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Genesis and Early Man
Originally published in 1975. "[Provides] biblical answers to the questions raised by the existence of fossil remains of early man and theories of man's animal origin. Whether Adam and Eve existed historically, as the Book of Genesis implies, is the focal point of the author's anthropological research...Custance holds to the literal interpretation of the Genesis record. With this belief he accepts the idea of the instant creation of man, followed by a real temptation involving a real tree in a real garden; he contends also that the evidence supports the traditional biblical chronology which places a recent date on the origin of the first human pair" -- BACK COVER.
340 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
About the author
Arthur C. Custance
42 books8 followersFrom linked site:
About the Author
Arthur C. Custance was born and educated in England and moved to Canada in 1928. In his second year at the University of Toronto he was converted to faith in Christ. The experience so changed his thinking that he switched courses, obtaining an honours M.A. in Hebrew and Greek. In his 13 years of formal education, he explored many facets of knowledge and was particularly interested in anthropology and origins. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Ottawa in 1959 while serving as head of the Human Engineering Laboratories of the Defence Research Board in Ottawa (Canada) and was engaged in research work for 15 years. During that time he also wrote and published The Doorway Papers, and in retirement in 1970, he wrote 6 major books. His writings are characterized by a rare combination of scholarly thoroughness and biblical orthodoxy.
Biography of Arthur C. Custance
1910 - 1985
Arthur Custance was born in Norfolk, England. Upon completion of his primary and secondary education, he failed the Oxford and Cambridge Entrance Examinations (three times!). Just at this time the British Government had a scheme to “bring culture to the Colonies”, and offered to send him to the Canadian province of Ontario with the promise of 800 acres of land to build laboratories to bring improvements to farming.
About the Author
Arthur C. Custance was born and educated in England and moved to Canada in 1928. In his second year at the University of Toronto he was converted to faith in Christ. The experience so changed his thinking that he switched courses, obtaining an honours M.A. in Hebrew and Greek. In his 13 years of formal education, he explored many facets of knowledge and was particularly interested in anthropology and origins. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Ottawa in 1959 while serving as head of the Human Engineering Laboratories of the Defence Research Board in Ottawa (Canada) and was engaged in research work for 15 years. During that time he also wrote and published The Doorway Papers, and in retirement in 1970, he wrote 6 major books. His writings are characterized by a rare combination of scholarly thoroughness and biblical orthodoxy.
Biography of Arthur C. Custance
1910 - 1985
Arthur Custance was born in Norfolk, England. Upon completion of his primary and secondary education, he failed the Oxford and Cambridge Entrance Examinations (three times!). Just at this time the British Government had a scheme to “bring culture to the Colonies”, and offered to send him to the Canadian province of Ontario with the promise of 800 acres of land to build laboratories to bring improvements to farming.
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December 2, 2025
VOLUME II OF CUSTANCE’S ‘DOORWAY PAPERS’
Arthur C. Custance (1910-1985) had a Ph.D. in Education, and wrote a number of books, such as ‘Without Form and Void: A Study of the Meaning of Genesis 1.2,’ ‘The Mysterious Matter of Mind,’ 'Noah's Three Sons: Human History in Three Dimensions’ (The Doorway Papers, Volume I), ‘Evolution or Creation?’ (The Doorway Papers, Volume IV), ‘Hidden Things of God's Revelation’ (The Doorway Papers, Volume VII), ‘Science and Faith’ (The Doorway Papers, Volume VIII), ‘The Flood: Local or Global?’, (The Doorway Papers, Volume IX), etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1975 book, “The existence of fossil remains of early man with grossly brutalized features and interpreted as proof of man’s animal origin, poses a serious threat to Christian theology. Until these fossil remains became widely known, very few questioned the historicity of Adam and Eve. But today, whether Adam and Eve really existed has become a matter of some debate even among Christian people… But I am persuaded that when we abandon the concept of a truly historical Adam and Eve, experiencing a real temptation and Fall and expulsion from the Garden, we undermine the logical basis of the plan of salvation because that plan involves an undoing by a Second Adam of what the First Adam did… When we abandon the Genesis account of man’s origin, we undermine the rationale of the biblical view of man’s destiny.” (Pg. 7)
