Welcome to Defender’s Voice. This is Dr.Paul. Thank you for joining us today. Please send me your questions to info@doctorpaul.org. To support this ministry, please visit our website http://www.doctor paul.org.
Today’s question is: Christian apologist William Lane Craig says, Genesis 1 – 11 is mytho-history. He argues that Adam originated from humanoid creatures called Homo Heidelbergensis, Noah’s Flood is only global and God cannot walk with man. Are these correct views?
Good questions. William Lane Craig needs no introduction. He is a household name in the evangelical world. I have his books on my shelf and I consult them often on various topics like evidence for God, evidence for resurrection etc. This is a politically incorrect channel. I would go after my own dad if he speaks nonsense concerning the Bible. So, I am not going to spare William Lane Craig even as I love and respect him so much. Because the Word of God is the most important thing to me in the entire universe.
Mr.Craig says, ‘Genesis 1 – 11 should be called mytho-history. The real history starts from Genesis 12 when God calls Abraham to follow Him. The first 11 chapters have titbits of history but it is not true history’.
Regarding Adam, he says, ‘Adam evolved from hominids, most probably Homo Heidelbergensis, approximately 750,000 years ago.’ I would like to give you 10 reasons for why Dr.Craig is seriously mistaken on these views.
1.It is against the character of God as the historian
We depend on historians to inform us of the facts about our past. Those historians should do meticulous research before presenting their facts to the world. But they can only go so far. They cannot tell us how the first human being came into existence. There are no documents, fossils or any other archaeological evidence that point us to the first human being. So, the only source we have is God. We look to God to tell us what happened before, during and after the creation of this universe and of humanity. And God takes that responsibility very seriously. He recognizes that he is the first historian uniquely situated to record the history of human origins and beginnings. Our best historians do labor so much in historical investigations and research and they are still imperfect. But God does not have to do any investigations or research, yet he is the perfect historian we can ever have. He is the first hand witness to all events transpiring in this universe.
No serious historian would start his book with mythology or mytho-history. God had all the facts about the real origins of human beings on this planet. He would not need to dress those facts in mythology. Human beings are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ (Psalm 139:14). He told us the creation of man and of woman in easy to understand language in the Book of Genesis. So, for Mr.Craig to propose that God started his good book with some mythology is against the character of God as the first historian of the universe.
2.It is against the plain teaching of Genesis
Mr.Craig says that there were millions of humanoids before Adam and Eve roaming this planet. Yes, the Bible may not speak about Homo Heidelbergensis but we can deduce it from other sources’. That is an argument from silence which is very dangerous to exercise over the scriptures. God never keeps silent on important matters like the origin of man, which is a very serious subject because the creation of the universe, origin of life, incarnation of God and even the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ – they all revolve around the origin of human beings.
Start reading the Book of Genesis with an open mind without making any preconceived assertions. When you read Genesis chapter 1, you feel the sense of immediacy in those verses.
And God said….
And God said……
And God said…….
And God said…….
You will feel the freshness of the events. Created things were coming into existence from non-existence through miraculous and marvelous commandments of God. It does not feel like there was stuff in existence for billions of years before these events described in Genesis chapter 1.
Let us read Genesis 1:26
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Genesis 1:26
God says, let us make mankind to rule our nature. If there were pre humans controlling nature before Adam, this verse makes no sense.
Let us read Genesis 2:7
Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
Genesis 2:7
God formed the first man of dust from the ground. That is so simple to understand. Even a kid would understand that statement. God made Adam of dust from the ground. Dr.Craig says Adam came from pre -humans. He is clearly contradicting the plain teaching of the Word of God.
Dr.Craig might say, ‘Yes, it is in plain language. But it is mythology’. Dr.Craig still believes in the resurrection of Jesus. If God could raise Jesus from the dead, he could also create Adam from the dust.
Raising Jesus from the dead is not an easier miracle than creating Adam from the dust and vice versa. They are both miracles. You cannot say that you will believe one miracle and disbelieve the other. Such selective disbelief is not consistent with logic and scripture.
