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Doctrinal Value of First Chapters of Genesis by Paul in Acts 17:26, whichever reading may be taken, and in Rom. 5:12; 1 Cor. 15:21, 47, 49. Nor is there any ground for supposing that the word Adam is used in a col- lective sense, and thus leave room for the hypotheses of the evolutionary development of a large number of human pairs. All things in both physiology and ethnology, as well as in the sciences, which bear on the subject, confirm the idea of the unity of the human race. (Saphir, p. 206.) 2. With regard to the fall of man. The foundation of all Hamartology and Anthropology lies in the first three chapters of Genesis. It teaches us that man was originally created for com- munion with God, and that whether his personality was dichot- omistic or trichotomistic, he was entirely fitted for personal, in- telligent fellowship with his Maker, and was united with Him in the bonds of love and knowledge. Every element of the Bible story recommends itself as a historic narrative. Placed in Eden by his God, with a work to do, and a trial-command, man was potentially perfect, but with the possibility of fall. Man fell, though it was God’s will that man should rise from that human posse non peccari as a free agent into the Divine non posse peccari. (Augustine, “De Civitate Dei”, Book 22, Chap. 30.) Man fell by disobedience, and through the power of a supernatural deceiver called that old serpent, the devil and Satan, who from Gen. 3 to Rev. 19 appears as the im- placable enemy of the human race, and the head of that fallen angel-band which abandoned through the sin of pride their first principality. This story is incomprehensible if only a myth. The great Dutch theologian, Van Oosterzee says, “The narrative pre- sents itself plainly as history. Such an historico-fantastic clothing of a pure philosophic idea accords little with the genuine spirit of Jewish antiquity.” (Dog. ii, p. 403.) Still more incomprehensible is it, if it is merely an allegory which refers fruit, serpent, woman, tree, eating, etc., to en- tirely different things from those mentioned in the Bible. It
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