The primary components to the theology of man’s origin are that God created man, that God created man in His own image, that mankind is elevated above the lower animals, and that each person consists of a physical body and a spiritual soul. God says, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth” (Gn 1:26-28).[i]
As discussed in the doctrine of creation (see p. 106), God created all things through the immediate generation of all energy and matter ex nihilo and then through the mediate formation of all things by organizing the original chaotic state. In the first creation story, the mediate creation of man is stated in simple terms. “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Gn 1:27). The second creation story has a bit more detail, “Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living person” (Gn 2:78). From these passages it is understood that (1) God created man in some way that is distinct from other animals in that man is somehow like God in a way that the other animals are not; (2) God created man from existing matter; and (3) that God is the source of life rather than life being a property of physical biology.[ii]
It is generally believed by OT scholars that the two stories of creation (Gn 1:1-Gn 2:3, and Gn 2:4-2:25) are from independent sources.[iii] A plain reading indicates some apparent discrepancies. In the first story of creation, God creates all of the lower animals and then man and woman together. In the second story of creation God first creates Adam from the dust on the ground, then creates the lower animals so that Adam would not be alone, and then creates Eve out of Adam’s rib. Literalists typically reconcile these differences by understanding the first story of creation as a chronological account and not the second. But a plain reading of the second story clearly indicates a chronological account. God first makes Adam, and “then” God created animals so that Adam would not be alone, and “then” formed Eve out of Adam’s rib.
Innumerable volumes have been written on the relationship of the Genesis account of the creation of man and Darwin’s theory of evolution. Of course, belief in a Godless process where life emerged from non-life and then gradually, through random genetic mutations and natural selection, resulted in human beings, is incompatible with a belief in the Christian God. Rather, all Christians necessarily must believe that God is the source of all life, and that mankind is the result of a deliberate creative act of God, whether instantaneously or gradually. The closest Christian view to Darwinism would perhaps be the belief that God directed the evolutionary process to ultimately result in homo sapiens, whereupon God created mankind in His image by giving these early humans a soul. The furthest Christian view from Darwinism is a literal account of Genesis where God created fully formed humans, complete with a soul, in recent history. Most Christians believe in a creation of mankind account that lies somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.
[i] In Gn 1:26-28, God refers to Himself as “Us” and “Our.” This is generally considered to be a foreshadowing of the triune God consisting of three persons.
[ii] “Living person” in Gn 2:7 is frequently translated into “living soul.” It is a translation of the Hebrew term nephesh chayyah, which is also applied to lower animals in Gn 1:21, 24, 30. Therefore, this term does not refer to “soul” as the spiritual component of man. Rather, the phrase in this context simply means a something that is animated to life.
[iii] The Documentary Theory (DT), also called the JEPD Theory, holds that the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch) are a redaction of four separate sources: a source that refers to God as Yahweh (abbreviated J from the German word for Yahweh), a source that refers to God as Elohim (abbreviated E), a priestly source that emphasizes ritual, temple worship, and the role of the Levites (abbreviated P), and the book of Deuteronomy (abbreviated D).
Leave a Reply