Next, let us read Genesis 2:19,
Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.Genesis 2:19
Lord God brought animals and birds to Adam and wanted to see what he would call them. In this verse too we see an ‘immediacy’ between the events of animal creation and human creation. God created the animals and birds and brought them to Adam. It is more consistent with a 6 day creation. If the animals and birds were created millions of years before Adam was created, why the hurry to give them names? They were hanging around for millions of years without names. ‘Out of the ground God formed them and brought them to Adam’. God created these animals and birds and brought them immediately, in a matter of hours and days, to Adam. There were no millions of years between their creation and their naming. Therefore, a 6 day creation better describes the language of Genesis chapter 1. God created animals and birds and within a few hours to days, he took them to Adam to give them names.
Next, Genesis 3:8,
And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day
Dr.Craig says, ‘God walking in the garden. That is too anthropomorphic. I can’t believe it. That sounds like mythology.’
In the form of three men, divine trinity walked towards Abraham (Genesis 18).
God wrestled with Jacob (Genesis 32).
God appeared as the pillar of cloud and fire before Moses and Israelites (Exodus 13).
God appeared in a whirlwind and demanded answers from Job (Job 38).
Are these historical events or mythology?
God walked in the garden of Gethsemane. Do you believe that or that sounds like mythology? If God could walk in the garden of Gethsemane, what would stop him from walking in the garden of Eden? God could take different manifestations based on the circumstances. He appeared to Moses in a burning bush, he appeared as the son of God in the furnace with three Hebrew youngmen who defied the emperor Nebuchadnezzar. So, Dr.Craig’s skepticism regarding anthropomorphism is unwarranted. It is against the plain teaching of the Bible which is replete with anthropomorphic manifestations of God from Genesis to Revelation.
3. It is against the Ten Commandments
In the Bible, creation of the universe is linked to human morality. That is so profound. The moral character of God cannot be separated from his creative works. The Ten Commandments start with reminding us of the Creatorship of God in bringing out human existence. Let us read Genesis 2:3 and Exodus 20:11
Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. Genesis 2:3
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Exodus 20:11
In six days, God created the universe and everything in it and the seventh day is the Sabbath. We live through a 7 day week. We work for six days, and then we take a day off as Sabbath to remember our Creator and Savior, Lord Jesus Christ. Each week we reflect the work of God in creation. As creatures made in his image, we exercise our creative abilities to bring forth what God intended for our lives. And on the seventh day, we worship God as we come together as a local body of Christians.
In Exodus 20:11, God says, for in six days I created everything and on the seventh day, you should observe it as Sabbath. ‘Days’ means ‘days’. Not millions of years or billions of years. God cannot say, ‘Six days means six billion years for me. Seventh day means a 24 hour day for you’.
If I tell my son, ‘Work for 6 hours and then take a break for one hour’. Six hours cannot be six days or six months or six years. Six hours means six hours. The word ‘hour’ means the same for both myself and for my son. In the same way, we cannot say, six days means six billion years for God, and one day means one 24 hour day for us. They should carry the same meaning.
The Ten commandments of God clearly teaches us a young universe created in six ordinary 24 hour days. Therefore, Dr.Craig’s assertion that pre-humans existed before Adam is clearly against the Ten Commandments.
4. It is against the Historical records of the Bible
God is the first historian of the universe. In the Bible, God recorded the history of the events that already happened thousands of years ago. A major portion of the Bible is also prophetic in nature. It is about the events that will unfold in the future. In other words, prophecy is history pre-written by God. From the beginning of the universe to its end, God wrote a historical document in the Bible.
Let us see 1 Chronicles chapter 1. It starts with these names.
Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, ………to Noah verse 4. From Noah to Abraham in verse 27. In chapter 2……..the genealogy goes to Jacob and his children. In chapter 3, the genealogy goes to David. The writer of 1 Chronicles gave us the historical documents from Adam to David. In the New Testament, Luke gives us the historical documents from Adam to David to Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Going by Dr.William Lane Craig’s argument, ‘from Adam to Noah is mythology, from Abraham to Jesus is real history’. You cannot do that. The writer of 1 Chronicles and Luke considered Adam and Noah as real historical persons. They presented the historical documents as one continuous history from Adam to Noah to Abraham to David to Jesus. You should not slice them into different sections like ‘from Adam to Noah’ mythology and ‘from Abraham to Jesus’ real history. We say ‘History is His story’. What started in the first Adam should have a pure historical connection to the second Adam. The first Adam cannot be in mytho-history while the second Adam is firmly planted in real history.
