Did Jesus Die for the Sins of Homo Naledi? Metaphysical Considerations Part IV

Someone has asked, “Mike, aren’t you doing the same thing that you are accusing other Christians of doing… requiring them to believe in an old Earth and evolution to be Christians or at least good Christians?”

Pardon my French, but hell no! Jesus never said to his followers, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, believe that the Earth is billions of years old, or believe that the Earth is a mere six thousand years old, and follow me.” I will say with remarkable candor that many, many Christian people believe that the Earth is six thousand years old and believe that the creation story in Genesis is literal, and are far better Christians than I am, based on the only actual true measuring stick, how well they love.

Here is my agenda. Unfortunately, the Young Earth Creationists have made the issue of believing in a six-thousand-year-old, non-evolutionary Earth essential for being a Christian. This was what I opposed in my last church, which got me in deep doo doo. Everything I write in this blog has one purpose: to make Christianity palpable to everyone. This includes those with a scientific, evidence-driven, truth-seeking mind. When you make it a requirement for those folks to believe in a six-thousand-year-old Earth, or a plethora of other cultural things (like hating gay people) to be a Christian, then one day, they will leave Christianity completely. Does that make sense?

Answer Two-Homo Naledi was a Beast, not Created in the Image of God

This is another answer that preserves the popular Christian view that Homo sapiens were created six thousand years ago, were the only creature made in God’s image, and it is via Homo sapiens that sin and death entered the world, setting up the need for a savior. This is one that many young-earth creationists hold, or try to maintain: that these transitional creatures (between apes and humans) are other beasts. Super-duper monkeys, who were created six thousand years ago and not created in God’s image.

The problem with this answer is that there are more than 21 other transitional humans, some at the same time. I arbitrarily chose Homo Naledi as one example. That is a complex world where 21+ humanlike creatures lived on Earth, and they were beasts, like cows or monkeys, who did not have souls.

This is even more complicated as humans could interbreed with two of these “beasts,” Neanderthal and Denisovans. We are not sure, but we believe the Neanderthals evolved from Homo heidelbergensis in Europe, then further evolved into Denisovans in eastern Europe and Asia. We believe that the Neanderthals and possibly the Denisovans could have interbred with the Homo heidelbergensis, but it is likely that modern Homo sapiens, like us, could not. It is possible that Homo sapiens evolved directly from Homo heidelbergensis or a late Homo erectus.

At the same time this complicated story is playing out, other human-like creatures were living on Earth, including Homo Naledi and Homo Floresiensis, the latter a tiny creature also called “The Hobbit.” What is also true is that many of these creatures didn’t simply evolve into the next, but co-existed, and then those lineages went extinct. All of these mentioned creatures made and used complex tools, built fires and shelters, buried their dead, made art, and spoke. So how can we conclude that only Homo sapiens were created in God’s image?

The other problem with this model is the geological one. Young-Earth creationists love to claim that all the Earth’s geological features are the result of a worldwide flood just four thousand years ago. They go around to churches and present photos of the layering of ash around Mount Saint Helens, which formed in days, and lie, saying they are proof that the Grand Canyon was created in days during the flood. Which is absurd. It is like me drawing a picture of an aircraft carrier in two hours and using it as proof that aircraft carriers were built in two hours… beyond apples and oranges.

Let me be clear, there is overwhelming geological evidence that the Earth is billions of years old, as much evidence as the sky is sometimes blue. The Young-Earth Creationist always resorts to deception and lies when they try to prove that it is only six thousand years old. It is not a moral problem if you want to believe the Earth is young. It is an ethical problem to lie and deceive people to maintain your position.

I will write about this in another post, but religion, including the religious forms of Christianity, has gotten into this bad habit of “The end justifies the means.” They hold a doctrine that must be irrefutable, and lying to prove it is true is okay. If Christianity wants to be relevant, I suggest it gets out of the dirty business of lying and deceit. If there is a God, that God lives in truth.

With an old Earth and at least 21 human-like creatures living there for at least three million years (recent upright-walking ape-like creatures have been dated to seven million years ago), several living at the same time, makes this notion of multiple human-like beasts being created at the same time as God-like humans complicated to support.

