William Lane Craig’s non-historical Adam — and marriage and divorce

Yahweh God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and thus man became a living being. -- Genesis 2:7

After the fall:

With sweat on your brow shall you eat your bread, until you return to the soil, as you were taken from it. For dust you are and to dust you shall return. -- Genesis 3:19

To remain Christian we must believe in the resurrection of our body which will have returned to dust. On that great day God will fashion countless bodies from the dust to which they returned. So why do many refuse to remain open to the possibility that God actually did fashion the body of Adam from dust? Do these people believe in the resurrection? harry

"Life might be easier for Craig if he just became a theistic evolutionist, embraced Darwinism, and sidestepped issues around what the Bible says about human history. ... Long a defender of orthodoxy, Craig seems to want to prune the orthodoxies he is expected to defend. But the pruning process in which he is engaged can never really stop." So true! The more one compromises with "evolution", the more one has to re-interpret the Bible to make it fit. Craig is finding this out. His ideas have become more and more unorthodox over time. He wants to be thought of as "scientific" and "orthodox" but in taking the positions he takes, he loses on both fronts! tjguy

ChuckyD, (the 'never say die' Black Knight of Monty Python fame :) ), asks, "Why can’t they, (Luskin and Lisle), just accept Genesis as a creation story?" Perhaps precisely because the creation of Adam and Eve by God is not just some science free 'just-so story' that Darwinists are infamous for telling about human origins? Last May, via an article from the American Museum of Natural History no less, (which is certainly no creationist organization), it was stated that the human evolution ‘narrative’, (as it is portrayed to the general public by evolutionists) is “just a big mess — there’s no consensus whatsoever.”

Scientists Conclude: Human Origins Research Is a Big Mess – Günter Bechly – May 10, 2021 Excerpt: Finally, the article concludes with this gem: “Humans are storytellers: Theories of human evolution often resemble “anthropogenic narratives” that borrow the structure of a hero’s journey to explain essential aspects such as the origins of erect posture, the freeing of the hands, or brain enlargement (166). Intriguingly, such narratives have not drastically changed since Darwin (166). We must be aware of confirmation biases and ad hoc interpretations by researchers aiming to confer their new fossil the starring role within a preexisting narrative. Evolutionary scenarios are appealing because they provide plausible explanations based on current knowledge, but unless grounded in testable hypotheses, they are no more than “just-so stories” (167).” Hardly any ID proponent could have said it better. Fancy storytelling in the style of Kiplingesque “just-so stories” is indeed a hallmark of the soft science of modern evolutionary biology in general, and paleoanthropology in particular.,,, In this press release the senior author of the new study, Sergio Almécija, a senior research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, is also quoted as offering this remarkable admission: “When you look at the narrative for hominin origins, it’s just a big mess — there’s no consensus whatsoever.” https://evolutionnews.org/2021/05/scientists-conclude-human-origins-research-is-a-big-mess/

Even leading Darwinists Stephen Jay Gould and Ernst Mayr themselves honestly admitted that the purported fossil evidence for human evolution is, basically, just “elaborate storytelling” and “historical narrative”.

“most hominid fossils, even though they serve as a basis for endless speculation and elaborate storytelling, are fragments of jaws and scraps of skulls.” – Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda’s Thumb, page 126 (W.W. Norton, 1980). “The earliest fossils of Homo, Homo rudolfensis and Homo erectus, are separated from Australopithecus by a large, unbridged gap. How can we explain this seeming saltation? Not having any fossils that can serve as missing links, we have to fall back on the time-honored method of historical science, the construction of a historical narrative.” – Ernst Mayr – What Makes Biology Unique?, p. 198 (2004).

As should be obvious to even someone as biased as you are ChuckyD, having a senior research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, Stephen Jay Gould, and Ernst Mayr all say that the fossil evidence for human evolution boils down to, basically, “elaborate storytelling” and “historical narrative”, certainly does not bode well for any Darwinist who tries to claim that human evolution is beyond all dispute. In fact, as I listed in post 1, there are several lines of scientific evidence that falsify core presuppositions in the 'just-so story' of human evolution. Which, since the 'just-so story' for human evolution is obviously, 'scientifically', false, begs the question of, "Why can’t you ChuckyD just accept the fact that an initial human pair, i.e. Adam and Eve, must have been created by God in the 'image of God'?" I mean really ChuckyD, it is not as if I have to go to any great length to prove that humans must have been created by God in the 'image of God. For instance, every time you simply write a short sentence, you yourself ChuckyD are, pretty much, giving us irrefutable direct evidence that you yourself must have been made in the image of God by God! In 2014, an veritable 'who’s who' list and leading Darwinian scientists, who specialize in the area of language research, issued a paper in which they honestly admitted that they have “essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,,”

