Part II: The Nature of the Forbidden Fruit
SOME TIME AGO in discussing the subject matter of this paper with a friend, he said to me--and to some others subsequently--"This terrifies me." I think I understand what he meant. How far can we enter into the study of mysteries like the Incarnation and the Virgin Birth without trespassing into that which is far too sacred? It is well to tread very carefully here, and with reverence and humility. Yet Scripture has much to say on these subjects that escapes the casual reader entirely. And God gave us minds as well as hearts, so surely we should exercise them both. We should worship, and "wonder" is part of it.
Though literalism came into disrepute through overindulgence by some of its strongest supporters, it is still very wonderful how much may be discovered by taking the Word of God literally and bringing to bear upon it the findings of modern science. When the language of science is quite specific we assume it means what it says. Why not do the same with Scripture?
So this paper and the others which are naturally related to it are committed to the LORD with a deep sense of unworthiness to speak of such things, but also with real thankfulness of heart that such things may be studied so very fruitfully in this way.
May the LORD help the reader to remember only what is glorifying to Him, and to forget all else.
THE CHRISTIAN faith is a system of thought, logically coherent and composed of a number of contributing elements each of which is essential to the whole. It is an organic unity, sensitive to the corruption or distortion of even the least part of it. Although it is convenient to speak of the "Articles of Faith" as so many Fundamentals, it is really the system as a whole that is fundamental. It is a mistake to attach greater importance to some elements, for this fragments the system and may lead to neglect or denial of others equally important, thus rendering the structure illogical.
Theology is a system of reasoning, demanding the most exact obedience to the laws of logic, including the law of contradiction. But since the Faith has been broken down into a series of sometimes rather loosely connected fragments with their relationships either unstated or misunderstood, the whole system has been looked upon by many thoughtful people as rather confusing, unreasonable, and arbitrary. It is true that for teaching purposes it helps to be able to consider the Incarnation, the Virgin Birth, Vicarious Sacrifice, and so forth, under separate headings. But when the connecting links are not made logically clear, the apparently arbitrary character of the Christian faith is a prime reason why thoughtful people do not stop to consider it seriously. It is important to note that it is the absence of the links rather than the presence of the elements which is the stumbling block. It therefore is most important to be able to fill in the connecting links which knit these elements into a single meaningful whole. It is sad to say that while many people believe the Fundamentals with great conviction, they are not at all sure how they fit together nor why each is essential to all the rest.
The Fundamentals are given by Revelation, but the Links are theologically created by reason. However, historical events have led many earnest Christians to suspect the use of reason. As a result the links have fallen away by default, and for many people only the Fundamentals remain. Such people strictly have no reason for the faith that is in them. But as J. Gresham Machen put it: (1)
The true way in which to examine a spiritual movement is in its logical relations; logic is the great dynamic and the logical implications of any way of thinking are sooner or later certain to be worked out.
If we abandon any one of the basic elements of the evangelical Christian faith we might as well cease to try to defend the system as a whole, because it has ceased to be logically coherent. It is quite hopeless to defend the fact of the Virgin Birth and the Incarnation if we abandon the record of the Fall of man as given in Genesis and the Trinity as revealed throughout the Bible. But if we relinquish the fact of the Virgin Birth, the possibility of Vicarious Sacrifice must be surrendered. And if we deny the bodily resurrection of the LORD, we have no proof whatever that His sacrifice was acceptably vicarious at all.
Whatever else in his theology we may challenge, Karl Barth was unquestionably right in insisting that the creation of man m such a form that the Fall of man took place as it did, was an essential step in the revelation of God's redeeming love; and that the story of Eden must be viewed as preparatory to Calvary--and in this sense conceived after the Plan of Redemption was formulated. (2) That is to say, in the mind of God the exhibition of His love at Calvary was the prime element in His decision to create man at all, and the creation of man in the form in which it is revealed to have taken place was a necessary, but dependent, consideration. Calvary preceded Eden, the Plan of Redemption preceded the Fall of man from God's point of view.
