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What Christian Parents Should Learn from Marty Sampson Losing Faith

My blog has been quiet since earlier this year because I was finishing my next book (Talking with Your Kids about Jesus; March 2020). Now that I’ve turned it into the publisher and my kids are heading back to school, it’s time to resume blogging!

I debated what my first post should be as I start back up, but decided there were some especially important things to address with the headlines this week about Marty Sampson of Hillsong United saying he’s losing his faith. Hillsong is one of the most popular worship bands today, and Sampson’s announcement has led to endless discussions on social media this week. Last month, a similar high-profile announcement was made by Joshua Harris, a pastor, and author known for his book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye.

If you haven’t seen it, here’s what Sampson posted on Instagram:

“Time for some real talk. I’m genuinely losing my faith, and it doesn’t bother me. Like, what bothers me now is nothing. I am so happy now, so at peace with the world. It’s crazy.

This is a soapbox moment so here I go… How many preachers fall? Many. No one talks about it. How many miracles happen. Not many. No one talks about it. Why is the Bible full of contradictions? No one talks about it. How can God be love yet send four billion people to a place, all ‘coz they don’t believe? No one talks about it. Christians can be the most judgmental people on the planet—they can also be some of the most beautiful and loving people. But it’s not for me.

I am not in any more. I want genuine truth. Not the “I just believe it” kind of truth. Science keeps piercing the truth of every religion. Lots of things help people change their lives, not just one version of God. Got so much more to say, but for me, I keeping it real. Unfollow if you want, I’ve never been about living my life for others.

All I know is what’s true to me right now, and Christianity just seems to me like another religion at this point. I could go on, but I won’t. Love and forgive absolutely. Be kind absolutely. Be generous and do good to others absolutely. Some things are good no matter what you believe. Let the rain fall, the sun will come up tomorrow.”

Some of the takeaways from Sampson’s announcement are obvious and have already been dissected ad nauseum this week (for example, no one should esteem Christian leaders to the point that if they fall away from Jesus, it impacts their own faith). However, there is a less obvious point I want to highlight today with implications for Christian parents specifically.

It’s not enough for kids to know that answers to faith questions are available.

As many have pointed out this week, Sampson’s claim that “no one” is talking about the various faith questions he raised is absurd if taken literally. Of course, people are talking about those questions, and they’ve done so for thousands of years. In fact, they’re so common that I’ve written about every point he raised in one or more of my books. He certainly didn’t stumble upon some kind of unexplored territory.

But I’m pretty sure he knows that, and it’s not what he meant.

In fact, he later posted a list of some apologists (authors and speakers who defend the truth of Christianity) for people to check out if they have similar questions.

Sampson clearly knew that answers to his questions were available. The problem here is not a question of available answers…it’s a question of available processing.

Building a Home Where Kids Process the Big Questions

When I talk to people after speaking engagements, a lot of parents will say something like, “It’s so good to know that the answers are out there! I want my kids to know that!” There’s no indication that they have any intention of personally digging into those answers with their kids. They feel it’s enough to point them to some ethereal box of knowledge when a need eventually arises.

Sampson’s statement attests to the serious problem with that idea.

He knew answers were out there, but was apparently living in a Christian climate that never really engaged with them. That silence screamed, “The Christians around me aren’t thinking about faith as deeply as I am, otherwise they would be talking about this more and questioning too.”

For adults like Sampson, this tends to be a function of the climate in the church you attend and the believers you fellowship with. For kids, it’s in large part a function of the climate in your home.

In homes that foster a thinking climate, parents:

Proactively raise big questions for discussion—even when their kids aren’t asking them. (If you don’t know what those should be, there are seventy conversations to have with your kids in my first two books.)
Explicitly tell their kids that questions are welcome and regularly ask what questions they have.
Share their own questions about faith, and how they’ve searched for answers.
Make it clear that biblical faith isn’t blind, and that God has given us much evidence for the truth of Christianity.
Explore the beliefs and logical implications of other worldviews, so their kids better understand Christianity in context.
Press kids to explain why they believe what they do, not just reiterate their viewpoints (on any topic, not just spiritual matters).
Engage in conversation about hot cultural topics from a biblical worldview rather than avoid them.
Model intellectual curiosity about faith by reading/listening to/watching content that grows their own understanding.
Study the Bible with their kids for understanding, not just to memorize isolated verses.

