fully united Himself to It). What are other examples of allegory that we take for granted? The Book of Revelation is full of allegory. We do not say that it is symbolic of ideas, but that it is the way that the Holy Spirit represents things which are not easy to understand. Does this mean that we go around like fundamentalist Protestants and say, no heaven REALLY has rainbows, and harps and palace of this exact size...well yes, but not in the way that we are thinking. This is merely the best way to represent in human language something that is very real but far beyond our experience.
Bringing this back to Genesis. The story of creation and the making of man is allegory in the sense that what happens there (length of days, method of creation etc) is very real but wrapped in mystery yet represented in concrete understandable human language. There are many hints of this. Genesis 1 is written in semi-poetic language, different sequence of creation is shown in other chapters, it is written in a naturalistic way not describing something supernatural (outside the natural order of the universe). In the same way we do not understand the Psalms and other passages literally, because the science is not indispensable to its message, we do not understand the whole creation story literally. In other cases the historical occurrence is indispensable to the message like the Resurrection and Incarnation. This is where context comes in and understanding that the message is infallible, not the human words employed.
As for Adam. Sin entered "through one man" yet Paul does not mean this numerically since that would mean Eve did not sin but only Adam. We must take the Scripture as a whole and come up with a congruent interpretation. As for Adam and Eve being the first humans, first of all, I am most certainly not denying that there were first humans, just as there was a first to everything. The moment God breathed His Image and Likeness into us, we became fully human. Evolution can never account for our spiritual component, our soul, reasoning, conscience, creativity etc. These things come from our being made in His Image and Likeness. Therefore the first humans to walk the earth, Adam and Eve (perhaps others as well, don't know and don't care) were given the grace of immortality by being put in communion with He Who is the Life of the Universe. When they turned away from Him through rebellion, death entered into our world since we fell from the grace of immortality. That which begins, and that which is created must end, as our holy Father St. Athanasius teaches. But God offers us humans, His creation, to become children by being in His Likeness, and thus being given immortality through communion with Him.
Sorry for the terribly long post, but I felt it was needed to get across this idea.
Just to add to Kata's great post, on the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, and why I make it clear that we do not see our Bible as the Muslims conceive of the Quran, Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon explains very well in this podcast:
Furthermore, it has come to my understanding that Sunni Islam believes the Quran is "uncreated" because it was a literal dictation. We as Orthodox Christians reject this idea that our Scriptures are "uncreated". They are created words and icons inspired by the uncreated Holy Spirit. Huge difference. We make a distinction. The Holy Spirit gets into the mind of a prophet, the prophet digests what he has been inspired with and spills it out in writing in the way he is able to convey it to others through the imagery and culture and science and poetry of his age. Knowing this key difference will help understand a huge first lesson on how to exercise good discernment on reading the Scriptures.
Again, I also want to reconfirm my own personal belief that Adam and Eve existed. I do not think that my adherence to the scientific fact of evolution does not and should not contradict their existence. I just do not think they were alone.
A lot of time these days gets wasted on trying to prove or disprove scientific theories reading Scripture than understanding the underlying message of salvation behind it.
I'm lost even. You seem to be all going around in circles if not contradicting yourselves.
Why can't someone just explain to me, in simple language:
IF Adam was just a representative for all mankind, and as a person, didnt even exist.
a) For what reason did Christ need to be incarnate for?
b) How do we inherit a corrupt nature if we never even came from Adam and Eve??
This is all very confusing; its sounds like "make-it-up-as-you-go-along Theology".
Science proves one thing and then we re-interpret scripture to accommodate these new discoveries. Science proves another thing, then we change directions and re-interpret scriptures for that part.
Zoxsasi, what did I or minasoliman change to "accommodate" science. I'd rather get my science from science than the Bible. I'd also rather get my teaching of salvation from the Church (and Bible) than from any philosopher.
Show me where in that post I was trying to prove evolution or where anything I said affected our theology.
I'm lost even. You seem to be all going around in circles if not contradicting yourselves.
Why can't someone just explain to me, in simple language:
IF Adam was just a representative for all mankind, and as a person, didnt even exist.
a) For what reason did Christ need to be incarnate for?
b) How do we inherit a corrupt nature if we never even came from Adam and Eve??