So, Dr.Craig’s assertion that the first 11 chapters are mytho-history is against the spirit of historical documents we find in both Old and New Testaments.
5. It is against what Lord Jesus Christ taught
In Matthew 19, Lord Jesus Christ asked, ‘Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female?’ That is in reference to Adam and Eve. At the beginning God created Adam and Eve. There were no humanoids before Adam and Eve. Our blessed Savior did not say, ‘At the beginning the Creator made pre-humans and then the humans’. He said, ‘At the beginning the creator made them male and female’. So, Dr.Craig’s contention there were pre-humans before Adam and Eve is against the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us also read a few verses from Matthew 24,
37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
Dr.Craig says Genesis 1-11 is mytho-history.
Then we have to answer the next question, which is history? And which is mythology? Is Adam history or a myth? Is Garden of Eden history or a myth? Is Original fall history or myth? The murder of Abel, a history or myth? Then Noah, the Flood, the rise of nations and the Tower of Babel…are they history or myths? There is no way to answer those questions. Once you label them, mytho-history, you reduce all of them into mythology. And that is what skeptics want: Reduce all Bible to mythology which has no relation to the reality in the past and to the morality in the present.
Genesis chapters 6,7,8,9 and 10 are about Noah, the Flood and the rise of nations after the Flood. Out of the 11 chapters Dr.Craig throws into mythology, five chapters are about Noah and the Flood. He says Noah’s flood was not a global flood.
Look at the words of Lord Jesus Christ. He connected his second coming to Noah’s Flood. We read in Genesis 7:11, ‘on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened’. During Noah’s Flood, God opened all the springs of the great deep and the floodgates of the heavens. It was a cosmic, cataclysmic event with no parallel in human history. There was no event like the Genesis Flood in the history of this planet and of humanity. It was such a mind-boggling global event. The second coming of Christ will also shake up planet earth and the astronomical objects in space.
We should not miss the parallels between Noah’s Flood and the Second Coming. The second coming of Christ will be a global event affecting all human beings on this planet just like Noah’s Flood was a global event affecting all human beings. The Second Coming of Christ will bring judgment of God on all unrighteous people just like Noah’s Flood brought judgment on all unrighteous human beings alive at that time. The Second Coming will be a cosmic, cataclysmic catastrophe just like Noah’s Flood, which was a cosmic, cataclysmic catastrophe.
Lord Jesus Christ would not have compared his Second Coming, which will be a real, historical event to some mythological story in the book of Genesis. He compared them because both are real, historical events. He compared them because both are global events. He compared them because both are extraordinarily unique events shaking up the whole planet.
Dr.Craig says, ‘well, Jesus probably believed in historical Adam’. He says it was so agonizing for him to doubt the historicity of Adam because Jesus believed in a historical Adam.
This is blasphemous. If Jesus believed in the historical Adam, we too must believe in the historical Adam. We should not hypothesize on alternatives to what Jesus believed. If Jesus believed in heaven, we must believe in heaven. We should not say, ‘Yes, Jesus believed in heaven. But I am proposing an alternative in which there is no heaven’; ‘Yes, Jesus believed in hell. But I am proposing an alternative in which there is no hell’. Dr. Craig says, ‘Yes, Jesus believed in historical Adam. But I am proposing an alternative’. That is dangerous blasphemy. Jesus was God in human flesh. We should not second-guess him.
So, Dr.William Lane Craig’s assertion that Genesis 1-11 is mytho-history is against the clear, serious teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ.
6. It is against what the apostles taught
The apostles never taught that there were human-like creatures before Adam and Eve. They considered Adam as a real, historical first human being. They believed that Lord Jesus Christ was the Creator of all things and of all beings.
Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 8:6,
“ Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live”.
In one of his interviews, Dr.Craig says that Jesus probably had an incorrect view of the moon. Jesus created the moon. Why would he be ignorant of the moon’s nature?
Luke says,
“Which was [the son] of Enos, which was [the son] of Seth, which was [the son] of Adam, which was [the son] of God”. (Luke 3:38)
According to Luke, Adam was the son of God! There was nobody between Adam and God.
Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy,
“For Adam was first formed, then Eve”. (1 Timothy 2:13).