In homes that don’t necessarily foster a thinking climate, parents tend to:

Instill the idea that when we have questions, we just have to have more faith (but biblical faith is trusting in what you have good reason to believe is true).
Assume kids will learn what they need about the Bible in Sunday school (but they won’t).
Equate discipleship with raising kids with “good values” (but Christianity is far more than a set of values).
Fear their kids’ questions, believing they will lose credibility if they can’t answer them (but kids can learn just as much from exploring answers with you).
Believe they have no other spiritual responsibility than to pray for their kids (but we are called to be active disciplers).

Every Christian parent should take a hard look at whether they’re fostering a “thinking climate” in their home. Giving your kids opportunities to process questions (not just telling them answers are available) so they don’t conclude “no one” is talking about these things is a critical part of discipleship today.

And there’s one other related point I want to note from Sampson’s statement. He said, “Lots of things help people change their lives, not just one version of God.”

A lot of kids today—and clearly adults, too—are looking for the worldview that “works” for them. The one that “changes their life.” The one that “feels” the best. The one that “helps.”

The problem is, that’s not the decision-making criteria we should use when considering worldviews. The question should always be, What is true? What is the true picture of reality?

If Christianity changes my life, but Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead, Christianity is still a false worldview, and I shouldn’t hold it. It’s not true.

If atheism changes my life, but Jesus was raised from the dead, atheism is still a false worldview, and I shouldn’t hold it. It’s not true.

Kids not only need opportunities to process big questions of faith, but they also need direction on how to weigh the answers; they need to clearly understand that the search should always be about discovering what is true…not about what subjectively “works.”

I was sitting in a church group recently that was discussing the need for teaching kids these things. One parent very honestly acknowledged his doubts about all this, saying, “It just seems like one more thing we’re supposed to do.”

If that’s how you feel, I want to leave you with this thought. If your child’s math teacher only wanted to teach them addition because subtraction is just “one more thing,” you’d think they were crazy. Subtraction is an integral part of math. In the same way, raising your kids in a home that presses in on deep questions of faith is not one more thing for Christian parents… it’s an integral part of discipleship today, whether you feel like engaging in that process or not.

As you begin this school year, consider what the temperature is in your own home’s thinking climate. If it’s been cold, don’t feel guilty—just turn up the heat. If you don’t, the secular world will… before you even realize your kids have burned out of Christianity.

Faith and Doubt – How to Honor God in the Midst of Your Doubts

By Mikel Del Rosario

[This publication although it was not written recently, its content seems to us to be current and necessary to continue sharing, so we are publishing it on our site today]

Today, I’m pleased to feature an exclusive guest post by my friend, Dena Jackson, who is working hard to bring accessible apologetics training to our local area. Dena recently graduated with an M.A. in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. She currently trains college students at Bayside Church, where she also coordinated the 2010 Apologetics Conference featuring J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig.

Dena Jackson Talks About Faith and Doubt

How do you deal with your doubts about God and Christianity? Many of us have been taught to rebuke, bury, or pretend they’re not there. We know doubts dishonor God, so we suppress them and tout a cheery line of faith. When people ask us to answer the very questions that disturb us, we hastily encourage them to “just have faith!” We believe this is the way to glorify God.

But this may not be the best way to deal with our doubts. One of my favorite Bible stories is of a man who brings his demon-possessed boy to Jesus. The man says “if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us” (Mark 9). Jesus replies, “‘If you can?’”

Alarm bells were probably going off in the crowd surrounding Jesus. “He just said if!” That one word exposed this man’s doubts. “Quick, cover! Say, if you choose!”Jesus was clearly disappointed with this man’s doubt. Yet he does not banish the man from his presence until he could muster up faith, or at least hide his doubts. Rather, Jesus tells him that everything is possible for one who believes.

Here, Jesus reveals the true nature of the situation. This man, half doubting, half desperately hoping that Jesus can help him out, approaches Jesus and begs him to do what he can. Jesus tells the man that the question is not if He can heal the man’s son. There is no “if” about that. The question is whether the man knows Jesus can heal his son. The issue was not with Jesus. It was with the man.