This means that the Crucifixion was not an emergency measure taken by God to offset an unfortunate incident in Eden. What happened to the First Adam has everything to do with what was achieved by the Last Adam. Tampering with the former makes the latter meaningless. It is here that the theological implications of evolution must be seriously faced by the Christian believer, regardless of the scientific evidence. This is not only a theological necessity, but also a logical one. H. G. Wells saw it clearly: (3)
It was only slowly that the general intelligence of the Western World was awakened to two disconcerting facts: firstly, that the succession of life in the geological record did not correspond to the acts of six days of creation, and secondly, that the record in harmony with the mass of biological facts, pointed away from the Bible assertions of a separate creation of each species straight towards a genetic relation between all forms of life, in which even man was included! The importance of this last issue to the existing doctrinal system was manifest. If all the animals and man had been evolved in this ascendant manner, then there had been no first parents, no Eden, and no Fall. And if there had been no Fall, then the entire historical fabric of Christianity, the story of the first sin and the reason for an atonement, upon which the current teaching based Christian emotion and morality, collapsed like a house of cards [emphasis mine].
In many respects the children of this world are wiser in their own generation than the children of Light--at least they are frequently far more logical. But Christian scholars have, of course, made the same observations on many occasions. James Orr expressed it this way: (4)
I do not think it can be sufficiently emphasized that Christian truth forms an organism--has a unity and coherence which cannot be arbitrarily disturbed in any of its parts without the whole undergoing injury. Conversely, the proof that any doctrine fits in essentially to that organism--is an integral part of it--is one of the strongest evidences we can have of its correctness.
Notice that he says "the strongest evidences"--not proof.
In discussing what is sometimes referred to as the Medieval Synthesis, John Randall points out that once the edifice had been built the test of truth was thenceforth not verification by experiment but facility of inclusion within the system. (5) Consequently, when certain scientific knowledge which could not be reconciled with it was finally established beyond a doubt, the whole system was challenged and brought into disrepute. But there is also a converse of all this, as Carl Lindegren observed recently: (6) "Data that confirm a well established theory are generally accepted without critical evaluation " It is to be feared that the greatest contemporary challenge to Christian theology, evolution--or the Modern Synthesis as Huxley has termed it--has tended to display the same inflexibility. Anything which supports it is apt to get a ready hearing, and anything which contradicts it tends to be minimized or ignored. This characteristic of all such comprehensive views is not the fault of the views themselves whether Christian or non-Christian, but evidence of a quality of human thought. For man seeks finality and when he is assured of it, he develops a peculiar blindness to anything which challenges it. Such comprehensive views, though they are mental creations, end up by becoming prisons of the minds which create them. The Fundamentalist and evolutionist alike become trapped in their own systems and equally unable to reconsider their faith unless aware of this fact.
This is very relevant to what has been said above about the organic nature of Christian faith, for there is a tendency here also having once achieved the synthesis by establishing the links between the Fundamentals, to insist upon it as a touchstone of truth, accepting uncritically that which is concordant with it and rejecting uncritically all that seems to challenge it, no matter how much evidence there is to support the challenge. As long as one recognizes this inherent weakness in every unified scheme of thought, the possibility will remain, should it become necessary, of modifying the scheme without destroying the fundamentals of it. Notice that we do not suggest any modification of the Fundamentals, but only of the logical system by which they are rendered an organic whole. These remarks are made because the writer is convinced that no matter how satisfying a particular system is to oneself, it is not likely to be the final one by any means, though the truth of the Fundamentals which it weaves together is most certainly final.
I DON'T SUPPOSE there are many folks left who believe that the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden was an apple. As a matter of fact, I suspect that not too many people seriously believe any more that a real fruit was involved at all. It was some kind of symbol, allegory, or something. But it is rather surprising what can be learned from Scripture if the account is allowed to speak for itself and its actual words are taken quite seriously to mean what they say. It is, of course, particularly necessary to bring light from other parts of Scripture to bear upon any passage to which a rather literal interpretation is being applied. In this context the results of adopting this principle are quite remarkable.
The record in Genesis reads as follows:
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Gen. 2:15-17)
Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? (Gen. 3:1-9)
Now let us assume for the sake of discussion that this is a simple, historic record of what was actually said and done. Adam and Eve were real people, the Garden of Eden a real garden, the trees real trees, and the environmental conditions exactly as stated.