Respectfully,

Mike

5 responses to “Did Jesus Die for the Sins of Homo Naledi? Metaphysical Considerations Part IV”

  1. eyhopkins Avatar
    eyhopkins

    Its an interesting question, what do you think? For me, I don’t understand why any ancestor of homo sapiens (or Adam, we might say) would have any concept of divine law and could therefore be guilty of sin. It seems clear to me that the whole New Testament theory of atonement/redemption is predicated on an historical Adam/Eve. And I can believe that Adam had ancestors that evolved over many thousands of years. But I don’t see the necessity of believing those ancestors possessed rational souls or were made “in the image of God” and therefore capable of sin. There seems to be controversy among the scientists about the developmental stages of homo naledi, at least according to this wiki article; “Although they have not been associated with stone tools or any indication of material culture, they appear to have been dexterous enough to produce and handle tools, and therefore may have manufactured Early or Middle Stone Age industries found in excavations near their fossils, since no other human species in the vicinity at that time has been discovered. It has also been controversially postulated that these individuals were buried deliberately by being carried into and placed in the chamber. Some researchers suggest that H. naledi also may have carved crosshatched rock signs in a passage to what could be a burial chamber, but many paleontologists question this hypothesis.” Your question reminds me of one asked a few years ago by Pope Francis: “would you baptize an extraterrestial?” To answer that question, like yours, many other questions must first be asked and answered. Grace and peace to you and yours.

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    1. J. Michael Jones Avatar
      J. Michael Jones

      I lived in a world, for forty years, that any mentioning of anything besides a fully human Adam created 6,000 years ago, was heresy and proof that your Christianity wasn’t legitimate. It is to that crowd, and the countless people I meet who have left evangelicalism, that I write. I do not write with certainity, but to point out the obvious, the Earth is much older than 6,000 years and human history is much more complex than a literal interpretation of Genesis allows. I love the attitude of Aquinas that when there is a conflict between Nature an Scriptures (the two books of God) they should be resolved by re-interpting the most likely misinterpreted. Have you ever read our friend’s book, The Sin of Evoution? While I see him as a good man, he grossly misrepresented the evidence of evoluton. Like you and the article you posted said, evolution is a very broard term an I simply use it as adaptations of one creature to its enviroment over time. Not a naturalistic evoluton.

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      1. eyhopkins Avatar
        eyhopkins

        I did read that awful book and wrote a critical review about which John and I had an interesting discussion.

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  2. eyhopkins Avatar
    eyhopkins

    Its an interesting question, what do you think? For me, I don’t understand why any ancestor of homo sapiens (or Adam, we might say) would have any concept of divine law and could therefore be guilty of sin. It seems clear to me that the whole New Testament theory of atonement/redemption is predicated on an historical Adam/Eve. And I can believe that Adam had ancestors that evolved over many thousands of years. But I don’t see the necessity of believing those ancestors possessed rational souls or were made “in the image of God” and therefore capable of sin. There seems to be controversy among the scientists about the developmental stages of homo naledi, at least according to this wiki article; “Although they have not been associated with stone tools or any indication of material culture, they appear to have been dexterous enough to produce and handle tools, and therefore may have manufactured Early or Middle Stone Age industries found in excavations near their fossils, since no other human species in the vicinity at that time has been discovered. It has also been controversially postulated that these individuals were buried deliberately by being carried into and placed in the chamber. Some researchers suggest that H. naledi also may have carved crosshatched rock signs in a passage to what could be a burial chamber, but many paleontologists question this hypothesis.” Your question reminds me of one asked a few years ago by Pope Francis: “would you baptize an extraterrestial?” To answer that question, like yours, many other questions must first be asked and answered. Grace and peace to you and yours.

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    1. J. Michael Jones Avatar
      J. Michael Jones

      Let me just say, when you look at the whole fossil record, it becomes fuzzy when humans became human. Was the Neanderthal a souless beast? Most of us Europeans carry 2-5% Neanderthal genes. If they were just beast, are we human-beast hybirds? Half souled? If you include the Neanderthals as souled humans, then what about the Denisovians? I don’t have an answer except to say, an easy answer doesn’t work.

      I am well familiar with the Homo Naledi controversities, haven’t watched countless lectures on the find. Lee Berger, the discoverer of the find, claims that a sharp stone in the hand of a child is a tool, other qualified paleoanthropologist don’t believe that it is. There is controversy about the hash tags, if that is art. I follow one British paleontologist, an expert on cave art, who had serious doubts about this being art… until he visited the cave himself. He now believes it is. But there are other cave art specialist who doubt this is art. But again, I don’t have the answer but do we inclue homo Naledi in the “homo” family of souled humans?

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