This is the case with us and all our doubts about God. When we doubt God’s goodness, it is not because God is not good. It is because we lack understanding. When we doubt that God is real, it is not because of a lack of evidence. It is because there is something blocking us from seeing all the evidence. At a fundamental level, I think many of us hide our doubts from God because we are worried that our doubt reveals some deficiency in God. Not so. It reveals a deficiency in us. That is why we need to admit it to God like every other deficiency so that he can help us with it. Understanding this is pivotal.

Jesus reveals that the problem is in the man. The man’s response should be ours as well. He cries out “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” He confesses both his faith and his doubt. Does God like it when we doubt him? Probably not. But God is a God of truth, and He loves honesty.

Any confession of faith in the midst of doubt is extremely glorifying to God. It is easy to have faith when everything makes sense. It is difficult and painful to trust God and live for Him when things don’t seem to add up.

When you doubt, be honest. Lay bare your thoughts before God. The deficiency is in you, not in God. Show that you believe that by presenting your doubts to God and asking him to help you understand.

Let our response in the midst of doubt be:

God, this does not make sense! I do not understand, but I want to. I know what the Bible says about you, but certain things I experience and have learned don’t match up with it. Help me. You are a God of truth. You are not afraid of questions. You promise that those who seek you will find you. God, I am seeking. I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!

Dealing with doubt? Check out these resources on faith and doubt:

The Thomas Factor: Using Your Doubts to Draw Closer to God by Gary Habermas
Dealing with Doubt by Gary Habermas
In Search of a Confident Faith: Overcoming Barriers to Trusting in God by J.P. Moreland and Klaus Issler
Doubting: Growing Through the Uncertainties of Faith by Alister McGrath (Foreword by Ravi Zacharias)
Hard Questions, Real Answers by William Lane Craig
God in the Dark: The Assurance of Faith Beyond a Shadow of Doubt by Os Guinness

Mikel Del Rosario helps Christians explain their faith with courage and compassion. He is a doctoral student in the New Testament department at Dallas Theological Seminary. Mikel teaches Christian Apologetics and World Religion at William Jessup University. He is the author of Accessible Apologetics and has published over 20 journal articles on apologetics and cultural engagement with his mentor, Dr. Darrell Bock. Mikel holds an M.A. in Christian Apologetics with highest honors from Biola University and a Master of Theology (Th.M) from Dallas Theological Seminary where he serves as Cultural Engagement Manager at the Hendricks Center and a host of the Table Podcast. Visit his Web site at ApologeticsGuy.com.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2xKOKPa

July 18, 2019/by Guest

Theology and Christian Apologetics

Being A Good Apologist Is More Than Knowing The Right Answers

By Evan Minton

1 Peter 3:15 says to “Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have, yet do so with gentleness and respect” and 2 Corinthians 10:5 says “We demolish argument and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.” These two verses are the primary verses that make Christian Apologetics a precedent for the follower of Christ. We are to give the unbelievers reasons to believe Christianity is true and we are to demolish every argument that tries to show it isn’t. However, being a good apologist is more than just knowing the right answers to peoples’ objections and questions, and knowing how to make a case for Christianity. To be a good apologist, you must know more than “If this person says X, then I’ll respond with Y”. Giving a defense to anyone who asks is not like giving the answer to a mathematical equation.

Being a good apologist means being a good communicator, and that involves utilizing certain skills. Not everyone has these skills, but thankfully, if you know what skills you need, you can train yourself in these areas. Now, what are these skills you need?

The Accordion Tactic
You can learn the evidence for The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection, or the evidence behind the premises of The Kalam Cosmological Argument, and you may even be able to do a good talk on this at your church. But can you relay these arguments in 5 minutes or less? In evangelism encounters, sometimes that’s all the time we have to talk with this person. Or even we do have more time to talk to them, not everyone wants to listen to your monologue for 45 minutes. If you want it to be a dialogue, you need to be able to compress your presentation of the arguments for God’s existence and the resurrection to 5 minutes or less. This skill comes in handy not just in one on one evangelism, but even in internet conversations. With some people, if a comment becomes way too lengthy, they’ll lose interest and comment ‘TL;DR” which means “Too long, didn’t read”.

