Different people give different answers to the basic question concerning man Materialists say that man is only a body. Idealists say that man’s body is only an idea, whereas the pragmatists say that we do not know much about the material or the immaterial entities but only relationships. At the same time the philosophers tried to give answers to this question. Different philosophers gave different ideas about man and his origin. So the philosophies could not also give definite idea about the basic question of man. The answers to the basis question about man and his nature is found only in the Bible. Let us study what the Bible teaches on man and sin.
THE ORIGIN OF MAN
It is natural for a man with an inquisitive mind to know his origin. So far, nothing in nature has given the clue for the definite origin of man. It is not possible for man to find out his origin from tradition or others because of the finite nature of man. So man will be able to know his origin only by means of divine revelation, since no man was present at the time of creation to describe or write down how man came into being. Hence the correct way by which man can know about his origin is by extra revelation.
About divine revelation on the origin of man Wm. Hoste wrote,
Man may boast of their hypothesis, but ‘hypothesis’ is only “guess’ writ large. Why should a divine Revelation seem so incredible? Would not a good king desire his subjects to know him and their origin, or a father his sons? Such a Revelation we posses in the Holy Scriptures; and they reveal that man’s origin was not from below but from above; that he is not the creature of chance, but of God God created man in His own image (Gen. 1:27) (Hoste 1932:150).
1. Theories on the Origin of Man
Many people because of their inquisitive nature have speculated various theories to suggest the origin of man. They do not want to believe the account of the origin of man revealed in the Bible. So they have expressed their views differently. Here are a few theories on the origin of man proposed by a few among them.
a. Evolution theory
The important theory that was proposed to explain the origin of man apart from the doctrine of creation is the theory of evolution. This theory believes in spontaneous generation of man from the primitive forms of life. It proposes that in the beginning there was a living cell, whose origin they cannot explain or prove. They claim that from this living cell, man was evolved due to the process of natural selection. Complicated life evolved from the simple life by natural process, which is against the laws of nature.
This theory also states that all plants, animals and man were formed due to changes produced by mutations. But actually by this process of mutation no new species has been produced now. About the evolution theory Kevin J. Conner wrote, The evolutionary theory is built on supposition, and literature with an honest representation of it abounds in the use of terms like, “maybe, we suggest, perhaps, it could be, we assume, it is possible, it is feasible, and, it may be presupposed.””(Conner 1980:123) Atheistic Evolution is based on the survival of the fittest, but it cannot account for the arrival of the first. It fails to adequately account for the origin of matter and life because it rejects God, the originator of matter and the source of all life.
b. Theistic evolution
This theory says that God used evolution as a method to create the world and believes that the higher forms of life evolved from the lower forms of life, which was created by God. This theory accepts God as the creator. This concept is against the biblical revelation that God created man in His own image and likeness (Gen. 1:26, 27). Man is in this world, not to evolve into higher form but to reproduce after his own kind. A monkey can produce only a monkey and not a man.
c. Theistic creation
Theistic creation believes that God is the life-source and the creator of all forms of life in this world to reproduce after its own kind. He also created the universe, the angelic forces, every living creature in the world and finally man. So man is the created being of God in His own image and likeness.
Theistic creation believes that man’s origin is described in the second chapter of Genesis. This is the divine revelation of God on the origin of man. God created Adam from the dust and Eve from his rib. The Bible states that God created mana upon the earth (Deut. 4:32) and has made the earth, the man, and the beasts upon the earth by His great power (Jer. 27:5; Zech. 12:1; Acts 17:25, 28).
One may question the validity of the record in Genesis. The record on the origin of man in Genesis is no way contradictory to science. It is not written for a scientist but for an ordinary man to understand the origin of the world. All the accounts of the origin of the world of other religions and people are filled with errors. But Moses who lived four thousand years ago wrote an account of the origin of the world, keeping abreast of the science of all times. This would have been impossible without the revelation of God.
How can man who has unique characteristics like transcendental nature,
rational powers, moral awareness, and interest in beauty, use of language,
excellent memory, unusual creativity, and spiritual perception evolve from.
animals? Many people are willing to believe this impossibility rather than
considering the possibility of creation. They are not willing to believe the
revelation of God because they are blinded by the god of this age (Satan). “By
faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (Heb. 11:3).
There are three types of beliefs among those who believe that God created man
Theistic creationists believe that the man and animals were created by God in six days of 24 hours each.
Theistic evolutionists believe that God created the world but that God used evolution to produce world and man. For example, the time process in creation was more than six days of 24 hours each.
Progressive creationists believe that Genesis gives the general outline of God’s creative acts. But they regard that the creation continued within each species as successive creation till it reached the present stage.
