Evolution and Original Sin

I have written a more extensive paper on this topic of Evolution and Original Sin - an unpublished paper, "A Dinosaur In the Sanctuary."

That paper lays out the differences between the biblical accounts of creation in Genesis, chapters 1 and 2 and the fossil records that have been established. The argument was made that if we take Genesis chapters 5 and 11 as inerrant, and assume that Abraham lived about 4,000 years ago, then creation and the arrival of humans took place about 6,000 years ago. In Genesis 2 it appears that humans had a good grasp of language from the very beginning and that in that beginning there was no sickness, pain, death or dying.

The fossil records, however, indicate that life on earth began over one billion years ago, humans evolved over one million years ago and at least the species of dinosaurs evolved and went into extinction in between those two dates. Death and dying had been going on quite naturally for over a billion years before humans ever even existed.

While we don't know just when the spoken language originated most sources estimate 50,000 to 60,000 years ago and written language originated much later, about 5,500 years ago. My contention is that the first humans, without language, would have no idea of disobedience or sin and could not have been the origin of sin and death in the human race.

I am not trying to be disrespectful. The authors of Genesis were not aware of the dinosaurs nor of the billions of years between the beginning of life on earth and their own time on earth. They were writing to try to make sense of who they were and how they came to be. I have no problem with their being inspired but they had to write consistently with their own world view.

The same would be true of the New Testament writers such as Saint Paul when, in Romans 5 he attempts to make sense out of who Jesus was and he used the Genesis accounts in Genesis chapters 2 and 3 to relate Jesus' life over and against that of Adam.

The early church fathers in the Christian Church, Saint Augustine in particular, raised the whole issue to a higher pitch as he defended the doctrine of original sin. The reformers, including Martin Luther, incorporated the doctrine of original sin into their own confessions of faith. In all of this time the fossil records remained unknown and thus unable to critique the creation stories in Genesis.

The church has already accepted that the earth is not the center of the solar system nor the Milky Way Galaxy. Many within the church have accepted that life on earth began more than 6,000 years ago and that evolution is a well-documented process. The church has not done well on accepting that the first humans did not enter a garden paradise and did not introduce death into the order of living things. We need to look more carefully at the doctrine of original sin.

More to come but this will give some idea as to where I am going with my workshop on April 15th and 16th here at Sojourn Way.