This isn’t easy. I’ve struggled with brevity my entire apologetics career, but this is a practice that I keep practicing and practicing on. I do believe I’m getting better. With regards to my 6 favorite arguments, I can expand them like an accordion to do a 45-minute talk, or I can compress them to explain an argument to a friend in the time it takes to listen to a song. Compare my treatment of The Kalam Cosmological Argument, Fine-Tuning Argument, Local Fine-Tuning Argument, etc. in my book Inference To The One True God: Why I Believe In Jesus Instead Of Other Gods with my treatment of them in part 6 and part 7of my blog series on the problem of evil. The former is when my apologetic accordion is expanded. The latter is when my apologetic accordion is contracted. Learn this skill of playing the apologetic accordion and you’ll be able to defend the faith no matter how much or how little time you’re allotted. Oh, and, having a monkey wearing a fez isn’t required. Don’t worry about that.

Learn To Listen
At the National Conference On Christian Apologetics, Dr. Ray Civero gave a talk called “Turning Skeptics Into Seekers”. In this talk, one of his points is that we need to listen to what the other person is saying, and we need to listen not merely to respond to the argument, but to understand the argument. Listen to understand, don’t listen to respond. If you’re not paying attention to what the non-Christian is saying regarding his objections to Christianity, you will most likely (1) Attack a straw man in your response, (2) give the unbeliever the impression that you don’t care what he has to say, (3) Give the unbeliever that you just like to listen to yourself talk, and (4) turn him off to anything you have to say. (5) You will be like two ships passing in the night. In other words, you’ll be talking past each other.

Be like Ray Civero’s character Ike The Investigator. Ike doesn’t listen to anticipate. Ike listens to understand. Ike doesn’t listen to his opponent’s position trying to find some way to tear it apart. Ike listens to understand where the other person is coming from, to understand what the other person is actually saying.

Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Luke 6:31). I can’t tell you how often I’ve been frustrated with a non-Christian when I’ve explained something over and over, as clearly and concisely as I possibly could, mustering all of my effort to get them to understand what it was that I was actually saying, just to have them attack a straw man for the umpteenth time in their response to me. For example, there have been conversations where I bent over backwards trying to get the non-Christian to realize that The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection isn’t question-begging, it doesn’t “cite The Bible to prove The Bible”, but instead treats The New Testament documents like a historian would treat any document claiming to be telling history (e.g A letter written by George Washington, a biography of Abraham Lincoln, Josephus’ writings). Christian and Non-Christian historians alike arrive at the minimal facts by applying the standard historical methodology to the text (e.g the principle of multiple attestation, the principle of embarrassment). It isn’t a circular argument.

Yet, no matter how I strain to get the other person to see the point, they still just don’t get it. If he wants to disagree with my arguments, that’s fine. If he wants to say he doesn’t think the resurrection is the best inference to the minimal facts, that’s fine. I don’t loathe debate, I loathe having to repeat myself and draw a hundred maps with the result of the other person still not understanding the argument. Why don’t they understand the argument? I can only guess that they’re simply skimming my comments. They’re too eager to respond to my comment so they don’t stop and actually try to understand what it is that I’m actually saying.

I think we’ve all been guilty of this at least a few times, Christian and non-Christian alike. However, we need to guard against it. James 1:19 says “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” If we’re to obey the golden rule and James 1:19, and if we’re to have a fruitful dialogue, then we need to be good listeners.

Have The Patience Of A Saint
There are jobs where having a short fuse is a handicap inherent to the job itself: being a cop, being a lawyer, working in retail, and being a Christian Apologist. Because in all of these, you’re going to come against people who will really try your patience. You need to have a pretty long fuse or else you’ll fail the task you’re trying to do.

If you’re going to be a Christian Apologist, you need to have thick skin, because there will be people who ridicule you, demean you, insult you, and slander you. It can be tempting to respond in kind, but The Bible tells us “Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have, yet do so with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15, emphasis mine). I know of some apologists (won’t name names) who obey the first half of this verse, but not the second. They give a defense for the hope they have alright, but they make total donkeys out of themselves while doing it. If you don’t give a defense with gentleness and respect, you have failed to fully obey 1 Peter 3:15.

2 Timothy 2:24-26 says “The Lord’s servant must not quarrel, but be gentle towards all, able to teach, patient, in gentleness correcting those who oppose him: perhaps God may give them repentance leading to a full knowledge of the truth, and they may recover themselves out of the devil’s snare, having been taken captive by him to his will.”

Conclusion
These are a few of the most important skills you need to master to be a good Christian Apologist. Simply having the answers is not enough. That would be like saying you can be a police officer if you have a uniform, a badge, and a gun. While those definitely are necessary conditions to being a cop, they are not sufficient conditions. Likewise, being well read in the apologetic literature is a necessary condition to being an apologist, but not a sufficient condition. You need people skills!

