Christianity Today had a cover story on The Search for Historical Adam and the swirling controversy this has created. I thought it was a good and helpful article. I’m dubious as to biology’s capacity to “discover” who or what the historical Adam was through genetic research. I am no scientist and I don’t have any basis upon which to doubt or challenge the claims made by these findings. The reason for my thinking at this time is simply this, the Adam we meet in the Bible is created by divine regard.

The first couple, the man and the woman, Adam and Eve are who they are because God regards them as the parents of humanity. The actions for which they were judged by God as being culpable were directly related both to their moral capacity as perceived by God. When a lion eats a baby zebra we don’t perceive it as a moral act. When animals act in a way that is counter productive to the well being of the planet, let’s say through over population or over grazing we don’t assert that “they should have known better”, the standard we hold ourselves to. There is a significant difference in terms of regard between how approach human beings and how we approach the rest of the animal kingdom. That line is bright and thick and not really getting any thinner no matter how brilliant we find chimps, dogs and dolphins.

Many have noted that there has long been the tantalizing language in the book of Genesis with respect to the wives of Seth and the potential enemies of Cain. We have the fossil record of Neanderthal populations and we don’t quite know how God regards them. That is of course God’s business, not our own. Divine regard is in fact the basis upon which we premise the renovation of the universe, anything short of this simply doesn’t stand up.

If you need a prooftext for my position I’ll offer Jesus’ debate with the Sadducees. Yhwh IS the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. If they are not dead to Yhwh then they are not dead. In this case their temporary lack of biological capacity because of death is not an impediment to Yhwh’s regard.

Can we through biology ascertain the moment of divine regard with respect to one corner of his creation? We can’t do this in the present. The science of genetic research is a wonderful thing that can help us in many terrific ways and figure out an enormous amount of human history. What it can’t do is establish divine regard. Divine regard can only be established by the mind of the creator and our knowledge of that judgment is dependent upon his informing us of it.

Now of course if there is no creator then there is no regard and if there is no regard this conversation is frankly moot because then humanity is merely the most dominant local species and the only ought of the species is the preservation of its own dominance.

Human culpability is established through divine regard. Biology cannot establish that regard because what is in the mind of God can’t be measured by genetic legacy.