This is all very confusing; its sounds like "make-it-up-as-you-go-along Theology".
Science proves one thing and then we re-interpret scripture to accommodate these new discoveries. Science proves another thing, then we change directions and re-interpret scriptures for that part.
@minatasgeel please try to let the forum take its course naturally. Some of us are following along with the discussion too without posting and it's more helpful if we can see the whole issue too without having the people discussing limit their posts or pm other users. Even if it's been 9 pages, what else is a forum for if not to discuss in depth?
Zoxsasi, what did I or minasoliman change to "accommodate" science.
Dear blessed brother,
Is it me, or did anyone else get the impression that you adhere to a theology where God did not create ONE man and ONE woman, but allowed mankind to be formed from an evolutionary process.
That is your belief, and hence this is where you are changing theology to accommodate science.
Now, I'm NOT in anyway attached to my opinion. I don't care. I'm just a simple guy who has kids to raise in the faith and my obstacles are how do I explain this to my kids??
This is very serious.
Do you understand what Science is? To a child or a teenager? Its the truth.
Do you realise what is being taught to them: "Look, mankind evolved from primitive species, there was NO adam and NO eve... we were apes before. If you want to believe that God created mankind, you can believe that, and you can believe in the spaghetti monster also; but to pass your science exam: MANKIND EVOLVED FROM APES.
Now, let's suppose we did evolve from Apes. Great. Can you please, without responding to my post with another question, just tell me:
a) What was the reason Christ was incarnate for?
b) Why does the Church teach that we inherited a corrupt nature?? As if Adam sinned and our nature became corrupted. Explain this in light of Evolutionary Biology that gave rise to mankind.
@minatasgeel please try to let the forum take its course naturally. Some of us are following along with the discussion too without posting and it's more helpful if we can see the whole issue too without having the people discussing limit their posts or pm other users. Even if it's been 9 pages, what else is a forum for if not to discuss in depth?
There are limits for everything habibi. please don't tell me to let "the forum take its course naturally" if some comments are useless. a "natural" forum is one that have objective comments that always connect back to the original question or topic for the benefit of all. I don't mind if we have a discussion with 30+ pages as long as the info therein is useful and not repeated....but many of the comments here have been repeated info. We keep going in circles and not accomplishing anything!!!
For the benefit of everyone, allow me to summarise what my problem is:
We have been taught that we inherited a corrupt nature.
From whom did we inherit this nature?
From Adam & Eve.
"If you eat, you will die".
We die. Physically & Spiritually.
Christ came to redeem us back to our original state.
The above passage I just wrote is what the Church teaches so far in Sunday School to anyone. That Christ came to give us life again and to unite/reconcile us back again with Him.
Now, let's super-impose on this Evolution (i.e. we came from Apes). That means that Adam & Eve didn't exist (as we've already ascertained) - If they didnt exist - then we didnt inherit any corrupt nature. It also means, as I've proven, that there would have been many many Adams and Many many many eves.
So let's say MANY Adam's existed (Apes spawned into many men) - and let's assume that God breathed His Life into Mankind (all of them) (at the same time) making them in His Image and Likeness.
Agreed?
Clear so far??
OK. So, let's assume that there were 10 men and 10 women that God decided to breath His Life into them. OK? Just for arguments sake lets use 10. It could be more, it could be less.
Let's say that He tells them all :"If you eat from the fruit of this tree, you will die". Let's say ONE of them ate from it. That would mean that the others who didn't eat were still in union with God. Right?
See? Evolutionary Theory and Scripture are totally incompatible.
Let me take this now to its logical conclusion (if this is not clear enough):
So, the one who ate died. Great. What about the others who didn't eat from the Tree of Life? How could their descendants be accused of inheriting a corrupt nature? What happened to those that didn't eat or disobey God? They didnt die. Where are they?? Let's say they all ate and they all died (Worst case scenario):
The probability of that would have been low: If I'm standing in a group of 20 people and someone wants to play "truth or dare" - and the dare is to walk blindfolded across the street; why on EARTH would 20 people follow the idiot who does the dare if they witness him being killed???