Evan Minton is a Christian Apologist and blogger at Cerebral Faith (www.cerebralfaith.blogspot.com). He is the author of “Inference To The One True God” and “A Hellacious Doctrine”. He has engaged in several debates which can be viewed on Cerebral Faith’s “My Debates” section. Mr. Minton lives in South Carolina, USA.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2AsAA82

December 5, 2017/by Guest

Apologetics for Parents

5 Common Answers to Kids’ Questions about God That Can Do More Harm Than Good

By Natasha Crain

A couple of years ago, my husband and I were invited to a dinner party with a few other new parents from our kids’ Christian elementary school. After we worked our way through appetizers and the requisite small talk, the conversation turned to our respective faith backgrounds. One of the moms confessed that, as much as she loved the Lord, she struggled with how to share her faith with her son—so she had enrolled him at a Christian school where others might be able to do a “better job.”

Another mom replied, “Well, I don’t worry too much about it. I just tell my daughter that believing in God is like believing in Santa Claus. Some people believe, and some don’t. It’s a matter of faith.”

I glanced over at the mom who said that, ready to laugh with her at the idea of placing God and Santa in the same category.

But she wasn’t laughing.

She had just matter-of-factly shared what she honestly thought was a helpful way of explaining belief in God’s existence to her daughter.

Now, if an atheist had overheard this dinner party conversation, he or she would have delighted in my friend’s comparison of God and Santa because that’s precisely how atheists want us to think . . .

God and Santa: two entities with no evidence to demonstrate their existence.

God and Santa: childish beliefs people should outgrow once they understand there’s no evidence to demonstrate their existence.

Without realizing it, this mom was playing right into the hands of atheists. She was talking about God in a way that could actually damage her daughter’s faith eventually, given the types of challenges she’s likely to encounter.

As Christian parents, it’s critical that we understand our job isn’t to just talk about God in any way we can.

How we talk about God matters.

I was reminded of this fact—and my God vs. Santa experience—when I joined a Christian parenting Facebook group recently. Within a couple of days, I saw someone post that her 12-year-old son was suddenly struggling to believe in God and was asking his mom how we know God exists. She asked the group what she should tell him.

Dozens of parents chimed in, but almost all of the answers offered were in the “God and Santa” category—answers that can actually do more harm than good. It was really disheartening.

So today I want to share five kinds of responses I saw—and see often—that we should avoid when our kids ask questions about God’s existence.

5 Answers That Can Do More Harm Than Good

(Just) have more faith.

I don’t know if any word today is more misused than “faith.” For example, several people replied something to the effect of, “It just takes faith. Tell him this is what faith is all about.”

This answer implies that even when we don’t think God exists, we just need to somehow summon up enough “faith” (sheer force of will?) to hold on to our beliefs. But that’s not what biblical faith is all about. Biblical faith is trusting in what we have good reason to believe is true—not committing ourselves ever more strongly to a blind leap in the dark with no rational basis.

When we understand that, we can see why it doesn’t make sense to answer a child’s question about God’s existence by telling him or her to just have more faith. Faith comes from the conviction that something or someone isworth trusting. The answer, therefore, isn’t to tell kids to focus on theoutcome of conviction—it’s to increase their conviction by giving them solid reasons to believe God exists.

(Just) pray.

Many people said that the mom should start praying fervently for her son and tell him he needs to pray as well. I would say that too.

But it should be clear from every part of the Bible that we must pray andtake earthly action. Noah didn’t just pray to be saved from the flood; he built an ark. Joshua didn’t just pray to conquer the Canaanites; he marched around Jericho. Paul didn’t just pray that the gentile world would come to know Jesus; he spent the rest of his life on missionary journeys.

So, yes, pray. But don’t stop there. Kids need to learn why there’s good reason to believe there’s actually a God to pray to.

That’s (just) the enemy attacking you.

I’ll never forget reading a detailed “About Me” page written by a young man who grew up in a Christian family but eventually lost his faith…and became a vocal atheist. Over and over, he came back to the fact that his family and church didn’t answer the specific questions he had. Instead, they continually reiterated that he was under attack from the enemy and he just needed to mentally fight against his doubts. For a long time, his faith hung on by a thread; he no longer believed in God but told himself that it was only Satan making him think that way. Eventually he gave up and let go of the thread.

