Conclusion: Against Biological Reductionism, Again
I’ll leave it to the reader to assess the helpfulness of this debate. I think, in large part, Linnaeus and I have been talking past each other. It feels like Linnaeus has been trying to squeeze a concession out of me that I’ve been willing to give our entire debate: lineage and heritage are real and true and part of God’s ordered world.
I have parents that a few other people have, and others do not. I share grandparents with some people and not with others, and so on. I don’t think I’ve every denied the reality of lineage or heritage. My argument has been that there is always more.
There is more when it comes to family, specifically because a father and mother introduce two lineages into one child. There is more implied in every word the Bible uses to describe groups of people (people, tribe, tongue, nation, etc.). There is a fundamental legal/verbal reality to our humanity, and I cannot see how the category of race is not intentionally introduced to diminish this characteristic. Perhaps not, but it still functions, always, in a reductionistic capacity, isolating lineage, heritage, genetics, etc. from the reality of the sinner created by God and redeemed by Christ.
Marriage is more than mating. Having children is more than breeding. Nations are more than herds. A man is more than his genetics.
That the Lord was pleased to bring forth the human family from Adam and Eve, and then from Noah, highlights this foundational Biblical truth. In Adam and Eve God’s image and likeness was given to man, as well as dominion over creation. Adam and Eve are given to one another, and those to became one. Through Adam and Eve the image of God was lost, and sin, death and corruption where introduced to the entire human family. The gift of life and the corruption of sin, these defining realities of each and every human life, are given to the entire family.
Here we once more point to our Lord Jesus Christ (mostly of Shem with a little Hamite mixed in) who took the place of all humanity, standing in for all the sons of Adam and Eve, enduring God’s wrath to sin for us life and salvation.
But this has been said before, I hope with sufficient clarity to make the point clear. May the reader forgive me for what was lacking.
It is true, by lineage and heritage we are all given unique and particular circumstances, nevertheless, the Scriptures give us more. By flesh we are all sons and daughters of Adam and Noah, children of wrath. By faith we are sons of Abraham. By baptism we are the children of God. Behold that love!
Thanks to Linnaeus, who not only kept this conversation going, but was also very patient with my late responses and delays.
First, thanks to Linneaus for suggesting this debate on Twitter.
Second, I’d like to beg for the patience of the reader. I’m not at all trained in formal debate (a fact that will be quickly observed), but I hope that this public conversation will bring clarity from God’s word on some of the recent controversies.
May God grant it for Christ’s sake.
The thesis under debate is as follows:
There is only one race, the race of Adam.
I affirm. Linnaeus will deny. This is my opening argument.
I’ll attempt to support the argument with a further thesis: The way the Bible teaches us to speak of humanity excludes speaking in terms of races.
1. “All men”
Adam and Eve, All Created
On the sixth day of creation the Lord God created Adam and Eve.
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
The details of this creation are expanded in Genesis 2:21-23.
Adam and Eve are given the mandate to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. From this first marriage and mandate come all of humanity. Every human being is a descendant of Adam and Eve.
The Bible not only asserts the reality of a single human race, but draws out the theological implications. There are things that are true of all people and each person because of our common ancestry in Adam. Consider the following passages.
All Sinned.
“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned,” (Romans 5:12). As we sing in the hymn, “All mankind fell in Adam’s fall, one common sin infects us all.”[1] Our sinful condition is inherited, passed down from one generation to the next. The origin of this original sin is Adam.
All Are Redeemed by Christ
The universal effect of the fall is paralleled with the universal rescue accomplished by Jesus.
“Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous,” (Romans 5:18-19).
Just as Adam’s sin brought a universal corruption to humanity, the saving work of Jesus brings universal salvation. The free gift of salvation, justification, and the forgiveness of sins is accomplish for humanity, for all people and each person.[2]
All Will Be Raised
Finally, Paul calls Jesus the “Last Adam” (see 1 Corinthians 15:45) in his sermon on the resurrection, and asserts: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive,” (1 Corinthians 15:22). Every person ever born will be raised from the dead on the last day, and gathered together before the judgment seat.
To make the point of the “all” in the resurrection, Paul parallels Christ with Adam.
Each and All
I don’t think these assertions will be debated. I think Linneaus and I will agree on all that is stated so far. Here is why it is important: the Scriptures teach us to consider and confess the universal condition of humanity, of the one human race.
We can say four things about every person we encounter:
This person is created by God.
This person is a fallen sinner.
This person is redeemed by Christ.
This person will be raised on the last day.
These truths are the most important things about all and each of us, and, astonishingly, many people don’t know this about themselves. If you are a Christian, you know more about the reality of who your unbelieving neighbor is that they know about themselves.
Here’s the point: the Bible teaches us that the most important things about humanity are universal, and we are to think, act, and pray in accord to this unity. One of the dangers of considering humanity according to various categories, and especially racial categories, is that the universal condition of humanity is set aside.
