Biblical Faith Seeks Scientific Understanding

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Hans Madueme
Gnostics and the manichaeans would have said that the world and matter is evil. Probably science would not have arisen in that culture, because why would you spend time investigating and looking at and observing and measuring the created order? All of it is evil? However, Christianity teaches that creation is good. So there were a number of theological assumptions that I think undergird science.

Collin Hansen
Maybe science has never made you wonder about something taught by Christianity. If that’s not the case with you. I’m sure you know someone who agonized over the Bible and evolution or heliocentrism, or, of course, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, multiple disciplines in the natural sciences put pressure today on the Christian doctrine of sin. For many, of the early chapters of Genesis don’t seem to match what we know from evolutionary biology, human genetics and the neurosciences. These challenges are the focus of Hans Medway May’s new book defending sin, a response to the challenges of evolution and the natural sciences, published by Baker. Academic credit to Hans and the publisher for such a provocative title, defending sin. Madway May is a professor of theological studies at covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. He earned his MDiv and PhD from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, which is where he and I got to know each other. And he previously earned his MD from Howard University College of Medicine, and did his internal medicine residency at Mayo Graduate School of Medicine. Now in his book defending sin, Hans describes his approach as, quote, Biblical faith, seeking scientific understanding, and he takes aim at the pretensions of modern science. He argues that we can trust divine revelation, indeed, we must. Hans writes this, doctrines are not atomistic entities like marbles in a jar that we can rearrange without consequence. Doctrines are more like threads in a tapestry. Pulling on Unfall unravels other doctrines and disrupts the biblical stories inner coherence, again, referring there to the fall of Adam and Eve. Hans joins me now in Gospel bound to discuss whether the Presbyterian Church should just close up shop, why he defends young earth creationism, why we trust what Scripture says about the future and more. Hans, thanks for joining me. Yeah, it’s

Hans Madueme
a pleasure. Looking forward to our conversation. Let’s

Collin Hansen
open strong you write this quote, the most pointed scientific challenges to the classical doctrine of sin are far from esoteric or merely theoretical. If they hold up to scrutiny, then the PCA and other denominations are no longer theologically viable. They should reinvent themselves or close up shop. Bold claim, Hans, what’s behind it? Yeah,

Hans Madueme
I think what I’m basically saying there is that if you denominations like the PCA, we have confessional commitments, for instance, that Adam and Eve were historical, that all the entire human race descended from Adam and Eve. But not only that, that sin entered into God’s good creation through the sin of Adam and Eve and and that, that’s the condition that we’re in today, in dwelling sin is traces back to events that happen in Genesis three and our doctrine of original sin, which is closely tied to our doctrine of salvation, again, Adam, plays a really instrumental role in that in the biblical story, as understood by many Christians, including the PCA, and there are certain views that are mainstream in science today, that would lead us to think that Adam and Eve perhaps never existed, or that the human race did not descend from an original couple, and that perhaps sin has always been in the created order, that it doesn’t really make sense to speak of a time when perhaps There was no sin, and then sin entered the world. And so my point is just that if we, if we go with that scientific story, then that really does dismantle some fairly significant doctrinal commitments held by the PCA and other denominations, and so they it was really just my way of signaling, hey, we’re in this an important conversation, and we need to have our wits about us. Well, could

Collin Hansen
you set the record straight for us with Galileo? He’s such an important figure coming up again and again in your narrative. But. And this is an area of pretty significant historical misunderstanding, so go ahead and set the record straight on him. Yeah,

