The AIC Report wishes to exclude is any idea that kinds become other kinds. While there is certainly variation that happens within a kind of animal (as birds or dog breeds and other examples of speciation illustrate), the problematic issue is macro-evolution’s teaching that a kind can become another kind. Hence, when we read that God created “each according to its kind,” this would not mean that kinds turned into other kinds (e.g., molecules-to-man evolution), but that each kind was a separate creation of God in lineage.

Perhaps you have heard the question before: “Did Adam have a Belly Button?” Perhaps a related question once asked in a presbytery exam would reveal the issue more clearly: “Was Adam nursed by a physical mother?” Particularly in view in these questions is the topic of theistic evolution in various forms and – in particular – the question of whether Adam could have come from a pre-existent being or lifeform (often called a hominid). An officer or officer candidate in the PCA holding such a view would have to declare his position as a stated difference (thereby allowing the examining court to consider granting an exception) to Westminster Larger Catechism Question 17.

What follows is an analysis of the theology and history of the PCA in regard to this question through the doctrinal statements that are relevant to the question of Adam – and rational ensouled humanity as a whole – coming from previous irrational life forms.

Westminster Standards – Larger Catechism 17

The first relevant section to explore is the answer to Westminster Larger Catechism Question 17, which states:

After God had made all other creatures, he created man male and female; (Gen. 1:27) formed the body of the man of the dust of the ground, (Gen. 2:7) and the woman of the rib of the man, (Gen. 2:22) endued them with living, reasonable, and immortal souls; (Gen. 2:7, Job 35:11, Eccl. 12:7, Matt. 10:28, Luke 23:43) made them after his own image, (Gen. 1:27) in knowledge, (Col. 3:10) righteousness, and holiness; (Eph. 4:24) having the law of God written in their hearts, (Rom. 2:14–15) and power to fulfill it, (Eccl. 7:29) and dominion over the creatures; (Gen. 1:28) yet subject to fall. (Gen. 3:6, Eccl. 7:29).

The Larger Catechism here, quoting Scripture, clearly understands Genesis 2:7 in the plain meaning of the text as the creation of Adam from dust on the sixth day of creation. Some, however, have advocated for something other than the plain meaning of these words. Such interpretations have been seen in theologians as notable as B.B. Warfield. This has led some men to reinterpret this phrase “from the dust of the ground” as the dust being the primordial mud, or from previously existing material (hence a hominid).

Adam in the Courts of the PCA

In the historical context of the PCA, a Study Report on Creation was commissioned nearly a quarter century ago due to the variety of exceptions being taken on the topic of creation in ordination and licensure exams in the PCA. On this subject, the PCA’s Study Report considered and answered one such conjecture:

A kind of “theistic evolutionary” view that has important historical relevance for  confessional Presbyterians is the one that allows that Adam’s body was the  product of evolutionary development (second causes working alone under divine  providence), and that his special creation involved the imparting of a rational soul  to a highly-developed hominid. This view has been associated with James Woodrow and Benjamin Warfield (at least early in his career). 

We can supply a strong critique of such a construct from exegesis of Genesis 1— 2, where, as John Murray observed (Collected Writings, 2:8), in Genesis 2:7 the man became an animate being by the in-breathing, and by implication was not one  beforehand (for his body to have had animal ancestry, the man’s ancestors must  have been animate beings). 

We may also critique the view from the anthropology involved: man is a body soul nexus, and the body must have the capacities to support the expression of  God’s image; such a body cannot be the product of second causes alone. 

Finally, we should note that this kind of “theistic evolution” is an unstable  metaphysical hybrid: it tries to combine the naturalistic picture of the development of the capabilities necessary to support the human soul, with the  supernaturalist acknowledgment of the divine origin of what distinguishes us from  the animals. This combines elements from incompatible metaphysical positions.[1]

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