Most people would concede that the statement in Genesis 3:21 about the provision of clothing by God was real. So clothed, they began a new kind of life outside the Garden and in the course of time Eve bore her first child. The events which followed immediately have the ring of truth about them, and thenceforward the record reads as though the Author had every intention that His readers should take it all as plain, simple truth. Bernard Ramm rightly points out that those who seek to set the first appearance of man thousands upon thousands of years ago will have difficulty establishing any hiatus in this record in which to insert the millennia they require. (7) From Adam to Noah Scripture gives a continuous history without obvious breaks of any kind. This being so, it becomes difficult indeed, if one once begins to postulate that this or that part of the story is allegory, to determine where the allegorizing begins and where it ends. It may create problems in the light of modern science to assume the text means exactly what it says, but it certainly becomes remarkably illuminating when it is taken seriously.
The state of Adam and Eve as created is the subject of another paper in this volume (see Part III). The evidence for their original immortality is there considered in some detail. It is far more extensive than many people are aware. This condition of immortality is an assumption which, I think, we are forced to make, if the Plan of Redemption is to be logically defensible. This point will be elaborated subsequently. Here, then, is a basic premise, namely, that Adam and Eve in the Garden had bodies which probably looked very much like ours do at their very best, but need not have undergone those biological changes which lead to senescence and decay. Augustine put the matter this way: "Non imposse mori, sed posse non mori," which means, "It is not impossible to die, but possible not to die." This, I believe, is an exact statement of the case. Adam and Eve need not have died. But in an act of disobedience they ate a fruit which had the effect of robbing them of their immortality. This effect was immediate, the process of disintegration began that very day, al though they still survived for a remarkable length of time. I think this is the implication of the Hebrew, "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," where the phrase "shalt surely die" is a reduplicate one in the original, rendered literally, "dying thou shalt die," but I think is more accurately read as an idiom "thou shalt begin to die."
This was a new condition of living: created immortal, they were now mortal. Unlike themselves, their children never shared this condition of immortality at all. Cain and Abel, and all who succeeded them by natural generation, were born mortals. We have here, then, a situation in which parents by their disobedience acquired a characteristic, namely mortality, and their children inherited this acquired characteristic.
To the casual reader, this may not seem a very remarkable circumstance. From the biological point of view, however, it was. In considering this fact, we should point out that throughout this paper we are confining ourselves to the physical aspects of life, not the spiritual, so that the words mortal, immortal, etc., are to be taken in their biological sense.
One of the most clearly demonstrated facts of modern genetics is that acquired characteristics are not inherited. But here is the record of an occasion upon which two biologically immortal people ate a fruit which may have contained a poison that upset the perfect balance between anabolism and catabolism, and this ultimately led to their physical death. And this new characteristic was inherited by all their descendants subsequently. According to the biblical statements, even after they had eaten this forbidden fruit, it appears that what may have been an antidote was available in the Garden to be derived from another tree referred to as the Tree of Life in Genesis 2:9 (Tree of Healing in Revelation 22:2). Had they been able in their fallen state to gain access to this tree, it seems their bodies would have been healed, the perfect balance reestablished, and immortality recovered: but it would have been immortality to sustain a fallen spirit...Erich Sauer made this comment: (8)
To abide further in Paradise with a continuous renewing of his outward life-power would have meant nothing less for man than the eternal perpetuation of his sin, his condemnation to an unredeemable condition, and so to a never ending destruction. The sinner's bodily deathlessness would be eternal death to his soul and Paradise would have become Hell.
As we shall see, God who foresees the future perfectly would not permit such a circumstance to be, and with great haste "thrust out" the man and the woman from the Garden, taking special precautions to guarantee that they could not return to partake of the Tree of Life in their sinful state. An angel was appointed specifically to guard the way to this Tree of Life (Gen. 3:24), in whose hand was a sword--a symbol of death--which turned every way and was therefore inescapable. The wording of the text in this correction is very clear, and the existence of one of the few unfinished sentences of Scripture (Gen. 3:22) is undoubtedly intended to show how serious the situation really was.
