On Sunday I caught part of BBC's Science in Action on NPR. One of the topics was "Evolution of language."
photo © 2009 Blatant News | more info (via: Wylio)The segment reminded me of some resources that Dean Arnold, one of my anthropology professors at Wheaton, shared in our Human Origins class. This article discusses how scientists have pinpointed the gene that provides the blueprint for language acquisition and rapid articulation. This gene developed around 120,000 years ago, so at that time humans had the cognitive ability to communicate with each other--identical to how we communicate now.
50,000 years later, humans began exhibiting artistic behavior, without any additional physical evolution. Scientists think that acquiring language skills jumpstarted the culturally-creating process.
Putting aside the debate about the interpretation of Genesis, this evidence can present a theological problem for Christians who find it imperative that Adam and Eve were all of humanity's ancestors. Otherwise, how is God's image--as well as sin and death--passed down? The concept of salvation is linked with the literal nature of Adam, too, because of the analogies that Paul draws with Christ. Also, if we have beings who are not quite fully human, but may have some rudimentary cognitive ability, what of their salvation?
Gilbert Bilezikian, in Community 101, points out that when God creates in his image, he creates community. Genesis 1:26 states that God, when creating humans, said, “Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness." Just as God himself is always in community in the trinity, humans too are always in community with each other.
When casting Adam as a literal, historical person, evolution's continuum may not present such a theological challenge when put into the context of community. And perhaps the reason evolution is viewed as a challenge to our theology stems from our individualism. The image of God was not meant to be thought of in individual terms only. Perhaps in order to truly to have the image of God, humans need to be involved in a community.
This would make sense especially in light of scientists' discoveries about the language gene, because a sole human being would have no need to develop culture or a verbal language. Dr. Arnold thought that, if forced to choose who on the evolutionary continuum would be Adam, the most language-capable people would be a good starting point.
Although I'm certainly no theologian, I wondered how this communal take on the image of God plays out in Pauline theology because of Paul's reliance on analogies with Adam. John Howard Yoder viewed Paul’s writings in a more communal, rather than individualistic, way. Yoder believed that the righteousness Paul discussed had a social dimension. Paul’s concerns were not at the individual level, such as personal guilt, but instead were at the social level. To be justified, then, deals not with being declared blameless and absolving all guilt, but with the social reality of the church, the establishment of community:
The work of Christ is not only that he saves the soul of individuals and henceforth they can love each other better; the work of Christ, the making of peace, the breaking down of the wall, is itself the constituting of a new community [...] (The Politics of Jesus, p. 219)
With a pray-the-sinner's prayer brand of Christianity, you individually must pray the prayer and "ask Jesus into your heart" as a counter to Adam's literal, individual fall. Yoder's view may see no problem with the lack of a historical Adam.
As a side note, I recently came across the Biologos Forum website, where there is a series of posts titled, "Was Adam a Real Person?" I especially found part 3 helpful, because it addresses how the lack of a literal Adam does (or does not) affect Paul's analogies.