Plants and fruits were given as food by God to both Adam and Eve : ‘and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life (nephesh chayah), I have given every green plant for food, and it was so’ (Gen:1:30).

For fidelity to Scripture’s sake and within the context of this first chapter of Genesis, we must break that statement down. Who are the ‘beasts’ of the earth? What is the ‘every thing’ that moves on the earth which has life referring to? What does it mean that God gives every green plant for food? And then ‘what is the why’ for God giving this injunction? We simply cannot gloss over this, right? We must try and understand what God is saying and doing here in light of His ‘very good’ completed creation (Gen.1:31). The ‘very good’ are God’s words, He Himself said it, He Himself calls his creation ‘very good’ (tov me’od). This is a strong indicator, especially in light of the other indicators and verses that I have mentioned, that the world originally had no death or disease, and that man and the animals had a vegetarian diet. An old earth puts the fossil record (with its natural disasters, cancer, gout, death) within this ‘very good’ world. We must deal with this, we must answer this question, give an exegesis and explanation. How does that call God ‘very good’? Or how does God call ‘very good’ a world of His own creation and by His own spoken Word where these things have occurred ‘before’ Adam and Eve and the Fall (Gen.3) and the Curse (Gen.3)?

It does no good to say that it was only perfect for what it was intended for, but not that there was no death or disease (by your own admission you say there was death and pain before Adam and Eve). The ‘very good’ was the culmination of creation week, where God had already pronounced things ‘good’ six times. How can things be ‘good’ and ‘very good’ where tremendous natural disasters are occurring killing billions of animals and pre-Adamic hominids, which suffered in pain in most cases? How can this be ‘good’ and ‘very good’ when the fossil record itself shows indications of disease (cancer, gout)? How can things be ‘good’ and ‘very good’ when the wolf pack hunts down the young little caribou chasing it for miles before wearing it out, pouncing on it, and tearing it to pieces while it is still alive? Is this really a reflection of an all-good God, a merciful God who created things thus? I don’t worship a God like that, and Scripture itself does not support it, or an old earth (you have yet to explain ‘from Scripture’, an exegesis of any verse that supports an old earth, starting with Gen.1). But I do have a consistent explanation from Scripture for why things are thus today.

You said,
“I did find one thing that piqued my interest, however. I assumed (wrongly, it seems) that as a YEC you believe that the world was created in six 24 hours days. You seem to say that this is not in fact your position. I certainly had no intention of setting up a “straw man” so perhaps you could share your understanding of the word “day” in Genesis 1?”

Genesis 1 in its natural setting and without any extrabiblical considerations, from the linguistical and grammatical understanding of the text itself speaks to six consecutive days of approximately 24 hours. The cardinal and ordinal numbers (one day, a second day, a third day, etc.), the phrase ‘evening and morning’ after each of those six days, the overwhelming preponderance of preterite Hebrew verbs indicating narrative prose, all lead to the indication that this was God in the first person describing His creative acts in six 24 hour days. I affirm this.

But my response about the word ‘day’ in post#56 above was to your question and reference to the word ‘day’ in Gen.2:17 (post#55): ‘in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die’, and your claim that I posit any use of the word day to be 24 hours only. I posited no such thing. I explained that this use of ‘day’ in Gen.2:17 has a preposition in front of it (be, the e an uppercase e)(pronounced ‘bay’ or ‘buh’)(not the equivalent of our English verb, ‘to be’), together with ‘yom’ would be ‘beyom’, not just ‘yom’, and that this was a Hebrew idiom for ‘when’. Like any language the word ‘day’ can have numerous meanings, (In my father’s day, as a salesman, he traveled across the U.S. all day, during the day), but context is the key. You understand that sentence because you realize I’m using the word ‘day’ in three different ways. This is true for any language, and yet your statement of wanting to say the word ‘day’ in Gen.2:17 be ‘restricted’ to 24 hours only, is an unwarranted expansion of the semantic field. It’s the same case with the use of the word ‘day’ in Gen.2:4: …’in the day that the Lord God made heaven and earth’. Beyom (Hebrew idiom for ‘when’) is used here in Gen.2:4 and not just yom. So again, to say that the word day in Gen.2:17 or Gen.2:4, be restricted to 24 hours only, is unwarranted. Beyom, not yom for these two verses mentioned, but beyom not used in describing the six consecutive days of Gen.1 (no ‘be’ in front of ‘yom’ as I explained in #56 above). We must be careful and clear about these distinctions in the Hebrew, shouldn’t we?