Hans Madueme
Galileo is I spent some time thinking about Galileo and his significance for how we today think about the relationship between science and theology, and particularly the role of Scripture and biblical authority. My sense is that, in general, there’s much about Galileo and the way he thought that’s fairly traditional. And there is a kind of popular kind of impression that Galileo was this heretic, and, and, and the Roman Catholic Church, you know, there was this severe tension between Galileo and the Roman Catholic Church, and then maybe he was imprisoned and, and, you know, so we have these myths about Galileo that are typically not, not true to history. And when you actually look Galileo was very impressive in his understanding of, I mean, he had read the church fathers. He was familiar with Augustine. He was familiar with sort of how the church thought about Scripture and and how to interpret Scripture in many respects and and so when he came, when he sort of started publicly defending heliocentrism, as opposed to geocentrism. He was getting a lot of pushback, because at the time, geocentrism was the dominant view, and that that was tied to sort of standard ways of understanding, Aristotle and Ptolemy and the Roman Catholic Church had had incorporated the geocentric view, and it’s kind of understanding so it was, it was pretty controversial when Galileo sort of came out. He wasn’t the first, but he sort of came out and said, hey, you know, here’s here’s why I think heliocentrism is true. And in a famous letter that he wrote to the Duchess Christina, and it almost reads like a hermeneutics textbook, if you will, like he actually sort of explains why he thinks heliocentrism is the right way to go and and and how to understand Scripture and how to interpret Scripture. And he, he appeals to Augustine and others, and so I would say in much of that he is, you know, Galileo is traditional. He’s helpful, he’s insightful. And it’s really impressive to see one of these early scientists be so conversant with the tradition and with sort of biblical hermeneutics and so on. However, the claim that I make in the chapter is that he when it comes to epistemology, how do we know what we know? What is our authority, particularly understanding the natural world, understanding historical aspects of the natural world, historical aspects of humanity, etc. It Galileo, sort of, he made some claims that basically, privileged, gave authority to, you know, the scientist and and what so when, when the scientist is able to get an answer about the natural world, when the scientist is able to get an answer about history in some kind of definitive way, then we really should prioritize or privilege that scientific conclusion and, and scripture, Scripture should take a back seat and, and, and he famously said that Scripture is really about how to get to heaven, not how the heavens go. And, you know, like there’s a sense in which I think all Christians should affirm that, but there’s a more radical sense in which I think Galileo was really saying that when when science can answer a question definitively, then Scripture doesn’t really have jurisdiction. I think it was the way he parceled that out that I found controversial. Yeah,

Collin Hansen
quote here, just to back up what you’re saying here, you write that whenever the scientific consensus might conflict with the biblical witness, Galileo has given scientists and theologians the hermeneutical license to bypass the epistemic relevance of Scripture. Right the summary of what you had said, it said right there. Now, here’s a powerful line, and the book is very well written with a lot of these memorable statements I was underlining and commenting all over the place. This is especially powerful one quote theology that marries science today will file for divorce tomorrow. What do you mean?

Hans Madueme
Yeah, and to be to be fair, there are others who have said something similar. So it’s not new with me, but yeah, what I mean there is, so there is a kind of approach that’s sometimes called concordism, which is when you know. So I’ve got the Bible, and then I know what scientists are saying in my generation. And so then the scientists come up with various conclusions about, you know, different aspects of the natural world. And then I concordism is when I because I really hold to the authority of Scripture, and I revere scripture. I also assume that Scripture is perhaps going to anticipate or predict what the scientists are going to discover, and then if I can find some way to prove that what the scientists are saying today is exactly what Scripture was saying, that that’s really sort of the concordus project. If I can show that, then that’s good for Christians, because it shows that we have an awesome God who inspired this supernatural book. And hey, here’s evidence that it, it, it has, it’s scientifically reliable. Now the tricky part, the tricky part with that way of thinking is science is not a static discipline, and science sort of tends to progress and move along. And it’s not unusual for you to have scientific conclusions in one generation, and those are completely overturned, or science moves on in the next generation. Basically, the

Collin Hansen
point of science, isn’t it that? Yeah, I mean, for other scientists to prove the previous scientists wrong, that’s right,

Hans Madueme
that’s right, that’s right, and that’s and so, but the problem then is, if I’m, if I as a theologian, as a Christian, have somehow, I think that I’ve shown that scripture supports and anticipates what scientists are saying today, and then if science then moves on in 20 years, then where does that leave me? And where does that leave scripture? So it’s really it’s that concern that I was trying to flag. And I think in the history of the conversation between science and theology, I think there have been Christians that have been a little too eager to strap Christian theology to a particular scientific theory or conclusion only for that conclusion to be overturned in a later on. And

