CHAPTER NINE
HUMANS IN THEOLOGY
THE DEFINITION OF human in science is disputed and unclear, especially in origins, as we look at the distant past. The situation in theology and philosophy is just as unsettled. There are large disagreements between several different camps, and it is impossible to catalogue all the views we find. Each scholar, nonetheless, has autonomy to define human with precision for themselves. The plurality of definitions shapes our understanding of scientific findings. Humans arise at different times and in different ways, depending on precisely what we mean by human. As we will soon see, by some definitions of human, we arise recently, by genealogical descent from a single couple. Adam and Eve could be our progenitors in this sense.
In the last couple of years, I have been meeting with scholars from across the spectrum, discussing this proposal in many places, including at the Dabar Conference of the Creation Project in 2018. The range of theological questions on which these discussions touched was astounding. I am continually surprised by the degree of disagreement and range of views. Theologians cannot agree on what is “human,” and even within each of the major camps, there are a wide range of views. Exegetes have greater consensus on what Genesis is saying, but they also disagree on important details of relevance now. Philosophers come with their own set of traditions and debates that have been raging for centuries. No one can produce a consensus understanding of what it means to be human in theology. Theologians, philosophers, and exegetes were just as divided on what it means to be human as the scientists.
I did notice one common understanding, though it is not unanimous. Many seem to equate “human” in theology with the image of God. This is certainly a valid position, but we are not limited to this understanding; I will present an alternative in coming chapters. Understanding human in theology as the people bearing the image of God, nonetheless, is where we will start. This still leaves us with a knotty problem, shifting one question to another. What is the image of God? There is no consensus definition, but this disputed phrase is among the most common definitions of human I found among the theologians, philosophers, and exegetes. In this chapter, I will make four main points.
1. There is a range of ways the image of God is understood, giving us a window into the difficulty of defining human in theology.
2. There are, nonetheless, two major approaches to defining humans using image of God: “structuralist” and the “vocationalist.”
3. Affirming monogenesis, there are definitions of human in theology where all people in history arise from genealogical descent from Adam and Eve within a larger population.
4. Supporting this definition of monogenesis, speculation about interbreeding between Adam and Eve’s lineage and others is common among creationists.
This argument will demonstrate that there are theological definitions of human that enable us to affirm monogenesis, even if Adam and Eve are within a larger population. This will take us into a conversation with historical theology, to understand more about the tradition out of which the doctrine of monogenesis is clarified. This will bring us to societal questions. First, what is the image of God?
HUMANS IN THE IMAGE OF GOD
Some are convinced that to be human is to be in the image of God. Therefore, by defining the image of God, we are defining what it means to be human. I am not sure this is ultimately the best strategy. Nonetheless, it is useful for the moment to show the range of positions held on this phrase. What exactly is the image of God? Throughout Church history, it is often said that there are three main ways to understand the image of God.
1. In the substance understanding, the image of God is understood as the set of attributes we have in common with God. Different theologians will emphasize different attributes, such as human uniqueness (or exceptionality),1 rational souls, language,2 and universal rights3 and dignity.4 The substance view is sometimes understood synonymously with structuralism, which I will describe in a moment, and may be most common among philosophers.
2. In the vocational or functional or regency understanding, the image of God is understood as a God-given calling or role, perhaps to represent him in this world.5 This understanding sometimes connected to the function of government, and it is the dominant understanding among exegetes.
3. In the relational understanding, the image of God is understood as a certain sort of relationship we have with God, or perhaps with each other in community. This understanding is, perhaps, least common now, but it is put forward by Karl Barth, Martin Luther, and John Calvin.
Many philosophers tend to emphasize substance understanding, but most modern exegetes emphasize the vocational understanding.6 C. John Collins refers to these three understandings, respectively, as resemblance, representative, and relational. Each understanding locates the essential features of being human in different realms: the attributes of individuals, our actions according to a calling, or our relationships with each other and with God.
To these basic understandings, there are several additional approaches to the image of God that cropped up over the centuries.
A structural understanding, a variant of the substance understanding, arose in philosophy and theology. This understanding tightly binds up the image of God with everything we associate with “human,” as an all-or-none package. In the strictest forms, our capacities, worth, and physical form are linked such that one cannot be found without the other. Human uniqueness is particularly important in this understanding for many. In Catholic thought it has been linked to the concept of a rational soul.7 The all-or-none packaging is the distinctive feature of structuralists. There is, nonetheless, disagreement about what specific attributes are linked all-or-none to each other.
