So, it might be possible (albeit a long-shot) to produce, via cloning, a real-life Neanderthal man. Wow. Where do you begin with that one?
Is it like cloning an ape: possibly reasonable for scientific purposes? Or like cloning a man: possibly also allowable in future, but only for very carefully prescribed reasons, fully respectful of the life thereby created. And theologically, is he a descendant of Adam?: I speak metaphorically, because we could discuss at length whether Adam is a person or an idea. Put another way, would he have a soul? And could you know in advance, or would you have to wait until he'd been called into being? by which time it would be a little late to decide you'd behaved unethically.
I pose those questions as a thought experiment. And yet, they may not be hypothetical, they could easily be real questions within my lifetime. And if not those, then similar ones. And because they seem imponderable, perhaps they are the wrong questions to ask. But does that suggest a poverty of understanding about the whole business of being made in the image of God?
[Here we are on Darwin's 200th birthday. If you reject that man and his wisdom; if you believe the world is less than 10,000 years old, I guess those questions will be easier to answer. But I'm afraid as far as I'm concerned, that's like saying "if the moon is made of blue cheese, do dogs go to heaven". Not an interesting conundrum.]
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