Collin Hansen
I guess I’m mentioning there, kind of the point is to overturn previous views, or at least to continue to test them, to see if they can still be verified by by, you know, by scientific investigation. But there’s also, there’s also a sense in which we there’s not a humility with science to be able to say but our own conclusions are fairly provisional today as well. We don’t really know as much as we think we might know. And I’m not trying to open a whole can of worms here, but I think that was one of the major challenges with COVID 19, is the sense in which scientists had to project that they knew what they were talking about, right when they didn’t know what they were talking about, because it was something new and they were and they were learning new things about it. So I just think those two things are intention within the way science is often practiced today, the need to project certainty, perhaps because of the collapse of biblical witness and theological foundations, they have to have something to stand on, but at the same time, the very discipline presupposes that you could and probably will be wrong. And so then we forget all these moments, and you talk about some of them in your book, right where the scientific consensus was something that is utterly laughable today, and you don’t even have to go very far back. And certainly, eugenics would be an example of that, though it’s still practiced, unfortunately, in some ways, right on today. But let’s let’s talk also Hans about the conflict metaphor. This is basically how I opened the interview. I think this is what most people’s default is, the classic public school education. And you described this conflict metaphor science and religion as a trope that infects the popular imagination. I think Hans, most people just assume that it’s true. So why isn’t it right?

Hans Madueme
Yes, that is what we we tend to have inherited, and that’s a picture a lot of us have. I mean, the various reasons that we’ve inherited this, but the bottom line is, for a lot of. Us. It there is when you think of science and when you think of theology, or when you think of science in the Bible, you think of like two sides intention, or two sides in this, in this, in this conflict and and I think in the also in the pop in the cultural narrative, you do have atheists who like that model, and for them, science is on the side of the angels. Science is true, and then religion, or theology, is this antiquated set of ideas. And so the conflict is just that you have the scientists you know, discovering the truth of the world, and then you’ve got these benighted theologians who are still believing, you know, ancient beliefs that are that it just don’t hold out to scrutiny. So so that now the problem, and what I what I often tell my students as well, is they, we’ve got to realize we’ve got to one yes, I don’t want to, I don’t want to deny that there are conflicts, and I get into that in my book. But before we even get to those, we’ve got to sort of start in the right place. And when we start in the right place, we realize a number of things, like, for example, that the earliest, many, if not most of the earliest scientists were believers that the very pious men, often men, but also women who love the Lord and who, because of their faith, were just delighting in investigating the created order and Figuring out how it works. And, you know, you could name like Michael Faraday, you know, Isaac Newton and and Robert Boyle and all the rest, and even Galileo and Copernicus and all of these guys were Christians, you know, whether Protestants or Catholics and so. So that that’s one point. So one has to be really careful if we hold to a very strong view of the conflict narrative. Well, what do you do with the fact that most of the earliest scientists were believers? And then on top of that, there is a good argument to be made that the way science operates, the way the way the scientific method works sort of assumes some, some pretty fundamental makes, some fundamental theological assumptions about sort of the nature of human beings, that we are the kinds of creatures that that can use our minds to investigate the world. They, you know, typically would just say we’re made in the image of God, because we’re made in God’s image. That that capacity allows us to do science. Science, in some ways, assumes something very different from like the Gnostics. Gnostics and the manichaeans, being an example would have said that the world and matter is evil. Probably science would not have arisen in that culture. Because why would you why would you spend time investigating and and looking at and observing and measuring the created order if all of it is is evil? However, Christian, Christianity teaches that creation is good and that’s and so the so there were a number of theological assumptions that I think undergird science and and so that should lead us to to question the very hard version of the conflict narrative. And

Collin Hansen
related to that, Hans methodological naturalism in the in the historical sciences, you warn against this. I kind of get some echoes here of our old professor, John Woodbridge, talking about the problem of making of historical methodological naturalism in understanding history and not bringing Providence to bear. Though God’s ways are inscrutable, right? You can still look for evidence of his providential guidance through history, and we shouldn’t just assume methodological naturalism, but help explain what what you’re getting at here, when basically of argument of why scripture offers relevant revelation for our knowledge of primeval history. Yeah,

