Can we still believe in a historical Adam? That’s the question Dr. Vern S. Poythress, professor of New Testament Interpretation at Westminster Theological Seminary, answers in this booklet. He talks through scientists’ claims that Adam and Eve could not have existed, starting with the claim that 99% of the DNA of humans and chimpanzees is identical. Is this accurate? What about an authoritative report that refers to both 99% and 96%? Is that a mistake? No, he observes, both figures come from an interpretation of data using a few restrictions. Without getting too deep for thoughtful readers, Dr. Poythress explains how the data is being interpreted to come up with these figures and what is being left unsaid.
Step by step, asking questions on every other page about what this bit of information could mean to the reader, Dr. Poythress gets to his main point: Darwinist evolution is a framework for interpreting scientific data, and there are other frameworks.
Scientific findings are often reported as unarguable facts, as conclusions naturally drawn from the unbiased data at hand. That simply isn’t true. If a scientist or science reporter assumes gradualism is true, interprets his data set accordingly, and then announces he has proven gradualism with his data, then he has begged the question. This kind of circular reasoning is common, and this booklet aims at tripping it up.
“[W]ithin the mainstream of modern culture, Darwinism is not seen as religious, but merely ‘neutral’ and ‘scientific’,” he writes, yet Darwinists claim to have disproven God’s existence, which is a religious and unscientific claim. Such unscientific claims are being made in the name of science all the time these days, and it falls to those who aren’t scared of religion to point this out.
Dr. Poythress doesn’t shy away from the fact that the Bible states Adam and Eve existed, but he doesn’t argue from the text or any research to prove the point. He is content to poke holes in the claims that they could not have existed as well as criticize the idea that Science sees all, knows all, and cannot be questioned.
This thoughtful, accessible booklet is part of a series from Westminster Seminary Press called “Christian Answers to Hard Questions.” I recommend it to anyone who is wrestling with how to reconcile scientific claims with biblical truths. (I received this title for free as an ebook through Netgalley.com.)
. He has shared many more thoughts with us in this post on The Gospel Coalition:
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. In part, he says, “What can you do with the knowledge found in Outliers? You can learn the potential reward of putting in 10,000 hours of hard work. Even the story of Mozart is debunked, who didn’t hit his stride until he had his 10,000 hours invested. He just got them in earlier than most.”