Sometimes Christians treat Genesis 1-3 as a kind of prolegomenon to the biblical narrative. These chapters are important, it is thought, primarily to set the stage for the real business of Christian theology—those issues involved in the doctrine of redemption. Moreover, when we do engage the theology of creation more directly, our interest tends to…

Imagine a young man in his late teen years. He has recently moved to the city to go to school. In the course of his study, he becomes convinced that Genesis 1 is no longer consistent with the most sophisticated intellectual trends of the day. He rejects the Christian faith in which he was raised,…

I am grateful to Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight for their work in Adam and the Genome, and I am also thankful for the engagement provided by the scholars who have contributed to this symposium. This conversation is exactly the sort of forthright, well-informed, and charitable discussion that the church needs, and it is just…

I am grateful that our book, Adam and the Genome, was selected by the Creation Project for this discussion. This is a timely issue for the church that affects both our witness to those outside our communities whom we long to reach with the gospel, and for those among us who have come to accept…

At the heart of the Christian faith is the idea that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. To be clear: this idea runs counter to human experience and is thoroughly “anti-scientific.” Over 100,000 years of human experience teaches that when people die, they remain dead. And this experience is borne out by centuries of…

In the age of genomes, new information is reshaping our understanding of life on Earth. This information cannot be ignored, and questions are rising in the Church. How much does evolution press on theology? Was Adam a real person from whom all mankind descends? In Adam and the Genome, the scientist Dennis Venema explains our…

On and off between the years 1542-1563, Calvin wrestled with and returned to Genesis; his commentaries have been known and loved ever since, especially in the English-speaking world. They remain a well-worn resource for preachers and teachers, with Genesis not the least within the Canon. The Calvin Studies Society translations are widely available. Calvin’s sermons are…

Becoming reasonably conversant with contemporary developments and bringing biblical teaching to bear on commonplace assumptions is a perennial challenge for thoughtful Christians. One of the more pressing questions the church now confronts is a perceived conflict between the findings of the Human Genome Project and the Christian tradition regarding the common origin of humanity in…

In a well-known passage from his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas makes a distinction between two different kinds of doctrine, each of which “pertain to the faith” in different ways. First, there are doctrines that constitute “the substance of the faith in itself” (per se substantia fidei); second, there are doctrines…

In Adam and the Genome, my friend Scot McKnight presents his biblically rooted case for claiming that the term historical Adam is really about a literary or archetypal Adam. It is the argument of Chapters 5-8. To drive the point home the term historical is placed in quotes (“historical”) as he introduces the topic (p….

“If we fail to hold together the mediation of salvation and that of creation,” wrote Colin Gunton some years ago, “we risk a reversion to [Gnosticism].” One could say the entirety of the Henry Center’s Creation Project strives to maintain that very balance. Nathan Chambers, who joins the Creation Project in its second year as…

St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (c. 1217–1274) placed a high value on the doctrine of creation, as is manifest in his several discussions of the doctrine throughout his career. Getting clear on creation, Bonaventure believed, entailed not only knowing the creature better, but also knowing the creature in terms of the Creator. Higher still is the…