Zoxsasi, I don't think you really got what I was saying in my arguments. You read points but you didn't get the jist of the whole spiel. So let me break it down for you. I don't care to prove or disprove evolution, I would go to scientists to do that, not Scriptures which are not concerned with it at all or teach us about it. The Church's job is not teach us HOW the world and humanity was created but WHY it was created. This is fundamentally where your confusion lies.
You're going to get upset at me. But I don't think you understand what the word 'allegory' means. I hate to have to stress this again, but the Holy Spirit who presented the story of Adam and Eve to us through the Bible is not concerned with teaching scientific theory (or any form of it). Rather He is giving a tangible story to represent a reality far harder to grasp. When it says God walks about in the garden, are we to assume that He had legs? Or when He planted Trees in the garden that He was like a farmer going about putting seeds?
As for the number of humans. Again, I don't presume to know the amount, and in fact nowhere does Genesis explicitly state that Adam and Eve were the only humans. The moral of the story is that as humanity we fall and rise together. Think about your question about how it might be unfair if others didn't sin in Paradise. Your question breaks down because that applies to you too. You never chose to inherit a corrupt nature, but by merit of being human and related to Adam we all shared in corruption.
The number of humans in the story makes zero difference in the theology. Humanity has fallen together in Adam (and that includes Eve). The Word came to heal, restore, renew and recreate our fallen human nature by His becoming flesh. What difference does it make HOW God made humans? We fell at one point and He's coming back to restore what fell. If science discovers some other theory that explains how we got here in the future, then great. Makes zero difference, God's glory is being revealed in every scientific discovery "The heavens declare the glory of God".
Just to be clear, there will always be "first humans" (that's a logical certainty since we are not eternal). If there were first humans, then most certainly an Adam and Eve existed (whether there were others is another thing but does not change anything).
The reason atheism is so high these days is because how Zoxsasi and others view Scriptures in a "carnal" way. We do not eat from the Word spiritually to learn and understand the message given, but are focused on the shallow letters and details of Scriptures. Such a way of reading the Bible is completely against how the early Church did it (regardless of how Sunday School teaches it now). Read the Fathers and see how they approached everything Christologically and see Spiritual truths signified everywhere. What does St. Paul teach about being carnally minded?
"And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal." (1 Corinthians 3:1-3)
That is essentially the sad part about human nature. There is not one who is without sin, not even if their time on earth is a minute. "All fall short" St. Paul taught. Even if there were 100 human beings, just one person it would take that would lead to a domino effect on the rest of them all. The fact that I can be my own god without God is the root of all our sinful disposition. We are deceived to think that we can be free without God, and that's what Adam's problem was. How easily he was taken by Eve's persuasion, who in turn was persuaded by the serpent.
Remember the pleading of Abraham to the Lord, how he wanted the Lord to spare Sodom because his nephew Lot lives there? He asked Him if there were 50 righteous people in Sodom to spare it, and God told him, if there were 50, he would spare it. Then Abraham asked 45, and God said if there were 45, he would spare it. Then Abraham asked 40, then 30, then 20, then finally 10, and God said, if there were 10 righteous in Sodom, He would spare all of Sodom for the sake of those 10.
But what was the sad part? There was not even five people to spare all of Sodom. The whole family of Lot is four people, and because of the intercession of Abraham, all four were taken out of Sodom. In fact, Lot and his family were not even righteous enough. Lot tried to give his daughters away to the sodomites who wanted to abuse the angels. What a terrible father he was! They should have been destroyed in Sodom, but Abraham's intercession brought them out of it. And what happened afterwards? Lot's wife became a pillar of salt for looking back, and Lot's daughters make their own father drunk and they became pregnant by their father giving birth to two very evil nations, the Moabites and the Ammonites. Neither Lot, nor his wife, nor his daughters were righteous, and the incestuous offspring they gave birth to were all evil.
ALL OF SODOM were evil, all were idiots, including Lot, his wife and both his daughters.
That is the lesson of most of Genesis. Humanity is very sinful and very weak, deserving the wrath of God. Even the few chosen by God who were more righteous than others, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Judah, David, Solomon, still sinned in their own ways, despite the Lord having mercy on them and blessing their inheritance.