Leading Evolutionary Scientists Admit We Have No Evolutionary Explanation of Human Language – December 19, 2014 Excerpt: Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,, (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, “The mystery of language evolution,” Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014).) Luskin comments: “It’s difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html

The reason why this honest confession by leading Darwinian scientists is so interesting to look at is that it is language, in and of itself, which is profoundly immaterial and ‘abstract’ in its foundational essence, that proves number 1 that, as Dr. Egnor puts it, “We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses.,,,”

The Fundamental Difference Between Humans and Nonhuman Animals – Michael Egnor – November 5, 2015 Excerpt: Human beings have mental powers that include the material mental powers of animals but in addition entail a profoundly different kind of thinking. Human beings think abstractly, and nonhuman animals do not. Human beings have the power to contemplate universals, which are concepts that have no material instantiation. Human beings think about mathematics, literature, art, language, justice, mercy, and an endless library of abstract concepts. Human beings are rational animals. Human rationality is not merely a highly evolved kind of animal perception. Human rationality is qualitatively different — ontologically different — from animal perception. Human rationality is different because it is immaterial. Contemplation of universals cannot have material instantiation, because universals themselves are not material and cannot be instantiated in matter.,,, It is a radical difference — an immeasurable qualitative difference, not a quantitative difference. We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/11/the_fundamental_2100661.html

And number 2, it is this unique human ability to understand, communicate, create, and more specifically, to infuse immaterial 'abstract' information into material substates, that has allowed humans, (directly contrary to the ‘red in tooth and claw’ thinking of Darwinists), to become ‘masters of the planet’.

“Speech is 95 percent plus of what lifts man above animal! Physically, man is a sad case. His teeth, including his incisors, which he calls eyeteeth, are baby-size and can barely penetrate the skin of a too-green apple. His claws can’t do anything but scratch him where he itches. His stringy-ligament body makes him a weakling compared to all the animals his size. Animals his size? In hand-to-paw, hand-to-claw, or hand-to-incisor combat, any animal his size would have him for lunch. Yet man owns or controls them all, every animal that exists, thanks to his superpower: speech.” —Tom Wolfe, in the introduction to his book, ‘The Kingdom of Speech’

What is more interesting still about the fact that humans have a unique ability to understand and create immaterial 'abstract' information, and, (directly contrary to the 'red in tooth and claw' thinking of Darwinists), have come to ‘master the planet’ through the ‘top-down’ infusion of immaterial information into material substrates, is the fact that, due to advances in science, both the universe and life itself, are now found to be ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational essence.

“The most fundamental definition of reality is not matter or energy, but information–and it is the processing of information that lies at the root of all physical, biological, economic, and social phenomena.” – Vlatko Vedral – Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, and CQT (Centre for Quantum Technologies) at the National University of Singapore, and a Fellow of Wolfson College

It is hard to imagine a more convincing scientific proof that we are ‘made in the image of God’, than finding that both the universe and life itself are ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis, and that we, of all the creatures on earth, uniquely possess an ability to understand and create immaterial information, and have come to ‘master the planet’, not via brute force as is presupposed in Darwinian thought, but precisely because of our ability to infuse immaterial information into material substrates.

John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

Perhaps a more convincing proof that we are made in the image of God could be if God Himself became a man, walked on water, healed the sick, raised the dead, and then defeated death itself on a cross. And that just so happens to be precisely the proof that is claimed within Christianity.