Hans Madueme
yeah. So, just for the listeners, methodological naturalism is the view that when I’m doing science, I am not allowed to appeal to anything supernatural. That’s for Bolton. That’s, you know, that’s not allowed at all. And even if I am a Christian, when I’m doing science, I cannot appeal to angels or demons or anything like that. And there’s a there’s for different reasons that a lot of scientists feel that for you to be doing true science, you need to be a methodological now. Naturalist, and so, so that. That means I could be a believer. I’m a member of a church. I go to church every week. I believe in the sacraments, you know, and and I believe that what I am united with Christ, and he’s seated the right hand side of the Father. I have all of those beliefs. However, when I put on my lab coat, and I enter the lab and I’m now doing scientific research, I need to sort of shelve those beliefs when I am doing the work of a scientist. So that’s methodological naturalism. And in the book, I realized the reasons that methodological naturalism came into favor, and I realized the strengths of that approach. But my concern is so for instance, imagine, let’s just, for the sake of this discussion, let’s just say, as a matter of fact, God, a long time ago, supernaturally created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And so when you ask the question, Where did human beings come from? The answer to that question is that God directly created Adam and Eve, let’s let’s stipulate that that’s the right answer. Now suppose I’m a scientist, and I want to answer the question, Where did human beings come from? And I but I’m gonna do I’m gonna answer that question as a methodological naturalist, and that means I cannot appeal to anything supernatural. So if it were the case that God has revealed exactly how he created human beings in a book called the Bible, I that’s a supernatural book, and so I can’t appeal to Scripture and and I can’t in my answer. Can’t invoke a deity that somehow directly created the first human beings. And that means that my method actually prevents me from discovering the right answer, because I I’ve sort of methodologically, I’ve excluded a whole bunch of answers and including what actually ends up being the right answer. And my question is, why, if I’m a scientist and I’m about actually, I want to find out, how does the world operate? I want to find out the truth about the world. Why would I give myself that handicap? Why wouldn’t I just say, hey, any data that’s relevant to answering that question I’m open to considering, and so if the data is special revelation, I will consider that, you know, and and so that that’s my kind of objection with method methodological naturalism, let’s

Collin Hansen
stick on that point for a second, because there are still incorrect interpretations of Scripture that have led to bad scientific conclusions. Do you have any examples that you could cite on that historically or current, because the book is heavy on emphasis of potential. Look that science may not seem to follow what Scripture says, but we have to stick with scripture right. Indeed, Scripture is the truth, as he just pointed out there, but Christians have also gotten scripture wrong in the past. Any examples that come to mind? Yeah, yeah.

Hans Madueme
I mean, the obvious one is one already we’ve already talked about, which is, you know, but pretty much by the 16th century, before the 16th century, if you were a Christian, you believed in geocentrism and not heliocentrism. And there were all kinds of reasons for that, but one of but there was a biblical reason for being a geocentrist. There are a number of passages which, at least on one level, seem to suggest the Earth doesn’t move. In fact, there’s a verse that says, the earth shall not be moved. And if you look at, for instance, the book of Joshua and and the battle there, I think it’s Joshua 10. But you know, if you look at the battle, it’s the sense you get is the sun was moving, and then Joshua prayed, and the sun stood still, and there was never a day like that ever again. And so pious people read that, and it just seems to it was very consistent with geocentrism and certainly not heliocentrism. So that’s an example of So then with Copernicus and Galileo, these scientists that proved incontrovertibly that, hey, heliocentrism is really the sober truth of the matter, that that then led Christians to go back to those passages and and realize, you know what, there are other ways to interpret these texts that don’t, that don’t violate what we know scientifically, and not, not just as a theory, but what, what is, what is, what is obvious to us that the Earth revolves around the Sun. So. That’s one example. There are others like in the past. There have been Christians who have thought, you know, if someone has seizures or epilepsy or or even weather patterns there, there was a there have been times in the past where the tendency was to appeal to merely supernatural explanations, or maybe it’s a maybe it’s demonic possession. Maybe this is God doing something supernatural and and in the history of science, what you what you discover, is scientists explaining or uncovering natural processes that explain those same phenomena, and then we realize that maybe some of those supernatural explanations that Christians appeal to were premature or mistaken. That’s so full,

