Adam's Wager

I wrote the following many years ago as I was wrestling with the creation/theistic evolution debate. This is just a mental exercise, but it helped me to make my decision at the time. It's sort of a strange argument, but I'm a bit strange, too. Maybe you will find it interesting.

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In recent articles in Christianity Today and World Magazine, the debate over the biblical account of creation rages on. Traditional – some would say, fundamentalist – believers hold to a literal Adam and Eve, two beings created by God several thousand years ago who began the human race in the Garden of Eden. Other arguments range from an Adam and Eve that sprung from pre-humanoid beings who God embedded with an eternal soul to Adam and Eve being merely metaphors for God’s creative intent for mankind. At the center of the debate is the interpretation of the Scriptures: Should the Bible be taken at face value for claims made by both the Old Testament and New Testament authors and, probably, most convincingly, the words of Jesus in the Gospel writings? Or are the accounts of Adam and Eve to be read in light of science and other modern considerations? The latter, of course, carries the burden or blessing – depending on your perspective – of evolution. On this side of history, I don’t think one position will conclusively win over the other, as neither position seems to convince the other side that it is correct. As I thought through this, I was wondering if we could borrow from another Christian who used an apologetic for the existence of God to convince some to believe in Him.

Blasé Pascal, a Danish philosopher of the 17th century, offered what has become known as Pascal’s Wager. In his argument, Pascal offered the following:

One should believe in God due to the consequences of the decision. If one chooses to believe in God, and he is correct, then he will have eternal life and avoid the suffering of hell. If one chooses to believe in God, and is wrong, then nothing has been lost: his death will have the same result as if he did not believe. However, if one chooses not to believe in God and is incorrect, then the result will be a separation from God and an eternity in torment. On the other hand, if one chooses not to believe in God and is correct, then life ends and he is no worse off than if he believed in God and was wrong. In terms of probability and positive outcomes, taking Pascal’s Wager – that is, belief in God – is the most prudent course of action.

Can we apply the same thinking to the Adam and Eve debate – that is, what are the risks and rewards of believing in a literal Adam and Eve as opposed to some rival hypothesis? In other words, what would be the downside of accepting “Adam’s Wager” that the traditional, literal interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve is true? And, similar to Pascal’s Wager, we must look at the eternal ramifications of the choice, not the temporal “my neighbor will think I’m ignorant” consequences. Maybe we can frame this in the context of meeting the Lord at the end of one’s life; the assumption here is that both the literalist and the scientivist Christian will both be saved and that their position on creation will not doom their souls.

The one who accepts Adam’s Wager might realize a situation like this; in this scenario the literalist interpretation is incorrect:

God welcomes you to heaven, but notes that you incorrectly believed that Adam was a real person who existed in history. God tells you that this is not true and that Adam and Eve were representative of His creative power, but were never meant to explain accurately the origins of mankind. The evolutionists were right. God asks you to explain why you did not believe the scientific proclamations. You explain that you tried to understand the science and labored to believe the explanations, but none of them fit satisfactorily with the story in His Word. As 2 Timothy 3:16 states, the Bible is true for all matters of teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. You just could not believe in something – in good conscience – that could not be squared with Scripture. You claim that you can see now how it fits, but in your life, you wanted to honor God’s Word and in your ignorance understood falsely the nature of the reality of creation, but when there was a choice of trusting the revelation of man (as understood) with the revelation of God, you chose the latter.

On the flip side, what if the scientivist interpretation is incorrect;

God welcomes you to heaven, but notes that you incorrectly believed that Adam was not an historical figure, and merely a metaphor of God’s creative power. God asks why you believed this given the inerrancy of Scripture and the many passages that speak of a literal Adam and references throughout the Scriptures that express the genealogy of Adam, the sin of Adam and its effect on mankind, the claims of Christ and the apostle Paul and the integration of Adam into their narratives and dialogues. You claim that while those passages were difficult to explain in light of the scientivist approach, you were unable to reconcile the claims of science with the claims of Scripture. Given what you understood of science, the literal claims of Scripture could not be understood and, therefore, believed.

The wager then centers on (a) which explanation would you most likely want to offer to God, and (b) which explanation would God be more pleased to hear? That is, if you hold to the inerrancy of Scripture, with which explanation do you think God will be more pleased? Even if in error, which explanation would you rather stand in front of God and confess? Of course, if you do not believe in inerrancy, all bets are off. But if you are committed to inerrancy, you have to consider God’s pleasure or displeasure with your use and understanding of Scripture in what might be competing truth claims.

Adam’s Wager would require one to accept an understanding of man’s beginnings which would be most pleasing to God in light of inerrancy. Which approach – the literalist or scientivist – are you willing to wager is more pleasing to God? Upon which approach are you willing to wager your claim to inerrancy?