Are Genesis Theology & Modern Biology Compatible?

Dr. Craig answers a question about the conflict many see between biology and theology in Genesis 1-11.

INTERVIEWER: I know people who are in the sciences who are now saying, “OK, I get that theologically, but what I learned with my biology training was that that's not how history went.” Is that really where the conflict is for most people?

DR. CRAIG: I feel certain that it is. I think that most people think that the first 11 chapters of Genesis, including the stories of Adam and Eve, should be read literalistically as a straightforward historical narrative. If that hermeneutical approach to Genesis 1 to 11 is right, that puts Genesis in massive conflict with modern history, linguistics, and science, and therefore occasions a real crisis for the truth and rationality of the Christian faith.

INTERVIEWER: So this really helps set up the case that you're making in the book which is as you look at theology and philosophy and various sciences to help people understand how the biblical account of Genesis – I don't know if this is the best way to put it – is consonant with what has been the case for scientific investigation over the last 100 years or so that people have been thinking about this.

DR. CRAIG: Yes, I like that word “consonant” or compatible. One isn't trying to prove the historicity of Adam and Eve. Rather one is saying, given the biblical teaching that there were two and only two universal progenitors of the human race on this planet, is that in any way ruled out by the findings of modern science or is that compatible with what we know of human origins on Earth? And the argument in the book is that that is compatible with what paleoanthropology and the sciences of human origins tell us.