Silly me. I woke up at 2 AM, realizing that I had not yet addressed the central question I’m asking. Are the pre-Homo sapiens in need of redemption, and did Jesus die for them?

In answer 1, of course not, because the fossils are all fake. Delusional. In answer 2, no. In that answer, pre-Homo sapiens existed, but were beasts, soulless beasts… the same as cockroaches.

In answer 3, the problem becomes more complex. Within that answer, there are three primary options and multiple possible suboptions.

The first primary answer, like in answer 2, you could believe that all the pre-Homo sapiens were soulless beasts and not in need of redemption, no more than dogs or cats… or cockroaches.

The secondary primary answer is that yes, Jesus did die for some of our relatives, but not all, because, if you say all, then you will have to include the apes.

When you look at the evidence, as with all real-world phenomena, it isn’t so easy. Where do you draw the line between beast and man (implying woman too)? Neanderthals were very close to us, with 99.7% DNA similarity. So, not identical. For reference, we share 98-99% DNA similarity with chimps.

So, do Neanderthals make the cut? Evidence indicates they lived on Earth for 360,000 years, slightly longer than Homo sapiens. As I wrote earlier, like us, they had a culture: they talked, buried their dead, may have some religious-like rituals, created tools, and made art. We share similarities with Denisovans. Do they make the cut? While we have some genetic information from the older Homo heidelbergensis, we can’t make a meaningful comparison with Homo sapiens. They had smaller brains, approximately 93% the size of ours, whereas Neanderthal brains were slightly larger than ours, particularly in the occipital lobe. Do the Homo heidelbergensis make the cut?

At this point, you can see why so many Christians prefer to live in the delusional world of believing that the fossils are all fake, and adopt the conspiracy theory that the morally repugnant archelologists, paleoanthropologists, and other scienctist are making this all up, so they destroy Christianity, just so they can have sex with their girlfriends without guilt–as I was taught as an Evangelical. The easy way out.

But let’s go further back. Homo erectus lived on Earth for approximately three million years, going extinct a little over 100,000 years ago (which is a blink in geological time). We have not yet obtained any DNA material from this creature. However, their brains were approximately 900 cc, compared with the average 1350 cc in Homo sapiens; for comparison, chimpanzees have brains of approximately 400 cc.

Now, a side discussion, just to add complexity, you could ask the question, “Did Jesus die for the Homo sapiens that lived before Jesus? They didn’t know him or have the opportunity to ‘accept Christ?’” I have heard of two or three answers to this question. One is, yes, those before Christ could be redeemed through Christ. But other Christians claim that unless you have a “personal relationship” with Christ, you are going to burn in hell. In that second perspective, yes, all people before Christ, and that would include all the pre-Homo sapiens, are going to burn for all eternity in hell. Is there a hell? is a topic I would like to discuss at another time. What kind of God would do this?

At this juncture, if you are still with me, you are thinking you know why my church was not interested in a Sunday school class on this topic. Why do all those mental gymnastics matter? Who gives a crap?

It matters for this reason. Scores of people are leaving Christianity for good, and many of them, it happened when they discover the reality of human evolution. Most Protestant churches have been either silent on it or taught a false narrative, as in answer #1. My heart is for those people. While we can’t give clear, authoritative answers, we can at least have the discussion.

Let me conclude this post with the third answer to this question, which requires a larger God than most of us are familiar with. That is a God who didn’t send Jesus to redeem a very small sect of people on planet Earth who go through certain rituals of becoming a Christian, but the entire cosmos. The famous verse John 3:16 begins with the statement, “God so loved the world…” and the Greek word for “world” is kosmos, the root of our English word “cosmos,” meaning “all that exists.”

This sounds like universalism (salvation for all) to many Christians, and that can piss them off. They want to be special, and universalism doesn’t make them special or elite. But this idea does solve the problem of human ancestors, splitting hairs of who is saved and who is not.

I will end this here as I don’t want to go down another rabbit hole of universalism, inviting more than my typical hate mail from God-loving Christian elites.

Pardon the errors, as this is 3 AM.

Respectfully, Mike