Southern Seminary Magazine (Vol 90.1) The Light of Truth: Apologetics in the 21st Century

y kyle d.
claunch
The Expulsion of Adam and Eve
from Paradise, Benjamin West, 1791
The doctrine of creatio ex nihilo
(creation out of nothing) is indisputably
basic to sound Christian
theology. This doctrine states that
the triune God exists necessarily
and eternally, and everything
that exists that is not God owes its
existence to God.
Nevertheless, among those who hold this basic
theological commitment, the question of how to
interpret the opening chapters of Genesis has been
a subject of debate throughout the long history of
Christianity. The urgency of the question increased
dramatically with the publication of Charles Darwin’s
Origin of Species in the mid-19th century. Since
that time, some version of macro-evolution has
been the consensus explanation for the biological
diversity of life on our planet in the scientific academy.
Therefore, the issue of the historicity (or not)
of the first man and woman named in Scripture—
Adam and Eve—has become an increasingly controversial
subject.
This article will argue that the historical existence
of Adam and Eve as the first human beings and the
biological progenitors of the entire human race is a
matter of great theological consequence for Christians,
and that some interpretive strategies are better
suited to defend belief in a historical Adam and
Eve than others.
We’ll begin by demonstrating the theological significance
of the historicity of Adam and Eve to show
summer 2022
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