The Pre-Adamic World by Dr. Herman Hoeh

THE PRE-ADAMIC WORLD

(Summary of various sermons given by Dr. Herman Hoeh in 1977/78)

We have taught that angels were on earth before Adam, being trained. What was their primary function? To rule trees and rocks and streams? What were they given experience in? More than merely ruling over each other. We should expand our former concepts and see that they were on earth to govern in a small way (as an opportunity to learn and to prove they could be trusted) before being sent out further into the universe. Their role on earth should be seen as equipping or qualifying them to rule in the universe. This means they were governing nature in great detail.

As God Himself is concerned for even a sparrow that falls, so God is concerned for the balance of nature. If God knows the hairs of our head, He is concerned over the intimate aspects of life of every creature. If He rules through angels, then they also would be likewise concerned with the minute aspects of nature. This is what they were asked to govern--not a barren world, but a world full of life forms throughout geologic history. The Church has a responsibility to teach the role of angels in the world before Adam....

We do not see a world of which we could say that God was 'experimenting'--that term has overtones that could be misunderstood. I would prefer the concept that God was 'developing' a creation in which angels were being challenged and tested on how they would carry out God's government in guiding that nature, and in ruling over ever more complex forms of life...

The world that we see in the future though the eyes of the prophet Isaiah--the world in which a child can play on the hole of a poisonous snake without being poisoned because it is no longer poisonous, that the lamb and the leopard and the bear and the ox and the lion and the little child shall all be together--and they are not devouring one another. Now you all know how the Millennium has been pictured--the whole of nature will be subject to the government of God. Now this may sound very strange to our ears until it has taken root. The whole of nature is to be subject to the government of God, and instead of one creature devouring another for survival, we are going to have an entirely different system of nutrition and a different system of birthing because the two are interrelated.

The world today from nature is not a reflection of the kind of government God intended to be exercised by the angels throughout nature. It is in fact a reflection of the Devil's idea of competition, of devouring, and keeping in balance by each thing competing with something else. Now Mr. Armstrong long ago conceived of the idea of competition as being the lifeblood both of our economy and business and society and government. He said this is, as far as he is concerned, the fundamental characteristic of the Devil's philosophy, whatever each individual may have been personally taught....

The angels had knowledge and could see the picture clearly as far as what they were going to do and who they were going to listen to. As God started out He said 'I want to make sure the creation reflects the spirit of love, and it's going to be a beautiful world. We are not going to have competition. Therefore the pattern of nutrition and the pattern of birth will not need to have competition to keep ever thing in that order we see it in.' Can you imagine a World Tomorrow in which mice reproduce at the present rate with no cats to catch the mouse? I just have to question. What would happen in Africa if we took away competition and left the birth rate the same? We see the whole of nature is going to change, both in terms of terms of what an animal eats and in terms of the reproductive systems, because they are all tied together...

You can look at the whole of geology, and you will not find a single period, geologically speaking, that corresponds to a nature such as will be in the Millennium. It is all a nature such as we have it today--creatures were devouring in the Tertiary, they were devouring in the Cretaceous, they were devouring in the Mesozoic, they were devouring in the Archaeozoic and the Paleozoic. And for all we know, in the earliest forms we can probably assume the same thing.

There is this competition because it goes hand in hand with the statement Jesus made that the Devil was a murderer from the beginning. That is, the spirit of competition such as we viewed it reflected itself in the spirit of murder... And indeed murder--the spirit of it--is the consequence of the philosophy of competition. And he said 'I'll work to take the patterns that God has given and instead of exercising God's government I am going to design it in such a way that nature is in balance by competition, by devouring, by strife--the way of the survival of the fittest--the swiftest mouse getting away most of the time, the slowest cat doesn't survive.'

Now I think when we see that we will have a whole new view - that when we talk about the Devil's government we can in fact extend the Biblical account and we have looked at nature and we have to conclude that the WHOLE of the geologic history that we can uncover reflects a world that had gone astray, and therefore there was no reason anywhere along the line to view that there should not have been some catastrophe--local or of wider range--during this whole period.