How many of us today still fall in the same sin? We are still doing the same mistake Adam did. ALL OF US. We want to push God away and do our own thing. The probability should be low, but it is not. Maybe now, with the help of Christ and His divine grace, some of us have become in a state of righteousness and sinlessness. But even then, some of us still want to push Christ away, again! We are all idiots.
To think that when Adam is referred to he is not representing others (especially in the New Testament), don't forget St. Paul mentions how Adam and Eve both sinned, but then he says "sinned entered through one Man", or just as all fell by One Man so all are made alive again made by Christ (when we know, at least in the story, Adam and Eve both sinned). Just a hint at how to see how the Apostles themselves take the whole story.
Thank you for your informative and well written posts, by the way!
I think I understand the gist of what you are saying: whether God created 1 man or we evolved from apes and then became at a state where God breathed His Life into us, it doesn't make a difference: we were given Grace & Eternal Life and we blew the chance.
I think I understand what allegorical means: My definition is that its a story that is not necessary literal, but has underlying meaning behind it.
So let's get this straight:
Whether we were 10 or 20 humans, at the beginning, we died and we all inherited this corrupt nature.
Maybe its too early in the morning for me, but if later on I have any other questions, I'll post. Other than that, I guess I agree with you: what difference does it make how many humans God breathed His Life into so long as each and every human that were given God's Life Giving Grace disobeyed and died (returning back to the state in which they were intended).
So, ultimately, it means that mankind, because of evolutionary biology, was always destined to reproduce and die. When God breathed into Him (at one given point in time), He was given both physical and spiritual eternal life?? You agree??
I think why atheism is on the rise is because we have admins on forums who seem to care more about the number of pages being written on forums rather than the quality of understanding.
Zoxsasi, That's right. That is the jist of it. Except God creates with or without evolution. He can use any method He wants, science is merely the honest search for that method.
Let me share a passage from On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius with you. I feel it would clear up a lot of things: "For the transgression of the commandment was making them turn back again according to their nature; and as they had at the beginning come into being out of non-existence, so were they now on the way to returning, through corruption, to non-existence again. The presence and love of the Word had called them into being; inevitably, therefore when they lost the knowledge of God, they lost existence with it; for it is God alone Who exists, evil is non-being, the negation and antithesis of good. By nature, of course, man is mortal, since he was made from nothing; but he bears also the Likeness of Him Who is, and if he preserves that Likeness through constant contemplation, then his nature is deprived of its power and he remains incorrupt. So is it affirmed in Wisdom: "The keeping of His laws is the assurance of incorruption."[8] And being incorrupt, he would be henceforth as God, as Holy Scripture says, "I have said, Ye are gods and sons of the Highest all of you: but ye die as men and fall as one of the princes."[9]
(5) This, then, was the plight of men. God had not only made them out of nothing, but had also graciously bestowed on them His own life by the grace of the Word. Then, turning from eternal things to things corruptible, by counsel of the devil, they had become the cause of their own corruption in death; for, as I said before, though they were by nature subject to corruption, the grace of their union with the Word made them capable of escaping from the natural law, provided that they retained the beauty of innocence with which they were created. That is to say, the presence of the Word with them shielded them even from natural corruption, as also Wisdom says: God created man for incorruption and as an image of His own eternity; but by envy of the devil death entered into the world."
And again: "Upon them, therefore, upon men who, as animals, were essentially impermanent, He bestowed a grace which other creatures lacked—namely the impress of His own Image, a share in the reasonable being of the very Word Himself, so that, reflecting Him and themselves becoming reasonable and expressing the Mind of God even as He does, though in limited degree they might continue for ever in the blessed and only true life of the saints in paradise. But since the will of man could turn either way, God secured this grace that He had given by making it conditional from the first upon two things—namely, a law and a place. He set them in His own paradise, and laid upon them a single prohibition. If they guarded the grace and retained the loveliness of their original innocence, then the life of paradise should be theirs, without sorrow, pain or care, and after it the assurance of immortality in heaven. But if they went astray and became vile, throwing away their birthright of beauty, then they would come under the natural law of death and live no longer in paradise, but, dying outside of it, continue in death and in corruption."