Let us consider some of the reasons why it has been found that acquired characteristics are not normally inherited. When Darwin formulated his theory of natural selection it seemed obvious to him and he easily persuaded many of his contemporaries that any living thing which gained some physical advantage over its competitors during its life, would automatically pass that benefit on to its young by inheritance. Thus, by a process akin to compound interest, the gains of each generation were added to those of the next and progress in the development of higher and higher forms of life was guaranteed. For example, a giraffe which happened to have an extra long neck might survive a protracted famine longer than his fellows when once the leaves had all been eaten off the trees at the lower levels. Such taller survivors would sire the next generation and so in the course of time, after many successive famines, giraffes were born with longer and longer necks. It is a pity for this little story that the female giraffe is about twenty-four inches shorter than the male, so that either the males were remarkably gentlemanly or the theory must be classed along with Kipling's "Just So" stories.
Any such imagined advantage gained by an individual during its lifetime is generally referred to as an acquired characteristic. One of the strongest advocates for the inheritance of such characteristics was a man named Lamarck. This man's views were first somewhat misunderstood and then, because of this misunderstanding, scornfully repudiated. Except for a certain type of possible exception which it is not our intention to enter into here, biological opinion is pretty well unanimous that acquired characteristics are not inherited, at least not in the way that early Darwinians supposed. We shall have occasion to refer to this exceptional circumstance later in the paper.
There are some remarkably conclusive demonstrations proving how difficult it is to modify a parent body in such a way that the offspring inherit the modification. For centuries, Chinese girls had their feet tightly bound because it was felt that small feet added to a woman's beauty, yet Chinese babies are still born with normal feet. For an even longer period of time, probably, the children of Israel have practiced circumcision; yet all their male children are still born exactly as the children of uncircumcised parents are. One of the most famous experiments of this nature was carried out by a man named Weismann who cut off the tails of rats, generation after generation, but never succeeded in getting any baby rats born without tails. Someone with witty insight observed, quoting Shakespeare, "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we may." J. N. Sullivan summed up the situation simply by saying: (9)
Nothing that happens to any particular body in this chain of life is transmitted to any subsequent body, unless the happening is of such a nature as to influence the germ plasm.
For those not familiar with the terminology of genetics, it will be sufficient for the moment to say that the germ plasm in any individual is that part of its reproductive system which gives rise to the next generation. For the hen, it is the egg. Nothing that happens to the hen affects the egg. The egg is totally indifferent, using the hen's body merely as a vehicle for its own production. Biologists are in the habit of saying that the hen is merely the egg's way of laying another egg. And this is as true of the woman and the "seed" within her or the man and the sperm which is his contribution to the conception of the child as it is true of the hen and the egg. It is because the body and the seed-producing mechanism are so distinct and separate that acquired characteristics are not inherited. No matter what happens to the body, which is thus merely a vehicle to carry the seed, the seed itself is untouched. As we have indicated previously there are certain exceptions to this rule, but if a little oversimplification is permitted the statements made above are essentially true.
Weismann's experiments were among the first to show what seemed to be taking place here. He spoke of the continuity of this germ plasm, and explained what he meant by using the following diagram.
Part of this germ plasm contained in the parent egg cell is not used in the construction of the body but is preserved unchanged m the formation of the germ cells of the following generation. The germ plasm G is enclosed in a body B (see diagram above) and from G is derived the germ plasm Gl and its enclosing body B1 and so on. It appears that the germ plasm is in no case derived from the body cells but directly from the germ cells of the previous generation. From this it will be seen that body cells and germ cells are differentiated, and it seems extremely unlikely that acquired characteristics of the individual, i.e., body changes acquired during life, could be inherited.
J. N. Sullivan put the matter this way: (10)
The reproductive cell of an organism is derived solely from the reproductive cell of its parent. None of its characteristics depend upon the rest of the parent's body. The germ plasm, as Weismann called the substance of the reproductive cells, passes without breach of continuity from generation to generation. The various bodies which contain it in its passage down the ages, are merely sheaths or vehicles for it.