Acts 3:15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. Shroud of Turin: From discovery of Photographic Negative, to 3D Information, to Quantum Hologram – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-TL4QOCiis The evidence for the Shroud’s authenticity keeps growing stronger. (Timeline of facts) – November 08, 2019 What Is the Shroud of Turin? Facts & History Everyone Should Know – Myra Adams and Russ Breault https://www.christianity.com/wiki/jesus-christ/what-is-the-shroud-of-turin.html Jesus Christ as the correct “Theory of Everything” – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpn2Vu8–eE

Of supplemental note, via George Ellis, the 'bottom-up' vs. 'top-down' explanations of Darwinists and Theists are, in essence, diametrically opposed to one another. Moreover, the 'top down' explanations of Theists makes complete 'scientific' sense of the world, whereas, on the other hand, the 'bottom-up' explanations of Darwinian atheists end up unscientifically postulating 'uncaused changes in the world', (which is, for all intents and purposes, equivalent to postulating 'magic' as a cause).

Recognising Top-Down Causation - George Ellis Excerpt: Causation: The nature of causation is highly contested territory, and I will take a pragmatic view: Definition 1: Causal Effect If making a change in a quantity X results in a reliable demonstrable change in a quantity Y in a given context, then X has a causal effect on Y. Example: I press the key labelled “A” on my computer keyboard; the letter “A” appears on my computer screen.,,, Definition 2: Existence If Y is a physical entity made up of ordinary matter, and X is some kind of entity that has a demonstrable causal effect on Y as per Definition 1, then we must acknowledge that X also exists (even if it is not made up of such matter). This is clearly a sensible and testable criterion; in the example above, it leads to the conclusion that both the data and the relevant software exist. If we do not adopt this definition, we will have instances of uncaused changes in the world; I presume we wish to avoid that situation.,,, ,,, Excerpt: page 5: A: Both the program and the data are non-physical entities, indeed so is all software. A program is not a physical thing you can point to, but by Definition 2 it certainly exists. You can point to a CD or flashdrive where it is stored, but that is not the thing in itself: it is a medium in which it is stored. The program itself is an abstract entity, shaped by abstract logic. Is the software “nothing but” its realisation through a specific set of stored electronic states in the computer memory banks? No it is not because it is the precise pattern in those states that matters: a higher level relation that is not apparent at the scale of the electrons themselves. It’s a relational thing (and if you get the relations between the symbols wrong, so you have a syntax error, it will all come to a grinding halt). This abstract nature of software is realised in the concept of virtual machines, which occur at every level in the computer hierarchy except the bottom one [17]. But this tower of virtual machines causes physical effects in the real world, for example when a computer controls a robot in an assembly line to create physical artefacts. Excerpt page 7: The assumption that causation is bottom up only is wrong in biology, in computers, and even in many cases in physics,,, ,,, The mind is not a physical entity, but it certainly is causally effective: proof is the existence of the computer on which you are reading this text. It could not exist if it had not been designed and manufactured according to someone’s plans, thereby proving the causal efficacy of thoughts, which like computer programs and data are not physical entities. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1212.2275.pdf

bornagain77

BA77, Sometimes I think you have no sense of humor. Of course, WJC is not the greatest Christian theologian, now, or ever, although I believe he was ranked fourth most influential theologian of the past decade or two by Forbes, recently. I tried finding the article (I heard it on Craig's podcast a few weeks back). He and Plantinga were also listed in the top ten current philosophers, which is an equally absurd ranking. https://academicinfluence.com/people?year-min=1990&discipline=philosophy and https://academicinfluence.com/people?year-min=1990&discipline=philosophy. I'm not sure what Anthony Flew has to do with any of this, I was merely enjoying the fact that Casey Luskin and Jason Lisle seemed positively giddy ripping on Craig over Adam and Eve. That all these folks would waste so much time and energy trying to argue that Adam and Eve were actually real people seems really pointless. Why can't they just accept Genesis as a creation story? chuckdarwin

Zweston As noted, WLC in NOT a theologian. Decent philosopher and good debater…but not a theologian

Theology started with Pentecost and ended in 787 (Seventh.and last. of the Ecumenical Councils). After this period there are not really theologians but only interpreters of theology in the modern language. Unfortunatelly in protestant and catholic area 99,99% became makers/inventors of a new Christian theology =heresies. WLC maybe has a good goal in mind : to attract into the church the evolutionist atheists , but WLC himself is not in the real Church (The Real Church =Church that kept all the decissions from the Primary Church between years 1-787) Lieutenant Commander Data

As noted, WLC in NOT a theologian. Decent philosopher and good debater...but not a theologian. zweston

ChuckyD, Antony Flew, who truly was considered one of the world's leading atheistic philosophers, converted to Theism because of the scientific evidence for Intelligent Design, And he was nothing less than scathing of the supposed 'science' behind Richard Dawkins 'selfish gene'.

