By DENIS ALEXANDER - THE GUARDIAN COMMENT IS FREE
Added: Sat, 24 Dec 2011 11:58:45 UTC

Given the fact of human evolution, here is a good question for Christmas: if we last shared a common ancestor with the chimps about 5-6 million years ago, and humans have been gradually emerging through a series of hominid intermediates ever since, then why did Jesus die? The connection of thought here might not be immediately apparent. But behind the question lies about 1,600 years or more of church history.

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354–430), whose influence, both brilliant and perverse, continues to the present day, is an informative place to start. Augustine believed that the Adam and Eve of the Genesis text were the progenitors of all humankind. When they disobeyed God and were cast out of the Garden of Eden, their sin was then inherited by all succeeding generations: the doctrine of "original sin". Their disobedience became known as the "Fall" (a word not used in the Bible) and Augustine's doctrine of original sin was soon ratified by successive church councils, the Council of Carthage (418) declaring that human mortality was a consequence of the Fall. The focus of Christ's death on the cross – the Atonement – then became Christ's sacrifice for the sin of Adam, whose disobedience had led to the consequent physical death of all humanity.

If the Augustinian account is correct, then there is clear incompatibility with evolution, in which anatomically modern humans first start appearing in Africa about 200,000 years ago through a process involving countless deaths over thousands of generations.

So do we then just shrug our shoulders and say "well so much the worse for theology – science wins in the end"? Surprisingly, perhaps, the Bible suggests otherwise.

Read on

TAGGED: COMMENTARY, EVOLUTION, RELIGION