When Did Adam and Eve First Possess a Soul?

Dr. Craig discusses the possibility of "Emergentism" in his approach to the historical Adam and Eve!

INTERVIEWER: In Defenders you talk about different views of the origins of the soul, and one of the views that I think you said you're open to is Emergentism by Bill Hasker. So I'm wondering, would Adam and Eve . . . would that be compatible with them? Or only with their children? Because it would seem that maybe Adam and Eve would have to be special kids of their parents where they have a certain complexity.

DR. CRAIG: I talk about this in the last chapter. I had always sort of envisioned that this change within them would be a miraculous change in them as adults, or at least teenagers. But it might be the case that this genetic mutation actually took place in embryo, in the womb, or it could have been a genetic mutation not in Adam and Eve as such, but in the gametes – the sperm and the egg – which then united to form them, so that right from the very beginning they were human, and that genetic mutation had already lifted them to the status of humanity at the moment of conception. So they would be what geneticists call genetically modified organisms. You've heard of things like genetically modified wheat or tomatoes. Adam and Eve would be genetically modified organisms. So that's a possibility. These are all speculations, but that would work. I think as they grow up and they have this increased cognitive capacity, the question that Hasker's model poses is, maybe this genetic regulatory mutation in their brain and central nervous system is sufficient for the soul then to emerge. I'm not an expert on this area, but I could see where Emergentism would fit really nice into such a scenario.