The Devil may have gone so far with certain things, and he may have wanted to change certain things, but then God also may have said 'Well look, I want a change. I want certain new life forms to be produced. I will see what you will do with them.' And so there is no reason to discount what you see when you travel down the walls of the Grand Canyon. One period after another that cannot be accounted for by anything we know of except for major periods of time - major only as (we) comprehend time. Now presumably not more than a third of the angels followed the Devil. The other two thirds profited by the experience and took no part in the spirit of competition as developed in the biological world...

It does take some time for some people to poison other peoples minds and it takes time, as Mr Armstrong said, for the Devil to persuade angels, who were greater in knowledge by far than human beings. And the Devil was going back and forth, and he kept arguing with God over the necessity of the creation being patterned after a different philosophy than God's. But God never listened, and the Devil always came back and told the angels that 'God never listened', just as 'Mr Armstrong never listened'--you've heard that. Well God never listened to the Devil either...

Apparently all this time God allowed the Devil the chance to see whether after he had examined the nature that he was governing (or abusing--whatever term you want to use), whether he would change or whether he would not. They finally came to the point, as Mr Armstrong said, where spirits apparently do set their character, and you can go only so far in the realm of spirit until your attitude so poisons you that it can never be altered.....

When Australopithecines appear in Africa (they have not been discovered elsewhere) "late" in the history of the world we have a creature that can make tools, but not according to a preconceived pattern. An outline of development follows. First, we have a creature who looked somewhat like apes, who tended to walk somewhat upright, who made tools, but not enter a preconceived pattern--the form of the tool is after the natural characteristics of the rock.

Then we have a creature who walked upright called 'Homo Erectus'. He had the capacity to make a tool from a preconceived pattern, but did not have modern man's brain capacity so he was not classified as 'Homo Sapiens' because he did not think and reason as man reasons. At this level (of Java Man and Peking Man) the term 'homo' may be misleading because it is not 'man' as a son of Adam. It would be better to correct this misconception of modern evolutionary science to conform to the truth of the world we see. There was no developmental progress or advances in culture of these creatures though they existed for maybe hundreds of thousands of years. If you examine geology with radiometric dating you will have to conclude that there were steps in creation, with the presence of new forms of life at each step which continue for a very long time without variation (evolution).

Now after Homo Erectus we come to....Neanderthal Man, where 'man' is again a misnomer. He made tools, a bed, a shelter--but so can other animals. He could make rather involved tools, but had no sense of art. Man is an artistic creature, but this doesn't mean all artistic creatures are men. But no art is ever associated with Homo Neanderthalensis. And there is also the question whether he could speak or just made sounds with his voice. Then 35 to 40 thousand years ago angels had the responsibility of governing a world that changed from creatures lead primarily by instinct to creatures less and less so. There is thus the indication that angels were being trained not just to utilize the natural world of plants and animals and to supervise the climate and all other aspects of nature, but to train creatures who had the capacity to begin to fashion something out of the nature in which they lived, and in more and more complex form....To our knowledge, 'apemen' do not now exist on earth though there are reports of 'big-foot' and the 'abominable snowman'....

After Homo Neanderthalensis we come to Cro-Magnon, or Upper Paleolithic "man", who once again should not be called 'man' but it would be better to use a term like 'hominid' for him. At the close of the Ice Age or Arctic Climate this creature could make tools and houses and could communicate better than any former creature. He could draw--perform aesthetic operations. He could hunt, fish, and make weapons to find his food. Upper Paleolithic hominids are therefore unusual in that they have gone beyond former creatures in many keys such as art and an aesthetic sense, and in the capacity to communicate ideas. For 20 to 25 thousand years they lived on earth and hunted and fished--but they knew no agriculture, they domesticated no animals, they neither sowed nor reaped the fields. While they were here these ideas never penetrated their minds or brains, though they had the other advancements.