Collin Hansen
let’s focus in on on Adam. And a lot of your book, especially as it progresses, focuses on creation Adam and Eve I think the gospel coalition has only changed our confessional statement twice, and one of them related to the doctrine of the historical, specially created Adam, to bring our statement, not because it was out of alignment, but to add a reference to the special historical creation of Adam, and especially to connect that to the significant implications theologically, that are lost if that’s not the case. Now you write this in the book, quote The direct creation of Adam and Eve as the sole genealogical ancestors of the human race is not an isolated doctrinal claim, but is at the root of what unites every member of the human race. Now I don’t think most Christians could explain the why behind what you wrote there. So could you help us out? Yeah,

Hans Madueme
and this is something that I’ve been you know, partly why I wrote the book, because I I was increasingly convinced that a number of my friends who are theistic evolutionists and others seem to be saying, hey, let’s you know whether there’s a historical Adam and Eve, or whether there were two human beings from whom we all descended, it maybe that’s not really that big a deal. There’s not much that’s theologically at stake. So even if we sort of fudge on, on, on that side of things, we can still say we’re all sinners, and therefore we need the gospel. It doesn’t really matter where sin came from. It doesn’t matter whether they were it was Adam and Eve it, like it says in the early chapters of Genesis. And my, my discomfort with that was I, I was increasingly convinced that, actually, I think there is more at stake and and maybe we, we should really sort of take a closer look at this and tease this out. Because I don’t, I don’t think these are this. These are just trivial, sort of concerns and and so suppose that you look at what scientists are saying, and you you are convinced that the human population based on a certain strand of the mainstream science, the human population could never have been smaller than 10 to 50,000 human beings. And so suppose you think that must be true, and then that so that means there never was a time that there were only two human beings called Adam and Eve, and they became that they were the ancestors of the whole human race. So maybe so then you might say, well, let’s just say that Adam and Eve were maybe the chief, the chief and his and his wife, or the king and queen of of this whole village of human beings and and so that that Adam and Eve were not the first couple, but they just were part of this huge population and but they were the king and queen and and then then their descendants intermarried with the other human beings that were around, and that’s how we arrive at where we are today. And you might say, Hey, that’s not, that’s not really, that’s not such a big deal theologically. I mean, you know, you it’s close enough to what the tradition has said. And my, what I would point out is, well, well, hang on. We know the way the biblical story goes, the story of creation, fall, redemption, consummation. We know that the eternal Son of God became incarnate and took on human flesh. And the language that Scripture uses is that that Jesus, that that son of God took took on the flesh of Adamic man, right, like he. He, you know, which is why Luke three, when He traces the genealogy Jesus’s genealogy, it goes all the way to Adam and so, so at so God, God, the Son, took on human flesh, and because of that, he can be, he can redeem us. He can save, he can save us from our sins, because he came in our flesh, and yet he was the God man, and can be our Savior now. But if, if we say that the original human beings were like 50,000 and then Adam and Eve were just two of those 50,000 and then you have this very strange scenario where it’s possible that while maybe maybe Canadians or maybe Aborigines, it turns out, are descended from some early hominids, but not descended from Adam and Eve then then you suddenly realize that there are implications for our doctrine of salvation and and so did Jesus actually die for those people? Did he come in? Did he come as a descendant of Adam? Or did he, and thus is able to save descendants of Adam or or are people who are descended from some of these other hominids, you know, salvation is not available to them. So that, that would be an example where I would say, maybe people haven’t thought about that. And I would say like, you know, they are, they’re ripple effects. Like, once you start tinkering over here, and you start making these, you start fudging in all kinds of ways. You may be unaware what the unintended theological consequences are down the road. Maybe