Do you see how St. Athanasius, as all the Fathers, are seeing the story? They see it as expressing a much deeper truth and reality than what first appears at the surface. We must read all the Scriptures this way, first seeing what is necessarily literal (eg the entire life of Christ in the Gospels), and what is not necessarily literal by evaluating its message and context.
1 This is he,who was formed by God, the father of the world, who was alone when created; she (wisdom) preserved him. 2 and led him out of his offense, and gave him the power to maintain all things.
So long as they remained in communion with God they were entirely immortal.
Kata,
Now we are in Union with God again: Why do we still die? Why did the descendants of the 1st humans die???
That makes no sense.
What the Church has taught was that we inherit a corrupt nature. In other words: we our nature changed. But why is my salvation, why is my union with God dependant on my great-great-great-to-the-100000th-great grand-parents actions??
So the 1st humans messed up. They lost the immortality that came with union with God. What does their mistake have to do with us???? Why do we still die physically for???
That's another whole topic. It does not touch on the supposed conflict between science and Exegesis.
I will say this however. Christ was incarnate and destroyed death not to take away the battle but to give us victory over it. "In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
So just as the Israelites are freed from slavery but must first pass through the wilderness and fight off enemies to reach the promised land, so the Christian passes through the Red Sea of Baptism, puts on Christ and is given a new life, dying to sin and the world. Through this new life we are constantly battling the old corrupt nature that keeps trying to come back for we can choose to return to it so long as we have free will. Just like when the Israelites kept complaining about the "comfort" of slavery, so we are constant being tempted to fall back into the sin of our corrupt nature. If we do, we repent to bring back the one baptism we were given and to reactivate the regeneration we have.
Christ came to make us follow the same path that He did. Just as He fought sin and temptation and remained righteous all His life by proving Himself like it says in Hebrews and died to the world on the Cross and also rose on the third day and ascended into the heavens, so we as Christians through Theosis follow these footsteps of the firstborn over all creation, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Your chance of being in union with God is no less or greater than that of Adam and Eve. God gives each person the talents in the situation they are in. We are born into a tougher situation perhaps where there is corruption. Christ is still fair and will ask of you not more than what you can handle. The question applies to why are some children born in Africa starving while we have food, how is that fair?
In the end, it will all make sense through God's Providence. In the mean time know that you have the same opportunity as Adam to be in communion with the Trinity.
Comments
Entertaining the possibility that Adam and Eve didn't exist in the historical and anthropological sense is in my estimation the spirit of the Antichrist who aims to shake the very historical remembrance and acknowledgment of the existence of an abstract history between God and man so that all else afterward is malleable and changeable. And when history is changeable, theology and faith change accordingly.
Furthermore, St Paul tell us in Romans "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned"
So St Paul doesn't disagree with you that all sinned through Adam. In fact the Church has always taught this, but not without the initial truth.
Now, who am I to act as a theologian or historian because i am not, but I believe just St Pishoy did, we ought to exit from our caves and abodes and fight any ideas that seek to dismember the very core of our faith.
This quote of course isn't directed at you nor am I calling you Antichrist, but we need to be careful the tides we choose to be swept with and the kind of ideas that very clearly go against some core history and faith.
There's certainly room in Orthodoxy for speculation and contemplation on certain issues but to be absolutely sure about something that cant be historically observed, tested in a lab, nor having the actual mechanism of it(evolution) being understood, as even admitted to by top scientists and chemists, is in my opinion a greater leap of faith, ironically, than anything discussed prior.
I want to make sure that we know what the difference between symbolism and allegory is. Symbolism is like the manna representing Christ as the Bread of Life, or the Ark of the Covenant symbolizing the Theotokos. Allegory on the other hand is a representation of an abstract or spiritual reality through concrete or material forms, in this case in the form of a story. Before you cry blasphemy, abstract in no way means less real but harder to understand, kind of like God being an abstract idea in the thought of people, who then becomes flesh to show Himself in a concrete way, though His flesh IS not the Divinity, but it is the means through which He shows us Himself (having fully united Himself to It). What are other examples of allegory that we take for granted? The Book of Revelation is full of allegory. We do not say that it is symbolic of ideas, but that it is the way that the Holy Spirit represents things which are not easy to understand. Does this mean that we go around like fundamentalist Protestants and say, no heaven REALLY has rainbows, and harps and palace of this exact size...well yes, but not in the way that we are thinking. This is merely the best way to represent in human language something that is very real but far beyond our experience.