In a universal worth and dignity understanding, our moral and ethical worth is bestowed by the image of God. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s rhetoric looms large here, leaving many in the public with the strong impression this is the primary meaning.8 In one understanding of this view, those with the image of God are granted human rights, and the rest, if any such were identified, might have no rights. There are, however, are better ways to understand the connection between rights, dignity, and the image of God.9
In a Christological understanding, we might associate the image of God exclusively with Jesus, emphasizing that Genesis teaches we are merely like the image of God, whereas Jesus is the exact representation of God’s being (Heb 1:3).10
In an exiled heavenly being understanding, Adam and Eve in the Garden were immortal heavenly beings, more like angels than humans. In this view, uncommon now, Adam and Eve lost the image of God when they fell and were exiled from the Garden.11
Some simultaneously mix multiple understandings together, while others might strongly emphasize one understanding over the others. The key point, however, is that scholars cannot agree on what precisely is the image of God. If this is what it means to be human, theologians are no closer to consensus than the scientists.
THE STRUCTURALISTS AND THE VOCATIONALISTS
Ask ten scholars to explain the image of God, and more than fifteen different answers might be found. This is a wide range of views. In my conversations with scholars, nonetheless, I observed a recurring pattern. Most scholars feed into one of two camps: philosopher structuralists and exegete vocationalists.
The structuralist philosophers want to define humans according to their attributes. Though structuralists often disagree among themselves about which attributes are important, they are all taking a common approach. They are often focused on Scholastic philosophy, which emphasizes metaphysics. They are often systematic theologians. Catholics also tend to be structuralists, often drawing on Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysics. Hugh Ross and Fazale Rana of Reasons to Believe propound a structuralist understanding, often connecting human uniqueness to the image of God. William Lane Craig takes a structuralist understanding of the image of God too.
The vocationalist exegetes understand the image of God as our role in creation—for example, as stewards of what God made, or designated representatives of him in creation. They are often focused on understanding what the text of Genesis says on its own terms, within its original cultural context. They are usually biblical theologians, following the narrative of Genesis. Rather than building up a total and internally consistent metaphysical definition of human, they are more focused on what the text said. In response to their objections, structuralists would often insist that they too see a vocational component to the image of God. This is true. This question clarifies: Can one have the biological structure of a human without the vocation of a human? A vocationalist says yes, but a structuralist says no.
Structuralists and vocationalists fall on opposite poles of a continuum. Individual scholars tended to gravitate to one camp, but often borrowed ideas from the other. Still, each camp approaches questions very differently. The divide here is between metaphysics on one hand, and narrative on the other—systematic theology on one hand, and biblical theology on the other. Between philosophers and exegetes. Some groups find themselves in the middle, or in a hybrid position. It seems the debates here have been going on for a very long time.
Alongside these two major camps, a minority take a relational understanding of the image of God. Noreen Herzfeld, for example, considers the possibility of artificial intelligence in the relational image of God. Her articulation of the relational understanding of the image is salient for the question of Adam and Eve too.12 I encountered theologians in this camp at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. Missouri Synod Lutherans are known for being very conservative in their theology, and sometimes perceived to be opposed to science. At the same time, I found value in their approach. They center on Jesus, embrace the tensions of paradox, and incline to a relational understanding of the image of God. For these reasons, they were comfortable with speculation about different ways of understanding human, even when different definitions were in tension with one another. My conversations with them were formative.13
The differences here raise to the surface several long-standing disagreements in theology. The intensity of disagreement between vocationalists and structuralists is striking. As questions arise, theologians cannot agree with one another on the answers. I wonder if there is a paradox underlying the divide between structuralists and vocationalists, the understanding of which might enable a rapprochement.14 Still, I observe several differences.
Everyone outside the Garden was biologically human, with the same biological structure of Adam and Eve. Were the biological humans outside the Garden the humans of theology too? The structuralists tend to say yes, but the vocationalists are uncertain.
There is evidence that uniquely (or nearly uniquely) human traits, such as burial of the dead, clothing, and complex tools, arose in the distant past. Are these people in the past human? Must they descend from Adam too? The structuralists tend to say yes, but the vocationalists say no, because people like us in the past may not have our vocation.