In the Bible, Adam and Eve were put in the Garden of Eden and told to 'dress and keep it'. Adam is therefore of sufficient mentality to be a gardener and able to perceive the fundamentals of agriculture. He could also reason about such things as eternal life and death. Adam's older son Cain built a town and was an agriculturalist and tilled the field or used the plow. Adam's second son Abel kept sheep, and therefore may have kept other domestic animals--at least he was advanced enough of an agriculturalist to tend domesticated stock.

Man has not been on earth more than 6000 years according to the Bible. He starts out capable of thinking of eternal matters, as well as the fundamentals of agriculture and town building. In Isaiah we are told that certain things were engraved with 'the pen of Enoch' or "the stylus of a man". There the implication of the Hebrew text is that Enoch, the son of Seth, invented the art of writing, because it was named after him. In Genesis we find 'the book of the Generations of Adam' which implies that in the lifetimes of Seth and Enoch, men had the capacity not only to write, but to convey, preserve, and perpetuate the written word, not necessarily in scroll or codex form.

We should have realized that Homo Erectus did not write, paint, or farm. Likewise Homo Neanderthalensis, Upper Paleolithic hominids (Cro-Magnon) etc. though they did paint and draw, did not domesticate animals, nor sow and reap, nor build cities, but only preyed on the environment like other animals. Modern man is just a refined and reduced Cro-Magnon man....Angels had been given responsibility to rule creatures who could clothe themselves with skins to keep warm in the cold, but could not think out agriculture. they were being introduced to gradually, more and more complex forms of life.

After Cro-Magnon we come to 'Mesolithic man'...Mesolithic man is even more refined than Cro-Magnon. He used tools different from his predecessors, who used just stone. He used bone and wood and jewelry. He also reaped wild grains, though he did not sow, and he domesticated a few animals, but did not yet have pottery. He did live in groups, or tribes, or clans--whatever term we might like to apply from our perspective. Later we have development of the use of clay. There was just about 4000 years from the beginning of gathering (like berries, nuts, and wild grains) to the conclusion of the Pottery Neolithic period.

This was 4000 years in which hominids made the most rudimentary developments, slowly but surely. Angels were given charge for the first time over creatures that could think out new techniques of domestication, step by step the gradual making of pottery, the invention of a king of village or community--only this in 4000 years from about 8000 to 4000 B.C. do these stages occur. Compare this with the progress from Adam to Herod the Great. Humans in only 1700 years progressed to the point where God said "nothing shall be restrained from man that he has imagined to do". In the last pre-Adamic phase the hominids lived with little instinct and at a level not unlike the most primitive men live today. Apparently, they were not accountable to sin because God did not reveal certain things to them. Though they could not be distinguished skeletally from modern man, they obviously did not have the 'spirit in man' which gives him the capability to reach the moon in 6000 years of progress. Something was yet missing though they had incipient agriculture and village life.

Even if the angels had not rebelled, presumably the next step would have been the impartation of spirit in man--to create out of matter a form of life which the angels might originally have ruled over. Mr. Armstrong has said that God must have always had in mind the possibility of an alternative. If angels would not do what God wanted done, then He would create creatures capable of doing it. And if spirit beings, the angels, would not do it and be obedient, then He would put His Spirit in matter and test that before it is made spirit.

Some one-third of the angels very early on decided to 'do their own thing' and rebelled. Two-thirds apparently remained faithful to God. Following Satan, the disobedient angels abandoned this world as their inheritance. While on earth for a very long period of time, they introduced into nature a world subject to tragedies. But Romans 8 tells of a time when the sons of God in God's government will regulate nature in an entirely different fashion. 'The creation will also be delivered from the bondage of corruption to the glorious liberty of the children of God. The whole creation (not just man) groans and travails together in pain till now.' Mr Armstrong said this is a reflection of the mind (or brain from another point of view) of the Devil. What we are looking for is the 'manifestation of the sons of God'.

