WHEN PAUL WROTE IF IT IS CERTAIN THAT ADAM CONDEMNED ALL TO DEATH

It is a big problem how Jesus and his apostle Paul made out that it was certain that Adam lived when today even without the theory of evolution nobody can find any good evidence.

Paul declared that if it is certain that Adam had a fall as Genesis says then he is saying that it is certain.  Now that is a big statement in an age that had barely any science.

IF it is certain that one man’s (Adam’s) fall condemned all to death then it is even more certain that Jesus will cause all men to become righteous and live forever (Romans 5).

He is using the certainty of Adam to argue that Jesus must have reversed the damage Adam did.  It is a hint that you have to work out that Jesus lived for there is no evidence.  You decide that Adam is a certainty and then work out there is a saviour Jesus.

Nobody that writes like that unless this fall and the salvation won by Jesus are both in the same evidential category – ie that both are ifs.  If there is no Adam then Jesus is nonsense.

Paul is sure of Adam. How is he so certain?  He does not mean the certainty that comes from evidence, or the certainty that comes from experience, for being sinful doesn’t mean one man in the past is to blame for your sins as much as you are or experiencing forgiveness does not necessarily mean that Jesus earned it for you when he did the opposite of what Adam did. But yet he is trying to use Adam to show that there had to be a Jesus to reverse what Adam did. He is referring to emotional certainty; you feel these things happened so they happened! To appeal to feelings as evidence indicates that there is nothing else to depend on. The Jesus of the gospels never lived.

Suppose there is no direct evidence for the existence of John F Kennedy. You don’t argue that if the United States had to have a Catholic President eventually that President John F Kennedy must have existed. If you do that shows there is no direct evidence. The non-existence of evidence for Jesus that would stand up scientifically or in a court of law is all over the epistles of Paul.
 

He argues that Adam is certain therefore Jesus is more certain.  That does not follow.  So Paul thinks that it is more certain that Jesus saved than that Adam fell for we feel that more strongly. That is bizarre because you would need to believe Adam fell as much as you believed that Jesus reversed it. The two beliefs cannot be even partly separated. But what it tells us is this. It is because people would rather believe they are saved and feel it stronger than they do that they have fallen the former is the best authenticated belief! The epistemology of the first Christians was horrendous.