Collin Hansen
Hans. A lot of people have not thought carefully about that, but they have thought a lot about young earth creationism, various alternatives there you describe young earth creationism as the quote, Inglorious antithesis of knowledge according to the academy. Why are you not persuaded by views that seem to conflict less with what appears to be a scientific consensus? And I think especially because as you qualify your views in the book, you’re not as convicted on young earth creationism as you are on, say, the resurrection. Why do you stick

Hans Madueme
right? Yeah, I think the reason part of the the I didn’t actually, as I was writing this book, I didn’t know that, you know, the creationism would even play a role in my argument. It really was as I as I worked on the book and was thinking through the issues, it became clear to me that the the theological issues of the historicity of Adam, the fall Original Sin, like those issues, I became convinced are not disconnected from the typical issues that you know surrounding human origins and some of the issues that old earth creationists young earth creationists and evolutionists have debated over the years. And I found that I had to start leaning into those issues and and those questions and, and what, what? What has become clear to me, like there’s sort of two, perhaps the two kind of positions out there that are pretty common among evangelicals. I think there’s one position. I’m not really going to name any names, but there might be a position that kind of says something like this, that, Hey, young earth creationism, that’s what the Bible teaches. And if you’re not a young earth creationist, then you are, you know, almost an apostate or a heretic or your brand of Christianity is seriously flawed. Okay, so that’s one view out there, and then there’s another view that says, You know what? You know, our views on creation and creationism, etc, are really sort of tertiary or of even lesser significant. So it really doesn’t matter if you’re a theistic evolutionist or if you’re an old earth creationist or young earth creationists, there are just other issues that are more important than that. And what, as I wrote the book, I found that neither. I didn’t find either of those views very satisfying. I don’t find the first view satisfying because I just don’t think it’s true. And as you were alluding to, in my view, there are, there are doctrines that are very close to the gospel center of Christianity, that that Jesus, that Jesus is the God man, that he’s fully human and fully divine, that He rose from the dead bodily, that that that Scripture is the word of God. That there’s certain doctrines that these are very much sent. Primary doctrines, and that if we are Christians, we’re going to affirm those doctrines. And there are a number of doctrines that I would say a far more important, a more essential, or more primary than you know, how old is the earth, you know, questions of chronology, etc. So I disagree with that first view. But the SEC the second view that that, you know many of many of our friends, would probably align with, I disagree with that as well, because I feel like that’s going to the other extreme, and fails to recognize that. And I guess this is how I would put it. I would say that there are certain doctrinal commitments that are that are related to, you know, my young earth creationist convictions that I agree are not as important as the resurrection, are not as important as justification by grace to faith, however, they’re not unimportant either. And the way I put it in the book is, is that they have an indirect importance. So for example, let’s pick an example. For example, the the the the example I gave earlier, whether we are all descended from Adam and Eve, and whether Adam and Eve were the first and single couple from whom we’re all descended. It’s, it’s, it’s true that, if you don’t believe that, but you believe that Jesus, Christ is the Son of God, and he came in the flesh, and that we are sinners, and we need to put our trust in Christ. Clearly, that’s more important. However, however, if you, if you say that Adam and Eve didn’t exist, the implication of that actually, you realize, well, that that’s, that’s, that’s important for whether you know our belief that Jesus, That Jesus is a redeemer of all human beings, and that, that you know, whether I’m Nigerian, whether I’m Australian, whether I’m Russian, I’m part of the same human race, I’m a descendant of Adam and Eve like, you see, like those, those doctrines that aren’t as important As the resurrection are still, are still significant. And I think if we’re thinking consistently, we will see their importance. Now, as it, as it happens, I think most Christians don’t think consistently. I actually think that’s a good thing. I think they don’t think consistently and and they’re happy to affirm all the primary doctrines, and will will often sort of be skittish, if not reject the some of the second secondary doctrines that I think are more important. I’m happy that they affirm the primary doctrines, but I actually think if we’re thinking consistently and coherently about our faith, we would see that those more secondary doctrines are still important.

