Did Paul Think Adam Was Literal?

 

Perhaps the strongest verse for keeping some Christians rooted in evolution-denying creationism is this one in Romans 5:

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way, death came to all people, because all sinned. To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come. But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!”

The creationist logic is that Adam must be a literal person as Paul talks about him like he’s literal. But Paul doesn’t speak as though Adam is literal, and to think otherwise, I believe, misses the deeper meaning. Paul's use of Adam and Jesus serves as a theological motif to contrast the origins of sin and spiritual death with the gift of grace and eternal life offered through Christ. Paul's message about sin and death entering the world "through one man" symbolises the collective human failure to live according to God's will – it’s best thought of as a metaphorical archetype explaining how sin and fallenness are intrinsic to human experience. You can think of it as a typology; Adam is the "type" of fallen humanity, while Christ is the "type" of redeemed humanity – although, of course, Christ came in a literal Incarnation, and being God, He is THE type of all types.

Given our long evolutionary history - of which the writer of Genesis was, of course, unaware - the concept of "sin entering the world" can be understood as the moment when humans, as moral and spiritual beings, became capable of understanding themselves in relation to God and, ultimately, of the ability to accept a relationship with Him or turn away from Him. This cannot be tied to a single historical individual; rather, it represents a profound universal reality - the ability to be aware of God and to either reject or accept Him - which is a collective phenomenon of humanity, not an event tied to one person in history.  

You have to remember too that in the context of Judaism of the time, the story of Adam and Eve was commonly understood as the origin of humanity's fallen state. Paul explicitly calls Adam "a pattern of the one to come" (verse 14), which shows that Paul's focus is not on Adam as a historical person but as a representative figure for humanity's relationship with God. Adam is a symbol of humanity's fallen state, and Jesus is both the literal human and the Divine fulfilment of God's plan to restore creation. There is no contradiction between the way Paul speaks about Adam, and evolution being the instrument through which God brought about humans – just as there would be no contradiction between the plays of Shakespeare or the poetry of Blake and the laws of gravity or combustion. When language is used to convey different and non-contradictory truths, the person who chooses to impute contradiction is the one committing folly and misunderstanding the purpose of each.

Did Paul actually believe Adam was a literal figure?
I suppose it’s possible, although I have grave doubts about this. Paul was a first-century Jew who inherited the worldview of his time, and ancient Jewish and early Christian thought did not have access to modern archaeology, so they might have assumed Adam was a literal person. But the reason I don’t think he did is because it would have been so common to people of his time that ancient Biblical writings (and other writings too) are a traditional blend of history, theology, parable, allegory and archetypical symbolism that people simply wouldn’t have tried to neatly fit them into categories of literal and non-literal as we do now.

It really is important to understand that conveyance of deep truth usually happens at a level way above the overly-simplistic definitions of literal and non-literal. For example, the deepest truths of love, justice, mercy, forgiveness, courage, hope and sacrifice can’t be reduced to simple definitions or events, although individual events can be subset examples of their qualities. Religious texts, ancient myths, and oral traditions were often understood as conveying truth, but that truth not just wasn’t but couldn’t be tied to a strict historical or scientific framework. It was only in the period of the Scientific Revolution (1500s–1700s) and the rise of empiricism that the majority of humanity began to adopt a more evidence-based approach to knowledge, which led people to start distinguishing between literal and non-literal. And it was during the Enlightenment period (18^th century) that we began to sharply divide texts into either historical/literal truth or symbolic/mythological fiction – a fact that has gone on to be influential in religious fundamentalists taking a hard stance against some empirical methods.

In light of all this, I think Paul's use of Adam is best interpreted as a theological reflection on the universal human condition - our estrangement from God, and the grace made available through Christ.