Book - THERE IS A GOD: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind - Antony Flew Excerpt page 79-80: "I (Antony Flew) went on to remark that Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene was a major exercise in popular mystification. As an atheist philosopher, I considered this work of popularization as destructive in its own ways as either The Naked Ape or The Human Zoo by Desmond Morris. In his works, Morris offers as the results of zoological illumination what amounts to a systematic denial of all that is most peculiar to our species contemplated as a biological phenomenon. He ignores or explains away the obvious differences between human beings and other species. Dawkins, on the other hand, labored to discount or depreciate the upshot of fifty or more years’ work in genetics — the discovery that the observable traits of organisms are for the most part conditioned by the interactions of many genes, while most genes have manifold effects on many such traits. For Dawkins, the main means for producing human behavior is to attribute to genes characteristics that can significantly be attributed only to persons. Then, after insisting that we are all the choiceless creatures of our genes, he infers that we cannot help but share the unlovely personal characteristics of those all-controlling monads. Genes, of course, can be neither selfish nor unselfish any more than they or any other nonconscious entities can engage in competition or make selections. (Natural selection is, notoriously, not selection; and it is a somewhat less familiar logical fact that, below the human level, the struggle for existence is not “competitive” in the true sense of the word.) But this did not stop Dawkins from proclaiming that his book “is not science fiction; it is science. We are survival machines — robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.” 2 Although he later issued occasional disavowals, Dawkins gave no warning in his book against taking him literally. He added, sensationally, that “the argument of this book is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes.” If any of this were true, it would be no use to go on, as Dawkins does, to preach: “Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.” No eloquence can move programmed robots. But in fact none of it is true — or even faintly sensible. Genes, as we have seen, do not and cannot necessitate our conduct. Nor are they capable of the calculation and understanding required to plot a course of either ruthless selfishness or sacrificial compassion. https://archive.org/stream/There.Is.A.God/Antony%20Flew%20-%20There%20Is%20A%20God_djvu.txt Antony Flew on God and Atheism - interview with Lee Strobel - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHUtMEru4pQ

bornagain77

ChuckyD claims that William Lane Craig is "Christianity’s greatest theologian" Excuse me??? That is a flagrant exaggeration that even WLC himself would disagree with.. WLC, although a decent philosopher, doesn't even make it into the top 100 Christian Theologians.

List of Christian theologians - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_theologians

bornagain77

It's hard, as a non-Christian, not to savor--and perhaps gloat a little bit at--the deep irony of this whole Adam and Eve internecine war stuff. Christianity's greatest theologian, WLC, is being excoriated by his lessers for trying to harmonize the myth of Adam and Eve with contemporary science. Some are even calling for his exile to the hinterland of "evolutionary creationism." It's enough to make Heidelberg man's disarticulated head spin. chuckdarwin

as to,

Lisle: "A non-historical story cannot have “implications for marriage and divorce” in the real world. If Jesus were referring to a non-historical, allegorical, or mythical story, then He made a bad argument; fiction cannot explain why marriage is what it is. Only history can do that."

Dr. Craig, for someone who has impressed me very much in the past with his philosophical take-down of atheism, i.e. 'metaphysical naturalism', does not seem to be, in this case, examining the philosophical presuppositions of his present argument very carefully. As Lisle pointed out "fiction cannot explain why marriage is what it is." If marriage is based on a historical narrative that is, in reality, a fiction, (as Dr. Craig is presently holding), then that, necessarily, entails that the entire institution of marriage must also be a fiction too. That much should be blatantly obvious to even the most philosophically illiterate person in the world, much more so should it be blatantly obvious to a philosopher of Craig's caliber. But alas, compromising one's Christianity with the philosophical presuppositions of atheistic materialism, (i.e. Darwinian evolution), can apparently make even a philosopher of Craig's caliber look embarrassingly bad as a philosopher. The atheistic materialism that undergirds Darwinian evolution simply cannot ground the immaterial 'legal contract' of marriage as being 'real' in the first place, (nor can Atheistic materialism possibly ground any other immaterial concept that we hold as being 'real').