In Greek, he wrote Adam gar protos eplasthe. Eplasthe is used in reference to a potter. Making something out of clay. Like a potter makes a pot out of the mud, God created the first human being out of mud. Apostle Paul is reiterating what has been told in Genesis chapter 1 concerning the creation of Adam. The great apostle never talked about pre-humans.
Apostle Jude wrote,
“And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints” (Jude 1:14)
Enoch was the seventh from Adam. Apostle Jude connected Enoch to Adam just as they were in Genesis chapter 5. That chapter starts with the creation of Adam. Let us read from verse 1:
“This is the written account of Adam’s family line. When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind” when they were created”.
As Moses starts the genealogy with Adam, he recounts that Adam and Eve were specially created by God. There is no hint of humanoids in this verse. In verse 24, we come across another supernatural act of God:
Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away. Enoch was a real human being who walked with the Lord. Dr.Craig says, ‘God walked with a man? Such anthropomorphism is not allowed’. But that is what the Bible tells us. God took him away just like he took prophet Elijah later sparing them death.
God who walked with Adam, who walked with Peter also walked with Enoch. I don’t find any difficulty in believing it. Following Genesis 5, Apostle Jude presents Adam and Enoch as real, historical persons in his short epistle.
Luke, Paul and Jude – all believed that Adam was the first, real, historical human being specially created by God. So, Dr.Craig’s teaching is against what the great Apostles taught in the New Testament.
7. It is against the Gospel
Death came through Adam.
Romans 5:14
“Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come”.
Note those words: Adam is a figure of Christ. No person from the Old Testament who is mythology happened to be a figure of Christ. Melchizedek was not fictional. Enoch was not fictional. Abel was not fictional. Adam too was not fictional. Apostle Paul says that Adam was a figure of Christ. How? He writes in his first epistle to Corinthians. Let us read a few verses
1.Their origin
from 1 Corinthians 15:47
“The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven”
The first man Adam is from the earth while the second man, Jesus is from heaven.
In Greek, this truth is presented more clearly and beautifully.
Ho protos anthropos ek ges choikos
Ho protos: the first man
Ek ges: came from earth
Choikos: made of dust
Choikos: made of dust: That takes us back to Genesis chapter 1, where we read that God created Adam out of dust. Adam came from the dust, not from pre-humans. Apostle Paul made it crystal clear in this passage that Adam was created from dust.
Then he says, ho deuteros anthropos ou ouranos. The second man, our Lord Jesus Christ, came from heaven.
2.Their nature
1 Corinthians 15:45
“And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [was made] a quickening spirit”.
Dr.Craig says pre-humans are equally human as Adam. They cannot be. What does it mean to be human? First and foremost, it means to have a living soul created in the image of God. Apostle Paul writes that first man Adam was made a living soul. There were no living souls before Adam. There were no humans before Adam. So, Dr.Craig’s assertion that Neanderthals who allegedly existed before Adam were human is against the scriptures.
3.Their preeminence
1 Corinthians 15:21-23
“For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming”.
As the first man ever created, Adam was the head of the human race. ‘By a man came death’ – Death came because of Adam’s sin. He explained the same truth in Romans chapter 5. ‘As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin’.
Through Adam sin entered into the world and death by sin. If humans existed before Adam and they died, this cannot be true. Death cannot exist before sin because God’s creation untainted by sin had no trace of death in it. God declared it to be ‘good’, as we read in Genesis chapter 1. His ‘good’ universe had no death in it in any form.
That’s the pre-eminence of Adam. He was the head of our human race who brought sin and death into the world. Then the preeminence of Christ. Christ, the first fruits. Jesus Christ by conquering sin and grave became the head of the church. He is called last Adam because while Adam became the head of the dead, Christ became the head of the living. Therefore, the preeminence of Adam who brought sin and death into the world rules out the possibility of humanity, death and destruction before Adam.
4.Their impact
Next, let us see the impact of Adam and Christ on the human race. As we have seen from Romans chapter 5, sin and death came to all of us through Adam. But through Christ, God offered us eternal life. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.(1 Corinthians 15:22). So, through their origin, nature, preeminence and impact, it is clear that Adam is a very important figure of Christ. Such an important figure could not have been fictional or mythical.
