The Humanity Shared by All

Every model in this book concerns the same human family. Differences of ancestry, culture, or religious tradition cannot create different degrees of humanity. The doctrine of original sin and the universal scope of redemption belong within that unity.

This becomes especially important around proposed pre-Adamic populations or extraordinary offspring. A reconstruction cannot make a population less human in order to solve a theological or historical difficulty. It must explain its claims within the equal dignity of persons.

Christ's complete humanity also governs the inquiry. He enters the human condition as the eternal Son taking human nature, rather than as a partly human creature between two kinds of ancestry.

These commitments are more secure than the speculative models offered around them. If a model cannot preserve human unity and Christ's full humanity, its attraction as a historical explanation cannot rescue it.