Was Paul an Evolutionist?
Thomas Allen
If creationists who claim that Adam and Eve are the parents of all the various
kinds (races, species) of humans are correct, then Paul is an evolutionist, a Darwinist. In 1 Corinthians 15:39, he writes, “All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fishes.” These so-called creationists interpret “one flesh of men” to mean that all humans are descendants of
Adam and Eve through Noah and his family.
First, let us see what some commentators have to say about this verse. In
A Commentary on the Holy Bible (1939), J.R. Dummelow, editor, writes, “There are many different forms of animal life; so there may be of human life.” Thus, because many different species of animals exist, so may several species of men exist.
Everett Harrison, editor, suggests in
The Wycliffe Bible Commentary (1962) that this verse and those following indicate that a believer’s race will be identifiable in his resurrected body. Moreover, based on Harrison’s comment on this verse, one could support Paul being either an evolutionist or a creationist. He comments, “In the light of the theory of evolution, this is an interesting statement [,i.e., ‘All flesh is not the same flesh’].” Paul could be suggesting that each flesh (kind, species) initially came into being independently of all other flesh. This is creationism and is most likely what Paul intended. Conversely, he could be suggesting that all flesh came from one flesh, which is evolution, Darwinism.
In
One Volume New Testament Commentary, C.B.S. writes, “There are different varieties and forms of bodily life.” Thus, he implies that different forms (kinds, species) of men exist. Likewise, Beet writes, “. . . the immense variety, and variety of kinds, of living bodies.” Consequently, there are several kinds of humans.
With the possible exception of Harrison, these commentators in their commentary on this verse neither support nor reject evolution or creationism. They merely note that a large number of kinds of animals exist. So, by implication, several kinds of humans exist.
If all human kinds have one common pair of parents, then, according to Paul, all beasts have one common pair of parents. Therefore, all mammals, reptiles, and amphibians are descendants of one pair of parents. How does a frog turn into a mouse if an evolutionary process is not involved? Likewise, the same is true of birds and fishes; they are descendant from a common pair of parent birds or parent fishes.
Creationists cannot have it both ways. If different kinds (fleshes) of beasts have different initial parents, then different kinds (fleshes) of humans have different initial parents. If “one flesh of men” means that all humans have a common initial pair of parents, then “another flesh of beasts” means that all beasts have a common initial pair of parents. That is, all mammals, reptiles, and amphibians are descended from the same initial parents. Likewise, so are the various kinds of birds and fishes descended from the same initial parents respectively. Evolution means different kinds descending from common initial parents. Thus, if all kinds of human descended from Adam and Eve, evolution is proven.
Monogenism, which is what the Church has traditionally taught, supports evolution, Darwinism. According to monogenism, all human kinds (races, species) descended from a common pair of parents, Adam and Eve. Polygenism supports creationism. According to polygenism, each human kind descended from a different, unique pair of parents. Thus, if creationism is true, Adam and Eve are the parents of only one human kind. If (theistic) evolution is true, then Adam and Eve are the parents of all human kinds.
Biblical creationism is described as “after its kind.” Polygenists claim that each flesh (kind) of beast and each flesh (kind) of man has its own initial pair of parents (flesh) and, thus, is after its flesh (kind). Therefore, creationism is polygenism.
On the other hand, monogenists claim that all flesh (kind) of beasts comes from the same initial flesh (kind) and all flesh (kind) of men comes from the same initial flesh (kind). Therefore, monogenism is evolution, i.e., Darwinism. If the monogenistic claim that all human kinds descended from Adam and Eve is correct, evolution is proven.