8. It is against the prophetic view of judgment
There were past events witnessed only by God and there are future events seen only by God. We have a past and a future seen only by God. The first book of the Bible, Genesis, is about the past events seen only by God while the last book of the Bible, Revelation, is about the future events seen only by God.
Dr.Craig says, ‘just as the Book of Revelation has so much figurative language in it, the Book of Genesis has so much figurative language in it. The dragon which tries to swallow up babies in Revelation is not literal. Likewise, the serpent which talks to humans in Genesis is not literal’.
The comparison between Genesis and Revelation does not stick. In the Book of Revelation, we are clearly given a lot of information in the form of figurative language. The book itself gives us a commentary on those figures. For example, in chapter 1, Apostle John saw seven stars and seven candlesticks. What are these seven stars and seven candlesticks? We find the answer in chapter 1:20 – the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, the seven candlesticks are the seven churches. In chapter 1 itself, apostle John makes it clear that he is going to write his book in a figurative language.
Another example, 5:6 – The Lamb has seven horns and seven eyes.
Who is this lamb? The Lamb here is Jesus. It does not mean that Jesus has seven horns and seven eyes. It means Jesus has perfect power and perfect vision.
Another example, in Chapter 12 we see a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet giving birth to a child, and a red dragon with seven heads and ten horns was chasing her. The woman gave birth to a child. Who is this dragon? 12:9 clearly identifies this great dragon. It is the Devel, the Satan. Revelation 20:2 also helps us to identify this dragon: the dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan.
In Chapter 13: A beast rising up out of the sea with seven heads and ten horns. Who is this beast? It is AntiChrist.
In Chapter 19: marriage of the lamb, a bride is being prepared for the Lamb of God. It does not mean Lord Jesus Christ will marry a woman in heaven in a literal way. It means his bride, the Christian church will be united with him in heaven.
By studying the Book of Revelation, we can easily understand that it was written in a figurative language. By comparing it with other sections in the Bible, we can find out the real nature of those figures. It was written like the Book of Daniel. In Daniel, some chapters are real history while some chapters are dreams and visions. Similarly, in the Book of Revelation, some chapters are real history (like John living on the island of Patmos) while other chapters are dreams and visions. The distinction between real events and dreams can be easily made in both the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation. The same cannot be said about the Book of Genesis. The first 11 chapters are written like historical events.
We should also consider 2 Peter 3:6-7
“Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word, are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”
In these verses, we see Apostle Peter explaining the end of this universe. He says, just like God destroyed the ancient world using a flood, he is going to destroy the world with fire at the end of this age. A global flood destroying the planet in the past and a global fire destroying the planet in the future. That makes more sense.
Dr.Craig says Noah’s flood is mythology and if it is real, it must be a local flood. That does not stick with what Apostle Peter prophesied here. You cannot compare a local flood with a global fire. You cannot compare a mythic story from the past with a real event in the future. A real, global flood in the past makes more sense when it is compared to a real, global fire in the future. Therefore, Dr.Craig’s assertion is against the prophetic view of judgment given in the scripture.
9. It is against science
Lots of things are being sold under the banner of science in our time. The real science must involve observational investigations. To make this clear, let me show an illustration.
You start with an observation. Then you create a theory. Using that theory, you make a prediction. You design an experiment to test the prediction. You perform the experiment to see whether it’s results are consistent with your observation, theory and its predictions. Let us take Newton observing an apple. An apple falling to the ground. Based on that observation, Newton formulated a universal theory of gravitation. Based on Newton’s theory, a French mathematician named Urbain Leverrier wrote to a German astronomer in Berlin with instructions on where to look for a new planet, Neptune. They found a new planet exactly where it was predicted. That is the power of science. That is the power of Newton’s laws of gravity. Radio Waves were predicted mathematically before they were discovered, Higgs boson was predicted mathematically before it was discovered.
An apple falling to the ground. We can all see apples falling to the ground. It happens in the present. It happens again and again. Science can only investigate events or phenomena which are recurring and independently verifiable.
How did the first apple come into existence? How did the first living cell come into existence? How did the first human come into existence? Those things happened in the past. They are not under the purview of science. The debate over our origins cannot be settled by scientific method because the scientific method is not equipped to see into the past to investigate unique events like the origin of the first living cell or the origin of the first human being. Historically, both philosophers and people looked to the scriptures for answers to the questions of origins. The scripture instructs us to believe it for the answers to the questions of origins.