Blessings once again, dear friend.

Did not mean my statement to be any sort of final goodbye, just a desire to move beyond a conversation where we seem to have reached an impasse.

Perhaps I have not made myself clear. We in fact agree that in “adam all die”. Where we disagree is the scope of that “all”. I take it to mean “all humankind” bears the stain and curse of adam’s fall which includes both physical death ~and~ spiritual death (eternal separation from God). You assert that death begins for all living things with adam’s fall (though I suspect you, like most YEC, include only sentient beings in this — plants died before the fall, correct?)

I believe that all of the passages you reference in the New Testament are discussions of human death and the remedy for it. Yes, death is the “enemy”….. of humankind. Paul’s discussion of it in Romans and 1Corinthians has to do primarily with death as both a physical end and a spiritual separation from God, and how both of those conditions are remedied for humans by Christ. He simply does not address the question of animals nor their fate. On that distinction our discussion founders. You believe that all death entered the world with adam’s fall, I believe that spiritual and physical death began for the human race with adam… and we’ll just have to leave it there.

I did find one thing that piqued my interest, however. I assumed (wrongly, it seems) that as a YEC you believe that the world was created in six 24 hours days. You seem to say that this is not in fact your position. I certainly had no intention of setting up a “straw man” so perhaps you could share your understanding of the word “day” in Genesis 1?

Thanks for your prayers for Nicaragua. I am looking forward to the trip. Blessings upon you and yours as well.

Thanks. I meant to pick up on this point in my earlier post but forgot, and please tell me you’re not caricaturizing the ‘creationist’ position, here, right? You want to take a ‘wooden’ literal interpretation of ‘day’ in Gen. 2:17, but not in all of Gen. 1 where ‘yom’ is used? I’m surprised I’m even talking about this, because I think you’re informed enough to have read the creationist literature and/or to refer to your Brown, Driver, Briggs, or Keil and Delitzsch to see what the Hebrew says here. The word ‘yom’ in Gen. 2:17 has a preposition in front of it (be,upper case e), so would be ‘beyom’, a Hebrew idiom for ‘when’. (Beyom) is also used in Gen. 2:4: ‘…in the day that the LORD God made heaven and earth’. This however is not the case for any of the renderings of ‘yom’ in Gen.1 when referring to the six days of creation. (The preposition (be) is not used in Gen.1:5, 8,13,14,16,18,19,23,31).

By the way, I’ve never “posited that any use of the word ‘day’ means 24 hours”. You are simply mistaken here and I will ask that you point to any post in the First Things website where I have said this (or anywhere online for that matter). Are you building a straw man perhaps? I hope this is not the case, but that in error, you have ‘misstated’ my position.

In the case of Gen. 2:17 and God’s command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and his warning: ‘For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’, I have already spoken above about the word ‘day’, in Hebrew with preposition (be), beyom, an idiom for ‘when’, so now I will address ‘shall surely die’. The Hebrew here is literally translated: dying you shall die. Of course they didn’t die immediately when they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for that is not the meaning of ‘dying you shall die’, but thus began a ‘progressive’ death, the progression of death which resulted in Adam living to be 930 years and then ‘returning to dust’(Gen.3:19). ‘Death’, as an entity, was thus begun, both spiritually and physically. The sin-death causality was thus initiated.

This is why Paul can say in Rom.5:12,
‘Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin…’

It’s why Paul can say in 1 Cor. 15:21, ‘For since by a man came death…’, and in verse 56 ‘The sting of death is sin…’.