The significance of these things in the present context will be apparent if it is remembered that Adam and Eve were created immortal creatures and surrendered this condition after eating a fruit which seems to have introduced a poison into their bodies. But according to what has been stated above this should not have affected the germ cells; for as we have seen, they are normally uninfluenced by accidents which happen to the body. Thus genetic theory demands that the seed of the man and the seed of the woman should have suffered no violence from this poison.
It ought therefore to follow that when Adam and Eve came together for the procreation of a second generation, even though they were now themselves mortal creatures, they should still logically have passed on to that generation the condition of immortality they had once enjoyed. And this second generation should therefore have been as immortal as the first had once been.
But we know that this was not the case, and the circumstance deserves careful consideration because we must conclude that such a poison had in some way reached the germ cells after all. However, from subsequent history, it appears that this conclusion must be qualified. The poison reached only the male seed or germ plasm, but not the female seed or germ plasm. It has thereafter in some way been transmitted to the seed of the woman so that every embryo which results by natural generation from this union becomes a mortal, and not an immortal, creature. In other words, the seed of the woman is poisoned by the seed of the man: life and death are introduced at the same time.
The evidence that this is not altogether fanciful will be presented in due course. But it may be sufficient at this juncture to say that God had apparently taken steps to derive Eve out of Adam and entrusted to her body part of the immortal seed which up to that time Adam had encompassed in its entirety. And this had to be done before Adam sinned. Moreover, her body was different from his in this respect, namely, that whereas subsequently the poison reached Adam's seed, the same poison entering Eve's body did not reach her seed. Thus did God leave the way open that the seed of the woman (once the seed of the man) might one day be brought into the world, in the strictest sense, a Second Adam whose immortal Body was derived by a long unbroken chain of immortal cells from the First Adam.
But we must carry our theory one step further. Evidently in natural generation, when the seed of the man and the seed of the woman are united to produce a living embryo, the poison in the man's seed in some way is prevented from taking effect upon the seed of the woman until the stage of embryonic development is reached in which body cells begin to appear. As we have seen, body cells are apparently derived from germ cells, and not germ cells from body cells. There is some evidence that when body cells do appear for the first time they are actually germ cells which have lost some part of their structure. Could it be that this part which is lost either contains, or is, an inhibitor of the poison introduced by the male seed? Thus it could come about that at the very beginning of the development of the embryo the germ cells retain their immortality because they are able to inhibit the action of the poison: but when the body cells appear, these cells are no longer immortal since the inhibiting element is now lacking. In view of this, it will be seen that the germ plasm maintains its immortality and gives rise to the germ cells of the next generation thereby guaranteeing the continuance of immortality, though in the meantime it erects around itself a mortal body as a temporary vehicle. An attempt is made in Fig. 5 to present this diagrammatically, but it should be realized that this series of figures is nothing more than a mental creation.
These germ cells are as perfect as in the day when God created them in Adam, as when He separated Eve from him in his yet unfallen state and when He appointed her to be the guardian of all that was left of man's original immortality after the Fall. It should be mentioned in passing, that the word "perfect" in this context is intended to signify that there has been no loss of the condition of immortality, though mutations have indeed taken place which manifest themselves as modifications of the body.
As a result of these events, Eve quite literally became the mother of all living, whereas Adam became unhappily the father of all dying--for by man sin entered and by sin death (Rom. 5:12)--even though it was Eve who first partook of the forbidden fruit (Gen. 3:6). It seems essential that the separation of Eve out of perfect Adam should have been performed in this way, in order to guarantee that the seed of the man would henceforth always have the effect of poisoning the seed of the woman, because once the race had become sinful, it was necessary to prevent in each generation the birth of immortal creatures, lest in such a state their sinful nature would thus find unlimited opportunity for evil. Human beings were thereafter born mortal creatures, that a limit might be placed upon their wickedness. Yet the way was still open for the birth of One Immortal who could be both the Offspring or Seed of the Woman and truly a Second Adam
It may be difficult to believe that any mortal creature could convey from generation to generation a continuing stream of immortal cells without corrupting them. But evidently this is what really does take place. V. H. Mottram has told us: (11)
Today it is believed that the sex cells are early formed in the course of the divisions which ultimately give rise to the full formed animal. Though active and ripe sex cells may not be formed until much later--at the age of fourteen in man--the tissue which makes them is laid down very early in fetal life: which of course is not so very astonishing, for the sex cells are the only physically immortal things [emphasis mine].