2. Noah
The human race has its single origin in Adam and Eve, and, further, in the time of Noah, humanity was once again reduced to one family. The world-wide flood destroyed every living creature that was not protected in the ark. Every human being is a descendant of Noah and his wife.[3]
While the Scripture do not make any application to our common ancestry in Noah, Luther does. In his controversial track On the Jews and their Lies, Luther is responding to arguments against the Christian confession published by some Rabbis in Wittenberg. One of the arguments presented is that the Jewish people are superior to the Gentiles because of their lineage, their blood-line through Abraham (see Luke 3:8 and John 8:33). Luther responds to this boasting:
Why should so much ado be made of this? After all, if birth counts before God, I can claim to be just as noble as any Jew, yes, just as noble as Abraham himself, as David, as all the holy prophets and apostles. Nor will I owe them any thanks if they consider me just as noble as themselves before God by reason of my birth. And if God refuses to acknowledge my nobility and birth as the equal to that of Isaac, Abraham, David, and all the saints, I maintain that he is doing me an injustice and that he is not a fair judge. For I will not give it up and neither Abraham, David, prophets, apostles nor even an angel in heaven, shall deny me the right to boast that Noah, so far as physical birth or flesh and blood is concerned, is my true, natural ancestor, and that his wife (whoever she may have been) is my true, natural ancestress; for we are all descended, since the Deluge, from that one Noah. We did not descend from Cain, for his family perished forever in the flood together with many of the cousins, brothers-in-law, and friends of Noah. (LW 47:147)
Luther continues to argue that any boasting about lineage, blood, and race should end with Psalm 51:
But let us move on. David lumps us all together nicely and convincingly when he declares in Psalm 51 [:5]: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Now go, whether you are Jew or Gentile, born of Adam or Abraham, of Enoch or David, and boast before God of your fine nobility, of your exalted lineage, your ancient ancestry! Here you learn that we all are conceived and born in sin, by father and mother, and no human being is excluded. (LW 47:148)
Luther sets the universal truths regarding humanity against any boasting of blood, lineage, or family.
3. Divisions Among Us
Now we get to the point. While the universal truths regarding the human race are clearly attested in the Scriptures and confessed by all Christians, what about the various groupings and divisions of humanity that are also discussed in the Scriptures? We are all descendants of Noah, but some of us are from Shem, or Ham, or Japheth. The Scriptures have a “Table of Nations” (Genesis 10), and God Himself divided human languages at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11), further distinguishing some groups from others. Paul confirms this in Athens, reminding the people of their common origin he also asserts that the different nations are God’s work. “He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26). John’s vision of the church in heaven rejoices in “a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb,” (Revelation 7:9). While all these different people are united in their worship of Christ, they are still recognized as distinct nations, tribes, people, and languages.
If the Bible acknowledges that people can be grouped and recognized in nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, what is the danger in grouping together people as various races? This is the critical question.
First, what do we mean by “races”? I’ll use this description from Linneaus, drawn from our email exchange, as a base.
Race as a category is an extension of the category of family, and exists with it on a continuum with intermediates like clan and tribe. It is a derivative of the concept of consanguinity, where it denotes 1) proximate common descent, and 2) shared observable traits as reflective of shared allele constellations [sometimes referred to a genetic cluster], as a result of 1.
We see families. We see families grouped together as clans. We see clans grouped together as tribes, tribes grouped together as races, right? This is confirmed by observable traits and genetics. What’s the problem?
I suggest that there are two major problems: the category of “races” differs from all the other groupings of humanity used in the Bible because race is immutable (it cannot be changed) and therefore dangerously reductionistic. These differences make “races” as a category unhelpful. I’ll try to demonstrate.
Immutability
We note, first, that race is an immutable category. It is impossible to change from one race to another. This stands in stark contrast to all the categories offered in the Bible of family, tribe, people, tongue, and nation.
I might be born into one family, but taken up into another via adoption. I might be born of one tribe, but join another tribe by marriage, i.e. Moses and Zipporah (Exodus 2:21), Ruth and Boaz (Ruth 1:16-17; 4:13-22), and Rahab and Salmon (Matthew 1:5). I might be born into one people, but leave that people and join another. (“Your people shall be my people,” Ruth 1:16, and the “mixed multitude in the Exodus, Exodus 12:38.) I might be born speaking in one tongue or language, but the Lord can grant other tongues according to His purpose (via miracle, as at Pentecost, or through much learning). I might be born of one nation or ethnos, but leave that nation and join myself to another (consider Uriah the Hittite, who joined himself to Israel).
The Biblical categories all have ways of moving from one to another. “Race” does not.
Two Biblical categories need to be considered carefully: ethnos (ἔθνος)and genos (γένος).
On Ethnos
Ethnos is used 160+ times in the New Testament, and is variously translated as “people,” “Gentile,” “nation,” “pagan” (ESV), or “heathen” (KJV). It is used to describe the different people groups that fill the world (God “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,” Acts 17:26), but it is chiefly used to distinguish the Jews from everyone else (i.e. Acts 15:7, Romans 11:11, Galatians 2:12, 3:8).