“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible”. Hebrews 11:3
“All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made”. John 1:3
Dr.Craig would want us to believe in what he calls ‘mainstream science’ rather than the Word of God. But the problem is that mainstream science is not equipped to answer the questions of our origins. They have varied, often conflicting opinions. Some scientists believe that the universe is 14 billion years old. Others believe this universe is part of a multiverse which is hundreds of billions of years old. Some others believe the universe is eternal with no beginning. Which of these views is mainstream? Which of these views is scientific? Science can only investigate current events. No scientist is alive when the first living cell came to existence or when the first human being came to life. Only the Word of God can be and should be our source to answer questions of origins.
10. It is against Darwinism
Finally, and ironically, Dr.Craig’s views are against Darwinism. Let me show you one more illustration here on the progress of science.
You can see how the cycle of scientific method progresses. From Identifying patterns to making hypotheses to making predictions and then to doing observations, experiments and gathering data – preconceptions play a role. Today’s evolutionists always make atheistic preconceptions on their scientific projects. They say, ‘whether it is the universe or a planet or a living cell or a living human, it always happens without a Supernatural agency. Everything is natural without any role for God’.
Charles Lyell, who was chief inspiration for Charles Darwin, once said that his goal was to ‘free science from Moses’. Charles Darwin had the same goal: to free science from Moses. Until Darwin came along, science was under Moses and his Book of Genesis. Moses told us what happened in the beginning and how the first human beings arose.
Now, Darwinists successfully occupied academia, science and public education. Charles Lyell could smile from his grave. Science has been freed from Moses. Science was practised in a Creationist worldview when it was under Moses. Now, it is practised in a materialistic and naturalistic worldview under Darwin. Having successfully liberated science from Moses, why would any Darwinist take it back to Moses? Adam and Eve are protagonists in Moses’s account of origins. They have no place in Darwinism.
Darwinists would laugh at Mr.Craig’s conclusions. God came and brought out Adam and Eve from Homo Heidelbergensis? No serious evolutionist would take such propositions seriously. Charles Darwin allowed no place for God in human origins. They don’t believe in God opening the Red Sea before Israelites or in virgin birth or in resurrection or in the second coming. They adhere to their naturalistic materialism with complete devotion. It is the Christians who bend over backwards to accommodate naturalistic evolution into the Word of God. Ironically, even though Dr.Craig wants to impress evolutionists by placing Adam on Darwin’s tree of life, they are not impressed because it is against the spirit of Darwinism.
Dr.Craig reminds me of Asa Gray, a great American botanist of the 19th century. He considered himself a Bible believing Christian. While working as a professor of botany at Harvard University, Gray regularly corresponded with Charles Darwin. In January 1839, he visited Kew Gardens in London and had lunch with Darwin. Gray told Darwin that there is a place for God in the origin of man. Darwin was not convinced. However, that would not deter Mr.Gray from going on a crusade to convince creationists that Darwin’s account of human origins is compatible with the Bible. We have Asa Grays in every generation who would pluck out Adam and Eve from the Book of Genesis and transplant them into Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. But the graft cannot survive because it is neither Biblical nor Darwinian.
Conclusion
Our Apologetics should be Bibliocentric and Christ-centric. Cosmological argument, teleological argument, moral argument, experiential argument….they are all good. But the best arguments are the Word of God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Modern apologetics movement went in the wrong direction by neglecting the Word of God and our Lord Jesus Christ and elevating general arguments for the existence of God. The skeptics demand us to put away our Bibles while we debate our origins. They ask us to stick to evolutionary naturalism which has been masquerading as science since its inception.
Too many great apologists such as Dr.Craig fell into their trap. They give away the authority of the Word of God on these matters and subscribe to the views borrowed from evolutionists.
That is a dangerous path. If Dr.Craig says Genesis 1-11 is mytho-history. Another Tom will say Exodus is also mytho-history. Another Dick will say Gospels are mytho-history. Another Harry will say the entire Bible is mytho-history. That is what Satan wants: to turn the entire Bible into mytho-history and make it irrelevant to life, faith and morality. Let us not go their way.
Glory to our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace!
Paul Kattupalli MD is a physician, Christian speaker and commentator.