This statement can now be elaborated a little further in the light of increased understanding since it was written. In order not to break into the discussion disruptively, further details will be found in the appendix. But it may be stated here that the phrase "immortal things" now seems to apply more exactly to the ova than to the sperm, to the woman's seed rather than the man's. Part of the evidence for this conclusion lies in the possibility of parthenogenesis or "virgin birth," in which the female seed may be induced to divide and grow apart from the introduction of the male seed. The ovum, in this respect, is therefore not unlike certain unicellular creatures which are also immortal in that they will continue to divide and multiply indefinitely never experiencing death unless mutilated in some way.
A. S. Pearse remarked: (12)
Through a series of divisions, a germ cell gives rise to a body or soma, and to new germ cells. The latter, and not the body, give rise to the next generation.
This is Weismann's "continuity of the germ plasm" stated in slightly different terms. Thus, in so far as the germ cells generate germ cells, immortality perpetuates immortality; and having first assured this process, the same cells then proceed to build a mortal body about themselves. Kenneth Walker put it this way: (13)
In "the theory of the continuity of the germ plasm," published in 1885, Weismann showed that at a very early period the fertilized ovum (which later becomes the embryo) separates into two parts, a somatic part and what Weismann called a propogative part. The somatic half grows into the body of the new individual, while the propogative half forms only the germinal epithelium or reproductive glands. A clear and very early division is therefore made between the cells which are to form the body and those highly specialized cells which become the sex glands and eventually give rise to the next generation. A man's body is doomed to die, but in a way his reproductive cells are immortal, for they will live on as his children, his grandchildren, and their descendants. Even though more than 99.9% of the man will perish, the remaining fraction of him will continue to live so long as his descendants multiply.
All that the somatic cells, which form the main bulk of his body, are really called upon to do is to provide a refuge in which the immortal cells within him can find temporary lodging and sustenance. It is a little bit discouraging to our self-esteem to be looked upon as only useful wallets for conveying the valuable germ plasm down the ages...
Walker's observations are valuable, and yet would have become a more exact statement of the situation if he had substituted the word "woman" for "man." The fact is that the ovum evidently has the quality of immortality because, like the unicellular animals, it has under certain conditions the power of self-perpetuation. This cannot be said at the present time to be true of the sperm. The point will become clearer if the reader will take a moment to make this substitution and reread Walker's statement.
In writing about bodily changes which could be artificially induced during the lifetime of the individual and which are sufficiently persistent and marked that one might surely suppose the germ cells to have been influenced, Sir Julian Huxley was forced to the following conclusion: (14)
Can the hereditary constitution be permanently changed by environment? It is clear that theoretically it should be possible to induce such changes. The hereditary constitution is seen to be something material which only our lack of knowledge prevents us from defining chemically; and as such it must be possible for us to alter it. The remarkable fact, however, is its stubbornness in resistance to alteration.
Sixty-nine generations of flies bred in the dark--and yet no alteration in their eyes or their instincts with regard to light. Ninety generations in an attempt to raise their resistance to heat by acclimatization and selection--without result. Indefinite time spent by dandelions in the lowlands not preventing their reacting to mountain conditions immediately by changing size, form and proportions--and vice versa on replanting from mountain to plain....
In spite of all the work that has been done, we have only established the very definite certainty that to a great many apparently outward influences the germ plasm is quite unresponsive.
Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins University, after outlining experiments which involved the controlled breeding of over 300 successive generations of one species of fly, concluded: (15)
[This is] perhaps the longest bit of controlled breeding ever carried out with the result in each successive generation carefully observed and precisely recorded. Allowing thirty years as a round figure for the average duration of a human generation, the time equivalent in human reproduction of the experiment would be of the order of 9000 years...considerably longer than the total span of man's even dimly recorded history.
The objective of this experiment was to see whether it would be possible m any way to influence the germ plasm by various manipulations of the environment. Raymond Pearl summed up the situation by saying, "The demonstration of the inherent stability of the genie mechanism of heredity that this experiment has given is extremely impressive."