The agricultural revolution, and cities supported by agriculture, is in very recent history, less than twelve thousand years ago. Does this indicate Adam should be more recent in history? The structuralists say no, hoping for sharp lines to demarcate the metaphysical category of human, with all its entailments. The vocationalists say yes, because they are often exegetes who want to preserve the narrative elements of Genesis, including cities, agriculture, metal-working, and more recent technology.
Were there different “types” of humans in the distant past? Is a shift in the meaning of human in different eras acceptable? The structuralists usually say no, because they want to define the essential qualities of what it means to be human as stable through time. The vocationalists are often open to a shifting meaning of what it means to be human, because origin narratives are about how things come to be, presuming they were different the past.
This last point is particularly important in origins, where we seek to explain how things became the way we find them now. Temporal distinctions, nearly by definition, seem important in origins, where the progression of narratives tells us about how things come to be the way we find them. Metaphysics is often concerned with defining a stable and internally consistent ontology, a classification of the essential nature of everything we find in reality. Narratives, however, are often concerned with the change of our categories over time, their ontogeny. These are two very different ways of understanding the world: ontology versus ontogeny, metaphysics versus narrative, stable essentials versus the progress of a story. With this in mind, we should expect the structuralists to struggle with origins more than vocationalists. We often mistake the way things are for the way things have always been. Origins is important because it unsettles this conflation, forcing us to tease out how things became the way we now find them. Similar difficulty is encountered in their understanding of severe mental disability, which challenges the all-or-none approach they emphasize. A pre-determined all-or-none package of human attributes can resist contemplation of how the world came to be as we find it.
MONOGENESIS IN A LARGER POPULATION
With the theological stage set, we can return to our central question. Is it possible that Adam and Eve were the first people on the globe ever? Is there a definition of human in theology where we arise by genealogical descent from them? Are there any theological models that would have Adam and Eve as our progenitors? Are there theological models where the extent of the image of God is precisely Adam and Eve and their genealogical descendants? Yes, there are.
In 2011, the Catholic philosopher Kenneth Kemp authored an article, “Science, Theology and Monogenesis.”15 Making a distinction between biological, theological, and philosophical humans, Kemp proposed that Adam and Eve were the first “theological humans,” the first in the image of God. The image of God spread by genealogical descent from this first “theological human” couple. There were other biological humans outside the Garden who were not in the image of God. Kemp explains several different variations of this proposal, answering several theological questions that arise. Kemp’s thesis is that this understanding of human origins is compatible with the doctrine of monogenesis, as defined in Humani Generis.
For the Christian faithful cannot maintain the thesis which holds that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that “Adam” signifies a number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the magisterium of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.16
A fixed point in Catholic teaching is that original sin must pass by “generation” to all humans from some original man. Generation is usually understood to mean natural descent. Kemp’s model satisfies this requirement. All theological humans begin with Adam and Eve, and all humans in all of history descend genealogically from Adam and Eve. At the same time, there were biological humans outside the Garden with whom Adam’s lineage interbred. The extent of theological humans, by his definition, matches exactly Adam, Eve, and their genealogical ancestors.
Kemp’s paper drew from work in 1964 by C. J. Andrew Alexander, who wrote, “While it is true that all men are descended from Adam, the race nevertheless had a broad origin.”17 Kemp continues,
What underlies Alexander’s analysis is a distinction, which he never makes in exactly these terms, between man as a theological species and man as a biological species. One should distinguish from both of these, as Alexander does not do, what might be called the philosophical species.18
By “philosophical species,” Kemp means those with rational souls, capable of rational thought. Kemp goes on to argue that theological humans are a subset of biological and philosophical humans in the past, but they extend to include all humans alive today. Kemp explains how this proposal is consistent with Catholic doctrine, and with key passages like Romans 5:12-14:
This theory is monogenetic with respect to theologically human beings but polygenetic with respect to the biological species. Thus, the distinction resolves the contradiction.
In this way, the contradiction resolves with a distinction. Kemp emphasizes that human is a multivalent or polysemous term, used in different contexts with different meanings. This grants autonomy to both scientific and theological discourse, to use the term as they see fit within their own conversation. This move also creates new categories of people in the distant past.