In this we will not have a world that devours itself. Today there is no fish, plant or bird that is not subject to the 'law' that reflects the mind of the Devil. We live in the same kind of world as the whole of geologic history. As far as our knowledge goes, the whole of the history of creation revealed in history shows that same suffering that Romans 8 speaks of, which is unlike the peaceful World Tomorrow.

The laws of reproduction have been woven together with the laws of food consumption so that it reflects the Devil's way of how he thinks nature should be controlled. Now if this were the way God intended it, then the description of the Millennium given by Isaiah would be wrong. But the evidence of geology indicates the Devil was already 'doing his thing'. When he appeared before God, He didn't listen to him because God said it was wrong but God let Him go ahead. Then the Devil went back and argued and reasoned with the angels until a third of them agreed with him that 'God doesn't listen'.

The final act of rebellion was a crisis in which the Devil and the angels perceived that the next step God had in mind was to terminate their experiment--I see no alternative-to intervene and create a creature like the hominids but one step higher, with the capacity to reason like the mind of God - higher than the creatures with a 'brutish mentality' that is not accountable for sin, but one that has capacity to govern himself and decide for himself apart from any instinct which way he shall go. When the angels perceived that this was likely the case, they decided to abandon this inheritance, to scale the heavens, and dethrone God so they could set up the universe with a nature in accordance with their ideas of competition and strife and keeping in balance by dividing and conquering and devouring--the 'philosophy' of nature today. But they were cast down, held in restraint.

When God created Adam, in whom the 'spirit in man' was added he had the capacity to reason and build without limit. Every former man-like creature had an upper limit beyond which he could not progress. Suddenly a creature was created who had no upper limit to his thinking in the natural world, no limit to his speculation. We can contemplate eternity and be held accountable for law and sin. God tested Adam at this point and you know that our first two parents failed the test in the Garden of Eden, and the world once again passed to the realm of Satan, and human civilization instead of being developed under God's law and nature under God's law--everything passed under a curse.

Notice in Genesis 3:14 addressed to the serpent: 'Because you have done this you are cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field. Upon your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of our life'. This can be symbolic, but it can also be literal. The implication is that the curse was not only on the serpent through whom the Devil spoke, but also on the cattle--one was cursed 'above' the other. The curse fell on all nature. The creature that was at one time 'more subtle than any beast of the field (Genesis 3:1)' was reduced to crawling on the ground. (And there is the symbolism of the Devil himself being cast to the earth in the past and the future.) Nature was cursed with the 'philosophy' of the Devil--this is the way he wants to run the world. God put man in this world to see what it is like when run by the Devil's philosophy....

He said, 'Cursed is the serpent ABOVE the rest of the beasts of the field’ with the indication immediately that the rest of nature was cursed because in the Garden of Eden we don't have this experience. Adam saw all these animals and there were no feelings in the Garden of Eden that he had to be careful of the lion who was getting hungry at nightfall. There was no fear that we sense in that account....Also He let a curse fall on man and woman. The ground brought forth thorns and thistles, climatic problems, toil and sweat.

This is the world of the last 6000 years. Man is now responsible for making choices in that world. God then called out a few patriarchs, prophets, apostles and us saints who will be the firstfruits resurrected out of the earth, and assigned (with Christ) the responsibility to restore the government of God on earth, a government which the angels failed to exercise for millions of years.

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Index of /~surfer/Pre-Adamic World

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Parent Directory -
Creative Development Thesis_Burky.pdf
Creative Development_Burky.doc
Creative Development_Burky.pdf
Evolution Lecture.pdf
Geologic Record.pdf
Ltr_Creative Development_Burky.pdf
R_Burky_Creative_Development.pdf
The Pre-Adamic World_summary_Hoeh.doc
Two Creations - Two Worldwide Floods_Torrance.pdf