In
The Disaster Darwinism Brought to Humanity, Harun Yahya, a Muslim, argues that Darwinism is responsible for Social Darwinism, communism, fascism, Nazism, Marxism (from which come fascism and Nazism), two world wars, and many other evils of the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century. It is also responsible for colonialism,
imperialism (Islamic imperialism existed long before Christian imperialism or Darwin’s birth), the prohibition against
interracial marriages (although interracial breeding is a form of genocide),
segregation (although segregation preserves the integrity of the races whereas integration genocides them), and eugenics. Moreover, although capitalism has been retreating since
World War I, Darwinism is responsible for the advancement of capitalism (because of the stereotypical criticism of capitalism: individualism, competition, and profit-making and because it is void of charity and cooperation, or as Marx asserts, because capitalism is a vital, energetic, productive engine, yet it is egoistic, individualist, and rights-obsessed, which makes it morally evil.) Nevertheless, Yahya acknowledges that these evils existed before Darwin, but Darwin gave them a scientific veneer to justify them and make them more acceptable. If Darwinism is guilty of these evils, then the Church is just as guilty, if not more so, than Darwin. With its monogenistic teachings, it was preaching Darwinism centuries before Darwin was born. Likewise, Islam with its monogenistic doctrine is also guilty.
When Paul writes, “there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts,” etc., does he mean that all human kinds have a common initial pair of parents and all beast kinds have a common initial pair of parents? If so, he is a monogenist and an evolutionist. However, if he means that each human kind has a different initial pair of parents and each beast kind has a different initial pair of parents, then he is a polygenist and is not an evolutionist.
Of course, the argument depends on what is a “kind.” Is a kind a class, order, family, species, or subspecies? Some creationist evolutionists, to use an oxymoron, start with the family; that is, they identify a kind as a family. For example, all species of the cat family are decedents of an initial pair of felines, i.e., a feline kind. Obviously, evolution is involved if all species of cats are descended from a common ancestor. If these creationist evolutionists are correct, then evolution, Darwinism, is proven. The disagreement between creationist evolutionists and secular evolutionists is the starting point and the time required for one species or kind to evolve into another. What secular evolutionists claim that takes millions of years to achieve, creationist evolutionists claim that it takes only a few generations. If kind is not equivalent to a species, or even a subspecies (many of which used to be a species in their own right), then Darwinism becomes necessary, and evolution is proven.
Does only one human kind exist or do several kinds or species of humans exist? If taxonomists had followed the techniques used to identify species of animals for identifying species of humans, they would have identified several species of humans (and some did identify several human species). However, because of centuries of Catholic monogenic indoctrination that all human kinds descended from Adam and Eve, all human kinds were lumped into one species. (Now, political correctness has replaced Catholic indoctrination. However, with the disdain and hatred of the White race, even by Whites, one wonders why the White race is not classified as a different human species or even a different genus to prevent it from contaminating and degrading the other human races.)
Today, the primary technique used to identify a species is the ability to produce fertile offspring. As a result, many former species have been lumped together as one species. Because of using this criterion as the almost sole criterion for identifying a species, many former species of the genus Canis have been lumped together. However, taxonomists are not consistent is using the criterion of fertile offspring. Obviously, it is not used for extinct species. Moreover, have entomologists tried interbreeding all species of ants to see if they are really distinct species or mere subspecies of the same species? The ability to produce fertile offspring should be only one of several criteria used to determine a species — and then used more for exclusion than inclusion.
(For a more detail discussion of polygenism verses monogenism and the classification of human kinds into several species, see
Species of Men: A Polygenetic Hypothesis and
Adam to Abraham: The Early History of Man, both by Thomas Allen.)
Is Paul an evolutionist? “Flesh of beasts” parallels “flesh of men.” Therefore, Paul must have meant the same thing by both phrases. Thus, if Paul means that all kinds of men descended from a common ancestor, then he would have meant that all kinds of beasts descended from a common ancestor. Consequently, he is an evolutionist. However, if by “flesh of” he does not mean descent from a common ancestor, then he does not mean that all human kinds and all beast kinds descended from a common ancestor, i.e., each human kind, race, species, and each beast kind, species, and many subspecies have a different initial ancestor. Thus, he is not an evolutionist but is a creationist.