“What, then, are we do to with the current body of evidence which anthropological research has accumulated and which is almost universally interpreted in such a way as to challenge the biblical record of man’s early history at almost every point? I suggest we wholeheartedly accept whatever factual knowledge there is but apply to it an alternative explanation. We cannot merely reject it, for that is to commit intellectual suicide. But it can indeed be interpreted otherwise than from the current evolutionary viewpoint.” (Pg. 7-8)
He notes, “The Bible states categorically that men lived for centuries before the Flood, and even after it. We have specific records in Scripture of only a few people living for centuries after the Flood (Gen 11:11-22), but… these individuals were merely singled out because they were important for other reasons. That many men besides them survived for centuries is hardly to be questioned, though the life span of man declined rather rapidly … after the Flood.” (Pg. 17-18)
He reports that Solly Zuckerman wrote of the Australopithecines, “there may be individuals whose divergence from one another is far greater than the divergence which may be observed in two particular fossils … classified as not only belonging to a different species but even different genera.” Then he adds, “But one thing is certain: no one is ever tempted to make any pronouncement … which puts the slightest question mark against their evolutionary origin. Evolution is unchallengeable. Nor does Zuckerman challenge it.” (Pg. 20-21)
He acknowledges, “It seems unlikely… that one could push back the date of the Flood beyond a few thousand years B.C. … we are forced to conclude that… all fossil men, all prehistoric cultures, all primitive communities of the past or the present, and all civilizations since, must be encompassed within this span of a few thousand years. On the face of it the proposal seems utterly absurd. However, I think there are lines of evidence of considerable substance in support of it.” (Pg. 30)
Later, he suggests, “Although the life span of man is said to have declined quite rapidly after the Flood, for several hundred years many people did survive what would today be considered an incredible old age. If we add to the isolation and deprivation of some of these… living well past a hundred years… the ultimate effect upon their physique would be tremendously accentuated… the skull sutures are almost obliterated in some specimens… which might reasonably be interpreted as evidence of extreme old age… [which] would often tend to modify the skull towards the conventional ‘man-ape’ form.” (Pg. 39)
He asserts, “It seems to me a matter of very grave concern that not a few Christian anthropologists… no longer feel it necessary to make any attempt to square what they say as anthropologists with their theology as Christian believers… no Christian can afford to embrace the latest orthodoxies merely because they are accepted…. I believe it is both wiser and safer to make Scripture the touchstone of truth, even in the matter of anthropology---and wait.” (Pg. 60-61)
He contends, “we may say with a measure of certainty that the rapidity with which civilization developed in he Middle East as revealed by archaeology accords remarkably well with what is stated in Genesis but is in almost complete contradiction with what one ought to expect if human evolution were a fact… not only did civilization appear suddenly, but in many ways its earliest stages of development tended to be its finest.” (Pg. 87-88)
He asks, “is the long prior period of slow ‘progress’ merely a figment of imaginative thinking resulting from a mistaken interpretation of the facts? Is it possible to account for paleolithic man in some other way? Could he have been descended from rather than ancestral to the people who so quickly created the cultures of the traditional Cradle of Civilization? I think this is so. The sudden rise of high culture in the Middle East is most readily accounted for by reference to certain explicit statements in the early chapters of Genesis.” (Pg. 103)
In his paper on ‘Cultural Degeneration,’ he asserts, “contact of the White Man and his vastly more complex civilization has tended to destroy the more primitive cultures… Not a few peoples have shown themselves to have reached such a low ebb that the penalty of meeting a higher civilization has been total extinction… If such primitive people really did in any way represent early man, one wonders whether cultural evolution every could have occurred seeing that there does not appear to be any power of self-improvement.” (Pg. 105)
He continues, “How far can man degenerate? How much further could some of these tribes conceivably go?… In some of the more recently attested cases it was a matter of one or two generations only. Is it likely that useful arts will be lost? It seems so: indeed, in a few instances almost the only thing left to distinguish man from the lower animals has been the retention of the powers of speech… If man had not been originally provided with special endowments of a high order by his Creator, could he ever have survived?” (Pg. 125)