Collin Hansen
I’ve got just one more question here for Hans Manwe me on his book defending sin a response to the challenges of evolution. In the natural sciences, there’s a lot more, as you guys can hear from Hans answers. Hear things about arguments against a sinless original humanity, then the problems that that poses to the logic of Christianity, the concept of biologizing sin. And so if you’re like me, you go into this book and you’re thinking, well, the title defending sin, what is this all about? And you realize of how many assumptions there are even by Christians that go against the biblical teaching, and as Hans does such a good job of in this interview, teasing out all of the significant implications, like you said, right there, Hans, we’re not always consistent to realize where, when you tug that thread, that the whole thing’s going to fall apart. We kind of just go around clipping the threads in some ways, or just not even paying attention to them. But I wanted to close on an important question. And I mean, it may not have originated with you, as you mentioned an example earlier, but it was something that I had not thought of before. You say, if we can’t trust what Scripture says about the past, namely, that Genesis does not tell us the truth, or it’s not reliable one way or another, then why would we trust what Scripture says about the future? And I’m wondering, have you heard anybody offer an effective explanation for why they think Revelation tells the truth about what’s to come, but not Genesis on what, how God started it all. Yeah,

Hans Madueme
that’s great. That’s the kind of question where i i need to sort of enter sympathetically into that perspective to see what someone would say. I mean, just to be candid, I’m not. Sure there’s a good answer to that question, and and just thinking on the fly right now, I I’ve heard, I’ve heard different theologians, like there’s a Lutheran theologian, Ted Peters, he holds that view where he says, Look, protology, the doctrine of first things. It’s just not, it’s just not that important. But what, what we really need to care about is, you know, what’s going to happen eschatologically, and that’s important. So he, he makes that bifurcation and and I don’t you know, as I think about the way he tries to justify that, I’ve never, I have not encountered a good I’ve not encountered a good answer. It was almost

Collin Hansen
a latent marcionism. In some ways. It sounds like of just a sense of, Well, that was the the ancient Jewish world and right were right. Didn’t understand things. But this is, this is the Christian standing, or, I guess the alternative there is to say, yeah, just as Genesis is myth, so also you could see somebody saying, well, the Tim LaHaye Jerry Jenkins view of Revelation, right, of literal fulfillment and all these things is not correct. So it’s basically also metaphorical. I’m not saying that’s a good answer, right, right, guessing. That’s probably how people would respond, right? Yeah,

Hans Madueme
I think, I think, really, what it boils down to is like, suppose I’m a Chris, I’m a Christian, I’m sincere, and I am convinced by sort of the mainstream, sort of evolutionary story. And because I’m convinced of that, I’m like, That’s the sober truth, then I know that the way that Christians have traditionally thought about first things, or protology, just can’t be true. What am I going to do? What I’m going to what usually what ends up happening? And this is just sort of the nature of Christian theology. What kind of happens is my the way I think about protology starts shrinking, or like not much is happening in that area. And then perhaps my Christology, my eschatology, kind of maybe ramps, starts ramping up. And in other words, I start really emphasizing, or leaning into Jesus Christ and the salvation He gives us, and like what’s coming in the new heavens and new earth, because I can no longer speak confidently about the beginning, I’m going to put all my eggs in Christology and Soter urology and in eschatology. And that makes sense, and I see why that happens. But my pushback is, I mean, if you, if, if you, if you really believe that in the new heavens and new earth, we’re no longer no longer going to die, there’s no longer going to be any sin, and all of these things, like, on what grounds do you believe it there? And yet you don’t, you don’t believe it about Genesis, one and two and

Collin Hansen
well, not to mention, don’t we have Jesus’s own example of seeming to treat Genesis as real, right? Right? Real testament that’s right in the world. We do. We do believe that he was there, right, and that he was involved right, right, in the process, right? So, and he doesn’t seem to give you that wiggle room, right to say, oh, that’s just myth that can be dismissed. But what I’m telling you today, and what I’m revealing to John about the age to come right, is true, because he just, he does.