How does the Scripture teach us to consider the different ethnos?
Do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. (Matthew 3:9)
Now, therefore, you (Gentiles, see Ephesians 2:11) are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. (Ephesians 2:19)
For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? (Romans 11:24)
Not only does the category of ethnos not match up with the category of races, but the Biblical teaching about the ethnos warns us of the dangers of considering ourselves or other people simply according to their lineage, etc.
On Genos
The Biblical word that comes closest to the idea of races is genos.Used 20 times in the New Testament[4], it is translated with ten different words in the KJV, “kind,” “offspring,” “kindred,” “nation,” “stock,” “born,” “country,” “diversities,” “countrymen,” and “generation.” The ESV uses nine different words, including “race” in Acts 7:19 and 1 Peter 2:9. The English words “generation” and “Genesis” derive from this word, and it indicates source of origin, but with a much broader application than the modern category of race.
Consider Acts 4:36 where Luke introduces Barnabas:
And Joses, who was also named Barnabas by the apostles (which is translated Son of Encouragement), a Levite of the country (genos,γένει)of Cyprus… (Acts 4:36).
His Jewish tribe, Levi, is mentioned, but his genos is a place, the island of Cyprus. This text, at least, indicates that genos is a much broader word that “race.”
The ESV translates genos as race in 1 Peters 2:9-10.
But you are a chosen race (genos eklekton, γένος ἐκλεκτόν),
a royal priesthood (ethnos hagion, ἔθνος ἅγιον),
a holy nation,
a people for his own possession (laos eis peripoiasin, λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν),
that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Peter’s beautiful point is that no matter our origin or generation, our nation and people, the Lord has claimed us as His own. We are not to think of ourselves according to the genos, ethnos, and “people” of our birth, but of the genos chosen by God, the ethnos made Holy by His sacrifice, the people He purchased and won with His own blood.
One might argue, “Sure, it is true that Christians are given this unique gift by God, but we are talking about first article truths, races in regards to our genetic kinships and lineage.” Consider again 1 Peter 2:9. According to this text, God, in conversion, gives His people a chosen genos. Ask yourself, “Does God, in conversion, put us into a new and different race?”
Reductionistic
Here we begin to see the real danger of thinking in terms of races. Categorizing an individual by the immutable characteristic of their race is dangerously reductionistic.
This is the most important point, and, I confess, I do not know how to make it well, so please bear with me.
The mutability of the Biblical categories points to a deeper reality. Every category the Bible uses for different groupings of people (family, tribe, people, nation, tongue, etc.) has a legal or verbal element to it.
Marriage, most importantly, is a legal covenant, and is the creation of the family.
Regarding children, there is the legal avenue of adoption, where a stranger comes into a family.
In tribes, the legal arrangement of marriage shapes and merges tribes.
Regarding people and nation, there is the legal matter of citizenship, which can be gained, lost, or transferred.
Language, is, definitionally, verbal, related to words.
None of these categories or descriptors is pure biology. “Race,” on the other hand, has no legal or verbal aspect to it. It is, by definition, pure genetics, biological, and materialistic.
It is not simply that these legal and verbal components of family, tribe, people, and nation, give a way of moving from one group to another (as discussed previously). There is something essential about the word in every aspect of humanity. This, I believe, is the specific danger of the category of races: there is no word, no legal or verbal element, no logos.
“Races” reduces a man to his gene pool, and in that reduction the essential place of the word is lost. This is not the way the Scriptures train us to speak, and, in fact, stands in antipathy to the way the Scriptures teach us to speak of the groups and classifications of humanity.[5]
Instead, we confess that there is one human race, one human family, from Adam and to Christ.
All Mankind Fell Through Adam’s Fall, Lazarus Spengler, 1524, (TLH 369:1). As far as I can tell, this is one of only two hymns quoted in the Book of Concord, and the only Reformation-era hymn referenced. See The Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration I.23. ↑
This saving work is apprehended by faith, and faith is worked in us by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Gospel. While salvation is accomplished for all, some will refuse this saving work. Universal redemption does not mean universalism, but this theological point is beyond the scope of this argument. ↑
I mention this point because, as far as I can tell, my assertion that “Everywhere we go is a Noah family reunion” is what drew me into this debate. If I remember correctly, this assertion of the Noah Family Reunion was articulated not against racism, but against a critical reading of the Bible that denied the world-wide nature of Noah’s Flood. It was part of my assertion of a young earth reading of Genesis. But it turned out to be a convenient assertion against boasting in blood. ↑
This is where the category of “races” strikes at the heart of the Gospel. Justification is the declaration of God that the sinner is righteous because of the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus. It is a gracious legal act of God. Any attempts to reduce humanity from this essentially legal understanding of humanity is a move away from the gift of justification. I hope to flesh this point out through this debate.