As with the first two points, there is certainly truth to the reality of spiritual warfare. Ephesians 6:12 says, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” People were quick to point this out to the mom on Facebook.

But the fact that someone may be under spiritual attack doesn’t lessen the need to offer them specific answers to their questions. Offering those answers—in this case, the evidence for God’s existence—actually grounds them in the truth that allows them to withstand spiritual attack.

General restatements of Christian belief that don’t address the question asked.

Several of the Facebook responses said something like, “Remind him [the child] that God loves him and Jesus died for him.” Well, yes, God does love him and Jesus did die for him. It certainly never hurts to remind anyone of that. But if a child is asking how we even know God exists in the first place, this kind of statement is unlikely to help him or her through a spiritual crisis.

Silence.

Another suggestion was to just be patient, as this is a “phase” many kids go through. Silence, however, says so much. To a child doubting God’s existence, it says, “I don’t have good answers for your questions so I’ll just be over here in the corner waiting this whole thing out.” And if mom and dad don’t have good answers, kids are unlikely to assume good answers exist elsewhere. Silence is not golden.

Need Help with Better Answers?

Parents, questions of God’s existence are foundational to our kids’ faith. We have to get these conversations right, particularly in a world that challenges the fact of God’s existence each and every day.

That’s exactly why I wrote my new book, Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have. I wanted to help parents not just talk with their kids about God, but do so in the ways most needed by kids growing up in a secular world. In the book, you’ll find five sections that will prepare you to discuss how we know God is real and what we can know about Him from many different angles (check out the full table of contents here):

The Existence of God
Science and God
The Nature of God
Believing in God
The Difference God Makes

Every chapter even has a step-by-step conversation guide. If this looks like a valuable resource for your family, church, or school, please take a minute to pre-order it now at christianbook.com, bn.com, or amazon.com. It comes out in just a few weeks, and your early support encourages retailers to stock it!

Let’s work together to give our kids the answers they deserve. We don’t want anyone ever to grow up thinking there’s no more evidence for God than there is for Santa.

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge” (Psalm 19:1-2).

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2eIJXF2

September 5, 2017/by Guest

Theology and Christian Apologetics

Did They Really Exist? A Biblical and Scientific Defence of Adam and Eve

The historicity of Adam and Eve is a question which strikes at the heart of the Christian faith. If the primordial pair did not exist, then the historical and Biblical doctrine of the fall becomes extremely difficult to maintain. The apostle Paul clearly linked God’s redemptive plan and Christ’s atonement for sin with the fall described in Genesis (e.g., see Romans 5:12-21). We read in Romans 5:12-14,

¹² Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned— ¹³ To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. ¹⁴ Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

In 1 Corinthians 15:20-22, we similarly read,

²⁰ But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹ For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. ²² For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

Further evidence that Paul took Adam as a literal historical figure can be found in 1 Timothy 2:11-14 where he appeals to this doctrine in order to make an argument concerning the role of women in the church with respect to men. Paul writes,

¹¹ A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. ¹² I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. ¹³ For Adam was formed first, then Eve. ¹⁴ And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.

Indeed, Jesus Himself clearly understood Adam and Eve to have been historical figures. In response to questioning from the Pharisees about marriage and divorce, Jesus declared (Matthew 19:4-6),

⁴ “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ ⁵ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? ⁶ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

As if that wasn’t enough, the genealogies recorded in 1 Chronicles 1 and Luke 3 treat Adam as a historical figure. The literature associated with second temple Judaism also recognized Adam as a historical individual. The context and genre of the book of Genesis does not give any indication whatsoever that it is intended to be non-literal or ahistorical in the sense that much of apocalyptic literature (e.g., the book of Revelation) is. If we read the book of Genesis as metaphorical, at which point do we stop? The life of Abraham (to whom we are first introduced in Genesis 12) is clearly connected to the history that came before him, going all the way back to Adam. Those who discard Genesis 1-11 as metaphorical but understand Genesis 12 onwards to be historical are being inconsistent. The narrative simply does not allow for this interpretation.

Christians may have disagreements about peripheral matters such as the age of the earth. As I have discussed before, I don’t think that Genesis commits one to accepting a young earth position. However, the historical existence of Adam and Eve is another matter — it is a Gospel issue. Without a historical Adam and Eve, and without a historical fall, the doctrine of the atonement and redemption makes very little sense.

