Mysteries of the Kingdom
If you take a look at theological history, you’ll see that a great deal of time and energy has been exhausted answering this question: If God wants us all to live in a paradise, why didn’t He skip all of this and simply create a utopian world? You can see my general answer to this question here, but in this answer I will focus specifically on the Judeo-Christian worldview since we are speaking about Adam and Eve.
Any Christian that chooses to adopt the idea of an earth which is older than the direct numbers presented in the Bible, roughly six thousand years, will need to account for several things, one of which is the fact that it would be difficult to accept a claim which agrees with the estimated age of raw materials, rocks, water, etc, but does not agree with the estimated age of human remains. This is, of course, resolved if one accepts the idea of divinely controlled evolution, but that too comes with its own set of challenges. Those challenges are what I would like to focus on right now. Can evolution and Adam be reconciled?
The Garden of Eden is such an unique story in Genesis as it portrays the fall of mankind into sin or rebellion against God. What I find most fascinating is the common interpretation of the story, that Adam an Eve were first ignorant of good and evil. It is assumed that they lacked the ability to distinguish between bad and good. However, this distinction requires reason and intelligence in order to be performed. Understanding the story in this way presumes God created Adam in an animalistic state and his sin was actually rewarded by elevating him to a full human state. This actually goes against the idea that all of mankind started with Adam, who was created directly by, and in the image of God. When we throw in the commonly portrayed talking snake there is quite a bit to unpack in this story.
The story of Noah is a familiar one and one that is challenged in many ways. Today I would like to focus on one particular aspect of the story, Noah's age. How could Noah live to be 950? How did any of the early patriarchs of the Bible live to their incredible ages?
Evolution is something that has troubled a great deal of Christians and swayed a many people from accepting the possibility of a Biblical God. I think the biggest reason for this is that theologians have historically had a certain way of interpreting the Bible and are not strongly convinced by the evidence for evolution. This lack of conviction in the scientific theory causes people either question science or question their faith. I think that this is a mistake.
Canon Of Reason 