It seems desirable also to mention one further aspect of this subject, namely, mammalian parthenogenesis. It is sometimes said that a virgin birth is after all nothing particularly unusual, and that it has been artificially induced in a number of species. However, this really throws no light upon the virgin birth of the LORD Jesus Christ, for the simple reason that all "natural" mammalian virgin births result in the birth of a female. It is not possible by this means to produce a male child.
In very simple terms it is like this: In every cell, whether a germ cell or a body cell, there are a certain number of small particles which are called chromosomes. These chromosomes are of several kinds and in the germ cells there are two special ones which appear to determine the sex of the resulting organism. In the human species, as well as in mammals generally, the chromosome for a female child is termed an X chromosome and for a male child a Y chromosome. Only the male germ cells carry the Y chromosome. Thus if a germ cell from a female is induced to divide and multiply and to develop by itself into an embryo, the embryo cannot possibly contain a Y chromosome and cannot grow into a male child. Hence virgin births, except in the case of birds, result in the appearance of females only.
Let us recapitulate very briefly something of what has been said thus far. The seed or germ plasm of the woman was originally taken from the man, for Eve was created out of Adam's body. Her seed or germ plasm was once Adam's. No matter what has happened to the various vehicles which have conveyed it from generation to generation, it is still the original seed or germ plasm unchanged since it came from the hand of God in Adam. This is why it is immortal. Because the fruit which they ate contained a poison which destroyed their bodies, Adam and Eve returned to the dust. But before they died, Eve had raised daughters as well as sons (Gen. 5:4) and thus through her daughters was able to pass on this immortal chain which in any succeeding generation could have been brought to life and would have grown into a perfect body such as Adam had before he fell, if only it could have been fructified by some agent other than man.
This may seem highly speculative. In a sense it is. Yet it is not unreasonable, and some evidence in support of it is already available. Moreover, there is possibly a type of poison which seems to fulfill certain of these essential requirements--a poison, in fact, which is easily derived from a particular type of fruit about which Scripture has many significant things to say, and which is--as a fruit-- beautiful to look at and tasty to eat.
This is a profound mystery, and one must surely speak with great humility of such things. What evidence there is to justify these statements thus far is here presented very tentatively and with a clear recognition of how limited our understandings must always be. The fact of the Fall will remain even if our reasonings about its nature should require drastic modification or be disproved altogether. To reaffirm what has been said in the rather lengthy introduction, the events in Eden are given by Revelation and accepted by faith. Rationalization is quite proper so long as it is never made the sole ground of faith.
References:
1. Machen, J. Gresham: quoted by J. I. Packer, Fundamentalism and the Word of God, Inter-Varsity Press, London, 1958, pp. 26, 27.
2. Barth, Karl: this view is elucidated by N. H. Ridderbos in Is There a Conflict Between Genesis and Natural Science? (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1957, p. 14), where he says, referring to Barth's view, "To proceed from creation to original sin, from original sin to actual sin, and from actual sin to grace is a wrong method in dogmatics. The true method of a believing theology is the reverse."
3. Wells, H. G., Outline of History, Vol. 2, Macmillan, New York, 1920, p. 419.
4. Orr, James, God's Image in Man, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1948, p. 260.
5. Randall, John, The Making of the Modern Mind, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1940, rev. ea.
6. Lindegren, Carl C., "The Stability of the Gene," Science, July 6, 1956, p. 27.
7. Ramm, Bernard, The Christian View of Science and Scripture, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1954, pp. 327ff.
8. Sauer, Erich, The Dawn of World Redemption, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1953, p. 61.
9. Sullivan, J. N., The Limitations of Science, Mentor Books, New York, 1952, p. 87.
10. Ibid.
11. Mottram, V. H., The Physical Basis of Personality, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1949, p. 25.
12. Pearse, A. S., General Zoology, Henry Holt, New York, 1930, p. 379.
13. Walker, Kenneth, Meaning and Purpose, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1950, p. 63.
14. Huxley, Sir Julian "Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics," in Essays in Popular Science, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1938, pp. 36, 37.
15. Pearl, Raymond, Biology and Human Trends, Smithsonian Report for 1935, pp. 331f.
Corrections, July 9, 1997.