Kemp’s work was expanded and affirmed by several scholars. Later that year, the biologist Jerry Coyne issued a challenge: “We can dismiss a physical Adam and Eve with near scientific certainty.”19 The Catholic philosopher Edward Feser commented positively on Kemp’s solution, offering it as an answer to Coyne’s challenge.20 In 2016, the theologian Andrew Loke developed and used this approach to answer the objections to evolution offered by Wayne Grudem, a literalist.21 In 2016, the Catholic philosopher Antoine Suarez proposed that the image of God (and original sin) also propagates as couples are made “one flesh” by marriage.22 Though Kemp’s model is articulated from a structuralist point of view, it works for vocationalists too; the biblical theologian Jon Garvey, through this entire time, has been writing about this extensively on his blog.23 In 2015, the geologist Gregg Davidson developed a similar approach, also using a vocational understanding of the image of God.24 There are several commonalities between most models within this body of work.
■ These models all work by employing multiple meanings of the term human, decoupling the scientific definition from the theological definition. This is their key insight, most clear in Kemp’s work.
■ Both structuralists and vocationalists have proposed variations of this model, showing that it works with a wide range of understandings of the image of God.
■ These models understand the image of God, original sin, and the genealogical descendants of Adam and Eve as nearly (if not exactly) coextensive, referring to essentially the same group of individuals. This may not be a strict requirement of the text or theology and is subject to challenge and revision.
■ Even if our biological ancestors never dip down to a single couple, there are definitions of human in theology that would have humans arising by monogenesis: genealogical descent from a single couple.
This body of work demonstrates that the doctrine of monogenesis allows for people outside the Garden. Perhaps the genetic evidence has challenged some understandings of Adam and Eve that disallow people outside the Garden. There are, nevertheless, several existing theologies of Adam that show humans in theology all arising by genealogical descent from a single couple within a larger population.
There are common objections to these proposals, but I am sure all of them can be addressed. For example, some object that the interbreeding between Adam and Eve’s lineage and the people outside the Garden is bestiality. This objection misunderstands the model. The people outside the Garden are not beasts. They are fully biologically human. Some object that the people outside the Garden do not have worth and dignity because they are not in the image of God, or do not have souls. This objection rushes too quickly to judgment. These models do not entail denying rights, dignity, or souls to the people outside the Garden. These models, however, do not work out much of the theological details concerning the people outside the Garden. Going forward, working out our understanding of this mystery remains an important question.
Table 9.1. Kemp, Loke, Suarez, and Davidson understand the people inside and outside the Garden as equally human in a biological sense. They understand the image of God and original sin in different ways, but all understand them both to be coextensive with Adam and Eve’s lineage (excluding Jesus). They also understand Adam and Eve to be chosen from a larger population, not de novo created.
In the Garden |
HISTORICAL THEOLOGY AND CREATIONISTS
How is it possible to affirm monogenesis if there were people outside the Garden? Is this definition acceptable to creationists? Is it a grand revision or a careful recovery of historical theology? As long as they only exist in distant past, most of historical theology is silent about people outside the Garden. This is an important point. Creationists that reject evolution may object to defining monogenesis this way. These objections are not consistent with the speculation that they tolerate among other creationists.
Several theology traditions articulate the theologically important components of the Genesis account in confessions and other doctrinal statements about Adam. Some claim scriptural evidence for a historical Adam and Eve, ancestors of us all. First, there are the genealogies in which he appears (Gen 5; Mt 1; Lk 3). Next, there is Adam’s declaration that Eve is “mother of all the living” (Gen 3:20). Likewise, Paul reasons about the universality of the gospel, which seems to presume universal ancestry of Adam (Rom 5:12-18; Acts 17:24-28). In confessions and doctrine, it is common to find statements of “natural descent,” “first parents,” and “specially created” Adam; these statements, as we have seen, are consistent with evolutionary science. They do not specifically deny mixing with other lines in the distant past. As long as the unity of humankind in the present day is affirmed, speculation about interbreeding in the distant past is within orthodoxy. Historical theology has been largely permissive about interbreeding, when confined to the distant past.