He summarizes, “we see that there is neither automatic cultural evolution not automatic cultural devolution. The deciding factor is whether vital contact has been retained with the main stream … [which] represents a composite of spiritual, intellectual, and technological enlightenment sustained thus by Shem, Japeth, and Ham. This circumstance [arose]… by the direct creative activity of God at the beginning… primitive people … all bear witness to the fact that in the absence of … these essential components of … society, man must inevitably suffer degeneration.” (Pg. 141)
He states, “[after] a sufficient mastery of the environment had been achieved… civilization developed with extraordinary rapidity… Man had not become suddenly more intelligent with the appearance of the early high cultures of the Middle East: it was merely that his potential was being realized.” (Pg. 152-153)
He concludes, “from the Christian view of history, there were strictly speaking ‘no prehistoric times.’ Within Adam’s lifetime, men multiplied until there was sufficient population to support specialized industries, metallurgy, tentmaking, music, agriculture, and indeed city life---for Adam’s son built a city… This is one fact. A second virtual certainty is that the same situation repeated itself after the Flood… Only, this time, every member of this family already had a certain cultural heritage which must have been quite advanced in nature. A third assumption is that … individuals, families, or splinter groups would break away from the central nucleus and begin the pioneering of the world.” (Pg. 187)
To his credit, Custance gives much more detailed treatment of the evidence for ‘fossil men’ than is common with such creationists. But his ‘cultural degeneration’ arguments are controversial, at best.
Arthur C. Custance (1910-1985) had a Ph.D. in Education, and wrote a number of books, such as ‘Without Form and Void: A Study of the Meaning of Genesis 1.2,’ ‘The Mysterious Matter of Mind,’ 'Noah's Three Sons: Human History in Three Dimensions’ (The Doorway Papers, Volume I), ‘Evolution or Creation?’ (The Doorway Papers, Volume IV), ‘Hidden Things of God's Revelation’ (The Doorway Papers, Volume VII), ‘Science and Faith’ (The Doorway Papers, Volume VIII), ‘The Flood: Local or Global?’, (The Doorway Papers, Volume IX), etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1975 book, “The existence of fossil remains of early man with grossly brutalized features and interpreted as proof of man’s animal origin, poses a serious threat to Christian theology. Until these fossil remains became widely known, very few questioned the historicity of Adam and Eve. But today, whether Adam and Eve really existed has become a matter of some debate even among Christian people… But I am persuaded that when we abandon the concept of a truly historical Adam and Eve, experiencing a real temptation and Fall and expulsion from the Garden, we undermine the logical basis of the plan of salvation because that plan involves an undoing by a Second Adam of what the First Adam did… When we abandon the Genesis account of man’s origin, we undermine the rationale of the biblical view of man’s destiny.” (Pg. 7)
“What, then, are we do to with the current body of evidence which anthropological research has accumulated and which is almost universally interpreted in such a way as to challenge the biblical record of man’s early history at almost every point? I suggest we wholeheartedly accept whatever factual knowledge there is but apply to it an alternative explanation. We cannot merely reject it, for that is to commit intellectual suicide. But it can indeed be interpreted otherwise than from the current evolutionary viewpoint.” (Pg. 7-8)
He notes, “The Bible states categorically that men lived for centuries before the Flood, and even after it. We have specific records in Scripture of only a few people living for centuries after the Flood (Gen 11:11-22), but… these individuals were merely singled out because they were important for other reasons. That many men besides them survived for centuries is hardly to be questioned, though the life span of man declined rather rapidly … after the Flood.” (Pg. 17-18)
He reports that Solly Zuckerman wrote of the Australopithecines, “there may be individuals whose divergence from one another is far greater than the divergence which may be observed in two particular fossils … classified as not only belonging to a different species but even different genera.” Then he adds, “But one thing is certain: no one is ever tempted to make any pronouncement … which puts the slightest question mark against their evolutionary origin. Evolution is unchallengeable. Nor does Zuckerman challenge it.” (Pg. 20-21)
He acknowledges, “It seems unlikely… that one could push back the date of the Flood beyond a few thousand years B.C. … we are forced to conclude that… all fossil men, all prehistoric cultures, all primitive communities of the past or the present, and all civilizations since, must be encompassed within this span of a few thousand years. On the face of it the proposal seems utterly absurd. However, I think there are lines of evidence of considerable substance in support of it.” (Pg. 30)