What Does It Mean to Say That Science & Religion Conflict? - M. Anthony Mills - April 16, 2018 Excerpt: Barr rightly observes that scientific atheists often unwittingly assume not just metaphysical naturalism but an even more controversial philosophical position: reductive materialism, which says all that exists is or is reducible to the material constituents postulated by our most fundamental physical theories. As Barr points out, this implies not only that God does not exist — because God is not material — but that you do not exist. For you are not a material constituent postulated by any of our most fundamental physical theories; at best, you are an aggregate of those constituents, arranged in a particular way. Not just you, but tables, chairs, countries, countrymen, symphonies, jokes, legal contracts, moral judgments, and acts of courage or cowardice — all of these must be fully explicable in terms of those more fundamental, material constituents. In fact, more problematic for the materialist than the non-existence of persons is the existence of mathematics. Why? Although a committed materialist might be perfectly willing to accept that you do not really exist, he will have a harder time accepting that numbers do not exist. The trouble is that numbers — along with other mathematical entities such as classes, sets, and functions — are indispensable for modern science. And yet — here’s the rub — these “abstract objects” are not material. Thus, one cannot take science as the only sure guide to reality and at the same time discount disbelief in all immaterial realities. https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2018/04/16/what_does_it_mean_to_say_that_science_and_religion_conflict.html

Indeed, instead of marriage being a fiction, and/or illusion, as it is held to be within Darwinian materialism, within Christianity the immaterial 'legal contract' of marriage is considered, by the vast majority of Christians, to be a sacred institution, holy ordinance, holy sacrament, and/or sacred mystery of God.

Christian views on marriage Many Protestants consider marriage to be a sacred institution or "holy ordinance" of God. Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians consider marriage a holy sacrament or sacred mystery. - per wikipedia

Indeed, within Christianity, Christ himself is held to be the 'bridegroom' and the church itself is held to be His, quote-unquote, 'bride'.

The Church Is the Bride of Christ,,, Excerpt: Portrayed as the bridegroom in this relationship, God reveals Himself to be faithful, loving, and committed to a covenant union with his church, comprised of all who believe in Jesus Christ and have accepted His atoning grace and gift of salvation. https://www.christianity.com/wiki/church/the-church-is-the-bride-of-christ.html

Needless to say, God Himself, apparently, takes marriage very seriously. Much more seriously than we ourselves apparently do, (as is made evident by the high divorce rate). Thus Craig, in denying to historical reality of Adam and Eve, and thus, unwittingly or not, undermining the Theistic foundation of the institution of marriage itself, is, in fact, undermining a 'sacred mystery' that is central to Christian theology. Again, this rather large philosophical/theological 'faux pas' on the part of Dr. Craig is simply embarrassing for a philosopher of Craig's caliber. Moreover, what is reality sad is that, (although Dr. Craig apparently felt the need to make such philosophically embarrassing compromises between his Christianity and Darwinian materialism in order to remain, supposedly, 'scientific' and respectable), the fact of the matter is that, as far as empirical science itself is concerned, Darwinian evolution is simply a non-starter in so far as explaining the origin of humans, (or in so far as explaining the origin of any other species on the face of earth for that matter).

The Fossil Record refutes human evolution https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/at-fox-news-adam-and-eve-are-compatible-with-evolution/#comment-744141 The evidence from genetics, directly contrary to what Darwinists claim, simply does not support the Darwinian ‘narrative’. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/evangelical-scientists-getting-it-wrong/#comment-740245 Darwinists simply have no evidence that morphology, and/or biological form, is reducible to mutations to DNA. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/evangelical-scientists-getting-it-wrong/#comment-740247 Population Genetics falsifies, instead of confirms, Darwinian claims for human evolution https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/christian-darwinists-must-now-backtrack-re-adam-and-eve/#comment-741335 Human exceptionalism falsifies Darwinian claims for human evolution https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/evangelical-scientists-getting-it-wrong/#comment-740249 Darwinists, (in what makes the ‘problem’ of explaining the origin of the human species pale in comparison), have no clue whatsoever why I, as an individual person within the human species, should even come into existence as a person with unique individual subjective experience https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/casey-luskin-the-mytho-history-of-adam-eve-and-william-lane-craig/#comment-740568

Verse:

Genesis 1:27 So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. Matthew 19: 3-6 And there came unto him Pharisees, trying him, and saying, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said, Have ye not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh? So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

bornagain77