Abstract

Despite an impressive tradition, modern literalists about the Garden of Eden have come under severe criticism and ridicule on the grounds that contemporary science has thoroughly discredited such a view. Accordingly, the prevailing trend in modern theology is to dehistoricize the Fall. I am no fan of literalism, but in this paper I argue that these grounds are in need of supplementation by a piece of metaphysics that has not been adequately defended. Absent the additional metaphysical thesis, it is possible to grant all the alleged implications of our modern worldview informed by physics, astronomy, chemistry, geology, and biology and nevertheless remain a proponent of literalism—without becoming a proper object of ridicule. Or, if still ridiculous, this status will have to be established by discrediting a piece of metaphysics and not by admiring the fruits of empirical science.