Bringing this back to Genesis. The story of creation and the making of man is allegory in the sense that what happens there (length of days, method of creation etc) is very real but wrapped in mystery yet represented in concrete understandable human language. There are many hints of this. Genesis 1 is written in semi-poetic language, different sequence of creation is shown in other chapters, it is written in a naturalistic way not describing something supernatural (outside the natural order of the universe). In the same way we do not understand the Psalms and other passages literally, because the science is not indispensable to its message, we do not understand the whole creation story literally. In other cases the historical occurrence is indispensable to the message like the Resurrection and Incarnation. This is where context comes in and understanding that the message is infallible, not the human words employed.
As for Adam. Sin entered "through one man" yet Paul does not mean this numerically since that would mean Eve did not sin but only Adam. We must take the Scripture as a whole and come up with a congruent interpretation. As for Adam and Eve being the first humans, first of all, I am most certainly not denying that there were first humans, just as there was a first to everything. The moment God breathed His Image and Likeness into us, we became fully human. Evolution can never account for our spiritual component, our soul, reasoning, conscience, creativity etc. These things come from our being made in His Image and Likeness. Therefore the first humans to walk the earth, Adam and Eve (perhaps others as well, don't know and don't care) were given the grace of immortality by being put in communion with He Who is the Life of the Universe. When they turned away from Him through rebellion, death entered into our world since we fell from the grace of immortality. That which begins, and that which is created must end, as our holy Father St. Athanasius teaches. But God offers us humans, His creation, to become children by being in His Likeness, and thus being given immortality through communion with Him.
Sorry for the terribly long post, but I felt it was needed to get across this idea.
GB
I couldn't agree with you more!
A lot of time these days gets wasted on trying to prove or disprove scientific theories reading Scripture than understanding the underlying message of salvation behind it.
what did I or minasoliman change to "accommodate" science. I'd rather get my science from science than the Bible. I'd also rather get my teaching of salvation from the Church (and Bible) than from any philosopher.
Show me where in that post I was trying to prove evolution or where anything I said affected our theology.
I don't think you really got what I was saying in my arguments. You read points but you didn't get the jist of the whole spiel. So let me break it down for you. I don't care to prove or disprove evolution, I would go to scientists to do that, not Scriptures which are not concerned with it at all or teach us about it. The Church's job is not teach us HOW the world and humanity was created but WHY it was created. This is fundamentally where your confusion lies.
You're going to get upset at me. But I don't think you understand what the word 'allegory' means. I hate to have to stress this again, but the Holy Spirit who presented the story of Adam and Eve to us through the Bible is not concerned with teaching scientific theory (or any form of it). Rather He is giving a tangible story to represent a reality far harder to grasp. When it says God walks about in the garden, are we to assume that He had legs? Or when He planted Trees in the garden that He was like a farmer going about putting seeds?
As for the number of humans. Again, I don't presume to know the amount, and in fact nowhere does Genesis explicitly state that Adam and Eve were the only humans. The moral of the story is that as humanity we fall and rise together. Think about your question about how it might be unfair if others didn't sin in Paradise. Your question breaks down because that applies to you too. You never chose to inherit a corrupt nature, but by merit of being human and related to Adam we all shared in corruption.
Just to be clear, there will always be "first humans" (that's a logical certainty since we are not eternal). If there were first humans, then most certainly an Adam and Eve existed (whether there were others is another thing but does not change anything).
The reason atheism is so high these days is because how Zoxsasi and others view Scriptures in a "carnal" way. We do not eat from the Word spiritually to learn and understand the message given, but are focused on the shallow letters and details of Scriptures. Such a way of reading the Bible is completely against how the early Church did it (regardless of how Sunday School teaches it now). Read the Fathers and see how they approached everything Christologically and see Spiritual truths signified everywhere. What does St. Paul teach about being carnally minded?