Having presented some Biblical reasons for thinking that Adam and Eve were literal historical individuals, I want to turn my attention to some of the common scientific arguments which are advanced against the notion of a historical Adam and Eve.

Minimum Effective Population Size

It is argued by many that coalescence theory and analysis of single nucleotide polymorphisms/linkage disequilibrium (SNP/LD) show that the mean effective population size for the hominid lineage is 100,000 individuals over the course of the last 30 million years. According to some theories, a genetic bottleneck occurred in the hominid lineage during the Middle Pleistocene with, according to one recent study, a mean effective population size of only 14,000 individuals. A range of values for the most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) is given as “450,000-2,400,000 years for the autosomes, and 380,000-2,000,000 for the X chromosome,” (Blum and Jakobsson, 2011).

The trouble with such attempts to estimate the effective population size and times of most recent common ancestors is the number of simplifying assumptions which are involved in the calculation. These include:

Fixed population size.
No migration.
Random mating.
Non-overlapping generations.
Constant mutation rates.
No selection.

The problem is that human populations change in size, migration in and out of the population does occur, humans selectively mate, mutation rates are often not constant, and selection does occur. Indeed, rates of recombination are also known to differ with respect to a location on the chromosome. Attempts at estimating effective population sizes and coalescent times, therefore, are rendered difficult by their high dependency on the assumptions made and the constancy of the pertinent variables. This makes it extremely hard to make dogmatic claims in this regard.

Let’s take an example to illustrate this point. One research paper examined 377 short tandem repeat (STR) loci pertinent to 1,056 individuals from 52 different populations (Zhivotovsky et al., 2003). The study inferred that modern humanity arose from a common ancestral population living between 71 and 142 thousand years ago from a relatively small population size (less than 2000 individuals). A previous study estimated this ancestral population size to be comprised roughly of 500 individuals (Zhivotovsky et al., 2000). This non-congruity was apparently resultant from the use of varying number of loci by the two studies as well as use of different sample sizes.

The Y-Chromosomal Adam Paradox

It is widely known that molecular dating based on the male-specific Y-chromosomal DNA tends to give somewhat more recent dates for the most recent common ancestors of modern humans than does molecular dating based on the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA. This has been argued by some to show that Adam and Eve lived tends of thousands of years apart from one another. Though there are obviously alternative explanations for this phenomenon, one interesting hypothesis relates to the genetic bottleneck pertinent to the great flood described in Genesis. In that case, the most recent male common ancestor would be Noah (Noah’s three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, boarded the ark along with their respective wives). The most recent female common ancestor, however, would be Eve. This would quite readily account for the discrepancy between the data yielded from the Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA sequences.

Where Did Cain Get His Wife?

The first thing to take notice of is that Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters besides Cain, Abel, and Seth. According to Genesis 5:4, “After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters.” It is also noteworthy that Genesis 5 records very long life spans, with people living up to an age of 900 years. Given this, Dr. Hugh Ross argues that “the possibility existed for a veritable population explosion. In fact, the world’s population could have approached a few billion by the time of Adam’s death at the age of 930.” There is some Biblical support for thinking that there was a reasonable population size following Cain’s murder of Abel. According to Genesis 4, Cain is given a mark “so that no one who found him would kill him.” This presupposes that there was a population size sufficient such that (a) there were people who might find Cain in the wilderness, and (b) Cain might be mistaken for someone else.

The possibility that Cain may have married his sister raises the old question of incest. It is not until the book of Leviticus, however, that laws are given against marriage between siblings. Adam and Eve were probably created genetically pure. It is, therefore, likely that the genetic defects resulting from the marriage between siblings would not present an issue for the first couple of dozen generations.

Summary and Conclusion

In conclusion, attempts to estimate coalescent times and effective population sizes are fraught with problems and require that we make a number of unrealistic assumptions. Perhaps it is possible that some of these estimates pertain to the human population sometime after the creation of Adam and Eve. The question of Cain’s wife is effectively resolved if we suppose that genetic defects resulting from the marriage between siblings was a later development. The existence of a historical Adam and Eve, however, is foundational to a full and proper understanding of the Gospel and Christ’s role as the “second Adam.” “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ, all will be made alive,” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

February 8, 2012/by Guest