I am sure that at least in some point of everyone's lives people have changed their view on something. Whether that view is philosophical, political, religious or on something else, we have all had changed and growth.

Now, I do believe most of us grow in some way or another and most of us have some inconsistencies or immaturities in our views. I know that I have held to views which I no longer believe or hold to. For example I used to be a strong Calvinist in my thinking and yet I no longer hold to that perspective any more as I do not believe the view of an all loving God is compatible with Calvinism. I believe that God loves all people and desires their salvation from their own destructive ways and does not desire their eternal damnation of souls.

This is just one example. I believe that God is changing us and correcting us gently through God's inspired Scripture, through use of tradition, through our reasoning capabilities and through our experiences. God uses all these things to shape our perspectives on life over time. Some things we still get incorrect and I know that I might be wrong on certain things. That is why I believe in 'epistemic humility', in other words having humility of knowledge, knowing that we may be wrong on certain things. 

This is not to say that we should give up on knowledge but that we should actively seek it and learn more about God (the blessed Trinity) and His purpose for all humanity and the world. I believe that everything we see and know takes a kind of faith. I have faith that when I get into my car, it will start up but I could be wrong. All things take faith, even simple things that we don't even think about tale faith without us even knowing it. But if we were to think it through, we would have to acknowledge that while it is almost certain that my car will start up, there is that very slim chance that it may not and I could be wrong. Everything takes faith of some kind of another where there is doubt we could be wrong. I have hope that I will be saved and I believe that will be the case but I could be wrong...maybe I'm walking up the wrong creek...but the hope is what matters in Christ. Indeed, I believe Christ is mighty to save all but I do not presume to be going to heaven, instead I believe and hope that I will be. Faith and hope go together well, as well as love.

So instead of thinking that you know for certain or fact that you are right about something, always be open minded, be willing to listen and to argue your point in a patient, kind and loving manner acknowledging that you and the other person may be wrong.

For a while it was a question of whether you believe in the Bible, scientific consensus or compromise. It did not occur to me that there was a nuanced view which could accommodate the Christian view and evolution as fact and history. This particular Christian perspective is preserved as I believe the historical Adam found in Genesis is so important to our story and who we are in union with Adam when we sin as it helps explain our need for redemption too. It also allows for facts of evolution to stand as there is evidence for evolution such as small fully developed legs which cannot be used to walk with on a sea creature (Basilosaurid Whale) for example and historical dating mechanisms which have uncovered millions and billions of years of history.

I know at one point I was dead against evolution until I read about what is known as 'evolutionary creationism' or God-guided evolutionism. I ended up over time embracing this new perspective and I also embraced it regarding Adam. It is not an 'either/or' matter but a 'both/and' matter.

Now, the question on how to reconcile the Christian belief in a historical Adam - a man who was the first of modern humankind - with evolution can be answered in five premises that I have learnt from:

Premise 1. The Bible is inspired by God and contains authoritative truth for Christians today. It contains human elements too since it was written by humans which means that it did not have the purpose of being a science fact book but a collection of Books about God, human experiences with God, divine law, wisdom, and traditional ancient perspectives. 

Indeed, in Joshua, factually speaking, God could not make the sun stand still as the earth rotates around the sun. Nonetheless, perceptually speaking the sun could appear to stand still from the perspective of a human being on earth. So the Bible is inspired and authoritative by God but written by humans. A historical Adam is a part of the biblical narrative.

Premise 2. Evolution is true due to surrounding evidence. This means that Scripture needs to be read in light of not only tradition but also of reason (accounting for evolution and science) and experience.

Premise 3. Adam could not literally have been created from dust but would have had to evolve from something else (such as a hominid or early human being).

Premise 4. But Adam had the image of God (the ability to reason and have authority over nature) and was not just a biological human but also spiritually a human too because of the image of God. This makes Adam fully human as opposed to hominids or early humans.

Premise 5. Once an individual or perhaps a group of people evolved into fully biologically human creatures from hominids, either an individual of that generation or the next generation would have been given the image of God. This first individual called Adam would have had the image of God who would have bred with other biological humans and would give birth to humans with the image of God.

Eventually that small group of original humans would have interbred with image bearers of God leading to what we have now as the modern human race where all humans bear the image of God. So Adam was the first one to bear the image of God making him the first spiritual-biological human, but not the first mere biological human being.