In line with this tradition, creationists that reject evolution continue to tolerate speculation about people outside the Garden. Usually, they do not believe these people were biologically human. Instead, there has been speculation about beings of some sort that are reproductively compatible with Adam and Eve’s lineage. Creationists at Reasons to Believe affirm an old earth, but they reject human evolution. In 2015, Hugh Ross and Fazale Rana updated their model of human origins to acknowledge interbreeding between humans, whom they define as Homo sapiens, and people outside the Garden, whom they identify as Neanderthals.25 Among young earth creationists, Bodie Hodge from Answers in Genesis acknowledges interbreeding with others outside Adam and Eve’s lineage as a valid way of interpreting the Nephilim (Gen 6:1-4).26 Of course, these communities all reject evolution. This demonstrates that interbreeding between Adam’s lineage and others, when confined to the distant past, is already widely tolerated, if not explicitly endorsed, even among those that oppose evolution. The Ark Encounter, for example, includes a large diorama of Nephilim giants in a Colosseum, battling dinosaurs and humans. Ken Ham himself tweeted a happy endorsement of this speculation about interbreeding between Adam and Eve’s lineage and others.27 Objections from creationists to the genealogical hypothesis usually apply to these sorts of speculations too.
Table 9.2. I will propose a flexible framework, with details to be adjusted and varied. How to best fill in these details, however, is an open question to be explored. In contrast to prior work, my baseline narrative will identify the image of God with those outside the Garden and affirm de novo creation. This baseline matches the traditional account, but the framework still accommodates as variants the models proposed by Kemp, Loke, Suarez, and Davidson. As I will soon explain, this flexibility is accomplished by introducing a textual definition of human.
The theology for these speculations about Nephilim, moreover, is not developed among creationists. By tolerating speculation here, however, they are implicitly endorsing an understanding of monogenesis that is not far from Kemp’s proposal. All of them affirm that we all descend from Adam and Eve; in the distant past, however, other sorts of beings might have interbred with our lineage in the distant past.
Though these groups reject evolution, they tolerate speculation about beings outside the Garden in the distant past. Why? The traditional account is open-ended about people outside the Garden, with lacunae that are filled in various ways. Looking to Scripture, there are no statements in the text that preclude interbreeding between Adam’s lineage and others in the distant past. As I will explain in more depth in coming chapters, there are several passages that seem to suggest there were people outside the Garden. Genesis has evoked speculation by readers for thousands of years. This might be the fundamental reason people outside the Garden are tolerated among creationists. Scripture does not rule out people outside the Garden, and it might even hint that they exist. I expect Ken Ham would object to the genealogical hypothesis for including people outside the Garden, but on what grounds? Everyone today descends from Adam and Eve, so the objections to polygenesis do not apply. Of course, creationists could fashion a special rule for the purpose of excluding the genealogical hypothesis. This would be a special pleading, an objection not grounded in the text of Scripture or in traditional theology. Such objections are a departure from the traditional account of Genesis, which includes mystery about people outside the Garden. It is against tradition to foreclose this mystery.
KLINGONS, CYLONS, AND NEANDERTHALS
If the people outside the Garden are not in the image of God, what are we to make of them? What precise traits makes us human? When do those traits arise in the past? Are all of us alive today fully human? These traits do not all arise at the same time; so, which ones are most important? The answers to these questions are uncertain and disputed.
If we ever made contact with intelligent aliens, would they be human too? Would Klingons be human or not? Though they are not biological “humans,” would they have human worth and dignity? Would the intelligent aliens of Star Trek, Arrival, Contact, and Battlestar Galactica have the same human worth as us? Why or why not? Perhaps someday we will build androids with strong intelligence. Maybe they will be indistinguishable from us, like the artificial persons of the “hosts” of Westworld and the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica. Maybe they will uncomfortably fall in the uncanny valley, like Lt. Commander Data of Star Trek and the robotic child in Spielberg’s AI. Either way, would they have human worth and dignity?
In many ways, the present world draws a sharp line between humans and other animals. As we go back in time, this clarity becomes murky. In science fiction, our clarity grows even more opaque. Time machines are probably impossible. If, nonetheless, we could transport Neanderthals and Denisovans, into our world, would they have human worth and dignity? We can parse out and debate who is and is not human by particular definitions. In some cases, we might come to agreement, or maybe not. We will likely need new categories, for there is complexity here, and answers are not settled, even though the stakes are high.
These are important societal questions. What grounds universal human worth and dignity? What is human? Ancient ancestors, artificial minds, and intelligent aliens all bring us here. These are the sorts of questions into which we will now press deeper.