Dr. Pye Smith, who was a Christian philosopher and a proponent of all human kinds descending from a common pair of parents, wrote,
If the two first inhabitants of Eden were the progenitors, not of all human beings, but only of the race whence sprang the Hebrew family, still it would remain the fact, that all were formed by the immediate power of God, and all these circumstances, stated or implied in the Scriptures, would remain the same as to moral and practical purposes. Adam would be a “figure of Him that is to come,” the Saviour of mankind; just as Melchizedek, or Moses, or Aaron, or David: the spiritual lesson would be the same. The sinful character of all the tribes of men, and the individuals composing them, would remain determined by the most abundant and painfully demonstrated proofs, in the history of all times and nations. The way and manner in which moral corruption has thus infected all men, under their several heads of primeval ancestry, would be an inscrutable mystery, which it is now, but the need of divine mercy, and the duty to seek it, would be the same; the same necessity would exist of a Saviour, a redemption, and a renovation of the internal character by efficacious grace. That the Saviour was, in his human nature, a descendant of Adam, would not militate against his being a proper Redeemer for all races of mankind, any more than his being a descendant of Abraham, Judah, and David, at all diminishes his perfection to save us “sinners of the Gentiles.” (Geology and Scripture, p. 357, Bohn's ed. 1854.)
Thus, just as Melchizedek, Moses, Aaron, and David were figures of the Christ, who would come as the Savior of humanity, so was Adam. Adam did not have to be the ancestor of all man kinds for them to be saved. Thus, each kind of human having a different initial pair of parents does not diminish the salvific work of Christ — unless the Israelite-identity folks are correct. (If descent from Adam is necessary for salvation, then descent from Abraham through Jacob is also necessary as the Israelite-identity folks claim. According to Israelite-identity folks, only Israelites, descendants of Jacob, can be saved. Therefore, whether all are descendants of Adam is irrelevant. Only descend from Jacob matters. Without a reliable genealogy, how does one know that he is a descendant, much less a pure descendant with no admixture of non-Israelite Adamites, Aryans, of Jacob? [Non-Israelite Aryans and Israelites are biologically the same.] Most Aryans, like Negroes, Turanians, Melanochroi, Khoisans, and
Indo-Australians, cannot be saved because they are not descendants of Jacob, or at least not pure descendants.)
Either God created each kind, race, species, of men or they evolved from a common ancestry, which is evolution, Darwinism. If the races did not evolve and God did create them, then all good Christians (and presumably good Muslims) should oppose everything that leads to their demise or destruction, including
interracial mating. Otherwise, if God did not create them independently, then Darwinism and all the evils that Yahya attaches to it, including genocide, should not matter.
If God created each race of men independently, then genocide matters. However, if the races of men evolved, then genocide per se does not matter as genocide leads to the survival of the fittest. Unfortunately, most Americans are evolutionists and do not oppose genocide per se. However, they do oppose some forms of genocide while finding other forms acceptable — only the type of genocide may matter. At least 98 to 99 percent of Americans do agree on one thing — be they liberal or conservative, progressive or libertarian, left-wing or right-wing, communist or laissez-faire capitalist, Republican or Democrat, pro-Trump or anti-Trump, pro-Clinton/Obama or anti-Clinton/Obama, globalist or nationalist, Christian or atheist, Jew or Muslim, religious or nonreligious, White or Black, or Yellow or Brown. They all agree that one form of genocide is perfectly acceptable. This form of genocide is
interracial mating: breeding the races out of existence. Thus, this proves that most Americans, even most Christians who claim to be creationists, are Darwinists. (Most Americans object vigorously to the genocide of the
North American Indians by disease, starvation, and mass killing. However, few Americans show any concern about breeding the North American Indian out of existence. This form of genocide has been much more effective than other forms.)
Since a key law of evolution is survival of the fittest, no evolutionist should have any objection to genocide whatever its form. Genocide is nothing more than the application of the law of the survival of the fittest.
Would Paul have condoned or condemned genocide in the form of interracial mating? If he were a creationist, he would surely have condemned it.
Copyright © 2023 by Thomas Coley Allen.
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