Wisdom 1:13
For God did not make death, nor does He rejoice in the loss of the living.
That's right. That is the jist of it. Except God creates with or without evolution. He can use any method He wants, science is merely the honest search for that method.
Let me share a passage from On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius with you. I feel it would clear up a lot of things:
"For the transgression of the commandment was making them turn back again according to their nature; and as they had at the beginning come into being out of non-existence, so were they now on the way to returning, through corruption, to non-existence again. The presence and love of the Word had called them into being; inevitably, therefore when they lost the knowledge of God, they lost existence with it; for it is God alone Who exists, evil is non-being, the negation and antithesis of good. By nature, of course, man is mortal, since he was made from nothing; but he bears also the Likeness of Him Who is, and if he preserves that Likeness through constant contemplation, then his nature is deprived of its power and he remains incorrupt. So is it affirmed in Wisdom: "The keeping of His laws is the assurance of incorruption."[8] And being incorrupt, he would be henceforth as God, as Holy Scripture says, "I have said, Ye are gods and sons of the Highest all of you: but ye die as men and fall as one of the princes."[9]
(5) This, then, was the plight of men. God had not only made them out of nothing, but had also graciously bestowed on them His own life by the grace of the Word. Then, turning from eternal things to things corruptible, by counsel of the devil, they had become the cause of their own corruption in death; for, as I said before, though they were by nature subject to corruption, the grace of their union with the Word made them capable of escaping from the natural law, provided that they retained the beauty of innocence with which they were created. That is to say, the presence of the Word with them shielded them even from natural corruption, as also Wisdom says: God created man for incorruption and as an image of His own eternity; but by envy of the devil death entered into the world."
"Upon them, therefore, upon men who, as animals, were essentially impermanent, He bestowed a grace which other creatures lacked—namely the impress of His own Image, a share in the reasonable being of the very Word Himself, so that, reflecting Him and themselves becoming reasonable and expressing the Mind of God even as He does, though in limited degree they might continue for ever in the blessed and only true life of the saints in paradise. But since the will of man could turn either way, God secured this grace that He had given by making it conditional from the first upon two things—namely, a law and a place. He set them in His own paradise, and laid upon them a single prohibition. If they guarded the grace and retained the loveliness of their original innocence, then the life of paradise should be theirs, without sorrow, pain or care, and after it the assurance of immortality in heaven. But if they went astray and became vile, throwing away their birthright of beauty, then they would come under the natural law of death and live no longer in paradise, but, dying outside of it, continue in death and in corruption."
God Bless
1 This is he,who was formed by God, the father of the world, who was alone when created; she (wisdom) preserved him.
2 and led him out of his offense, and gave him the power to maintain all things.
I will say this however. Christ was incarnate and destroyed death not to take away the battle but to give us victory over it. "In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
So just as the Israelites are freed from slavery but must first pass through the wilderness and fight off enemies to reach the promised land, so the Christian passes through the Red Sea of Baptism, puts on Christ and is given a new life, dying to sin and the world. Through this new life we are constantly battling the old corrupt nature that keeps trying to come back for we can choose to return to it so long as we have free will. Just like when the Israelites kept complaining about the "comfort" of slavery, so we are constant being tempted to fall back into the sin of our corrupt nature. If we do, we repent to bring back the one baptism we were given and to reactivate the regeneration we have.
Christ came to make us follow the same path that He did. Just as He fought sin and temptation and remained righteous all His life by proving Himself like it says in Hebrews and died to the world on the Cross and also rose on the third day and ascended into the heavens, so we as Christians through Theosis follow these footsteps of the firstborn over all creation, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Your chance of being in union with God is no less or greater than that of Adam and Eve. God gives each person the talents in the situation they are in. We are born into a tougher situation perhaps where there is corruption. Christ is still fair and will ask of you not more than what you can handle. The question applies to why are some children born in Africa starving while we have food, how is that fair?
In the end, it will all make sense through God's Providence. In the mean time know that you have the same opportunity as Adam to be in communion with the Trinity.
God Bless