Later, he suggests, “Although the life span of man is said to have declined quite rapidly after the Flood, for several hundred years many people did survive what would today be considered an incredible old age. If we add to the isolation and deprivation of some of these… living well past a hundred years… the ultimate effect upon their physique would be tremendously accentuated… the skull sutures are almost obliterated in some specimens… which might reasonably be interpreted as evidence of extreme old age… [which] would often tend to modify the skull towards the conventional ‘man-ape’ form.” (Pg. 39)
He asserts, “It seems to me a matter of very grave concern that not a few Christian anthropologists… no longer feel it necessary to make any attempt to square what they say as anthropologists with their theology as Christian believers… no Christian can afford to embrace the latest orthodoxies merely because they are accepted…. I believe it is both wiser and safer to make Scripture the touchstone of truth, even in the matter of anthropology---and wait.” (Pg. 60-61)
He contends, “we may say with a measure of certainty that the rapidity with which civilization developed in he Middle East as revealed by archaeology accords remarkably well with what is stated in Genesis but is in almost complete contradiction with what one ought to expect if human evolution were a fact… not only did civilization appear suddenly, but in many ways its earliest stages of development tended to be its finest.” (Pg. 87-88)
He asks, “is the long prior period of slow ‘progress’ merely a figment of imaginative thinking resulting from a mistaken interpretation of the facts? Is it possible to account for paleolithic man in some other way? Could he have been descended from rather than ancestral to the people who so quickly created the cultures of the traditional Cradle of Civilization? I think this is so. The sudden rise of high culture in the Middle East is most readily accounted for by reference to certain explicit statements in the early chapters of Genesis.” (Pg. 103)
In his paper on ‘Cultural Degeneration,’ he asserts, “contact of the White Man and his vastly more complex civilization has tended to destroy the more primitive cultures… Not a few peoples have shown themselves to have reached such a low ebb that the penalty of meeting a higher civilization has been total extinction… If such primitive people really did in any way represent early man, one wonders whether cultural evolution every could have occurred seeing that there does not appear to be any power of self-improvement.” (Pg. 105)
He continues, “How far can man degenerate? How much further could some of these tribes conceivably go?… In some of the more recently attested cases it was a matter of one or two generations only. Is it likely that useful arts will be lost? It seems so: indeed, in a few instances almost the only thing left to distinguish man from the lower animals has been the retention of the powers of speech… If man had not been originally provided with special endowments of a high order by his Creator, could he ever have survived?” (Pg. 125)
He summarizes, “we see that there is neither automatic cultural evolution not automatic cultural devolution. The deciding factor is whether vital contact has been retained with the main stream … [which] represents a composite of spiritual, intellectual, and technological enlightenment sustained thus by Shem, Japeth, and Ham. This circumstance [arose]… by the direct creative activity of God at the beginning… primitive people … all bear witness to the fact that in the absence of … these essential components of … society, man must inevitably suffer degeneration.” (Pg. 141)
He states, “[after] a sufficient mastery of the environment had been achieved… civilization developed with extraordinary rapidity… Man had not become suddenly more intelligent with the appearance of the early high cultures of the Middle East: it was merely that his potential was being realized.” (Pg. 152-153)
He concludes, “from the Christian view of history, there were strictly speaking ‘no prehistoric times.’ Within Adam’s lifetime, men multiplied until there was sufficient population to support specialized industries, metallurgy, tentmaking, music, agriculture, and indeed city life---for Adam’s son built a city… This is one fact. A second virtual certainty is that the same situation repeated itself after the Flood… Only, this time, every member of this family already had a certain cultural heritage which must have been quite advanced in nature. A third assumption is that … individuals, families, or splinter groups would break away from the central nucleus and begin the pioneering of the world.” (Pg. 187)
To his credit, Custance gives much more detailed treatment of the evidence for ‘fossil men’ than is common with such creationists. But his ‘cultural degeneration’ arguments are controversial, at best.
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