It’s why Paul can say in Rom.6:23, ‘The wages of sin is death…, and in 1 Cor.15:26, ‘The last enemy that will be abolished is death’.

It’s why the apostle John can say in Rev.20:14 at the consummation of all things that ‘Death …was thrown into the Lake of Fire’ (even if you take this metaphorically it has to refer to something actual or perceived in the mind, or why would it have significance?).

To posit ‘death’ before Adam and Eve were even on the scene in an old earth scenario undermines Paul’s statement that death is an ‘enemy’. One can rightly ask, ‘If death was part of God’s way of creating over millions of years, through natural selection and mutations, the transforming of one species into a totally other species, and if death was occurring through horrific natural disasters where animals and pre-Adamic hominids were dying in mass extinctions, then _why does_ Paul call it an ‘enemy’?

I realize you are a busy pastor, but you still find time to comment here on First Things on a fairly regular basis, so will not take your above as a final goodbye. With that, I will pray a blessing on your Nicaraguan trip, and that God would use you and your team to His magnificent glory. Blessings dear friend.

Not really much we can say here is there? You say that I have failed to “exegete Genesis 1, 2, or 3″ as a reason for not really addressing my questions. What you seem to mean by that is “you don’t read Genesis the same way I do, so I don’t have to answer your questions based on your reading of the text”. Fine. But then there isn’t really anything left to talk about. We simply disagree.

I believe that the opening chapters of Genesis are not a scientific text primarily, but an apologetic one — explaining the ways of God to humankind and establishing God as Creator and Lord of all (and humans as creature and subject) in a context wherein there was thought by surrounding cultures to be “lords many and gods many”. A variant of the framework hypothesis, if you will.

As for the question of “death” coming through adam meaning primarily physical death, here we have a genuine exegetical difference. Genesis 2:17 says quite clearly “in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” You posit that any use of the word “day” means “24 hours” and that any use of the word “death” means physical death. Therefore Scripture is in fact mistaken and God a liar (and the serpent a truth-teller) when adam and eve consume of the tree and do not die in that day. Unless of course “death” and “day” have broader meanings than you are willing to consider.

I have not insisted that the term death cannot mean physical death, and thereby have no problem with 1Corinthians 15 which describes the nature of the resurrection ~for humans~ and is simply not concerned with any other creatures. The nature of the Corinthian heresy is two-fold: a proto-gnosticism (denying the goodness of the body) and a utilitarian libertine spirit. Both of these parties in the Corinthian church seem to be denying any sort of bodily resurrection and THAT is why Paul is arguing the resurrection with them. Not to teach them some sort of esoteric pantheology of death. When Paul says in 1Cor. 15:22 “as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ” — he is clearly referring to all humans not all living things.

I could go on to address these other questions but I have a church to serve, sick people to visit, a sermon to complete, I am going to Nicaragua in ten days, and frankly, we are getting nowhere fast. It is an argument that simply will not be resolved this side of glory. If that puts me beyond the pale of orthodoxy in your eyes, than I can only smile and say that I am in good company — men like Origen, Augustine, Atahansius, Clement, Hilary, CS Lewis, Machen, Kline and many others.

I continue to believe that, like differences about the sacraments, differences over the age of the earth and understandings of how God creates should not divide me from those I would call brothers or sisters. The question always begins for me with Jesus’ “who do you say that I am?”

On that question at least I know we are agreed.

And with that I must bow out. I know that you will find my response inadequate and scattershot, but so be it. Please do not take this amiss, but I must steward my time and long discussions about origins, however interesting, don’t constitute the best use of it at the moment.

blessings to you and yours….

I guess you must interpret and exegete passages such as Rom. 5:12, 1 Cor. 15:21 (the whole chapter 15 referring to physical death, not just spiritual), Rom. 8:18-23, Rom. 6:23, 1 Cor. 15:56 differently than I do. This is one of our fundamental differences is it not, let alone how you exegete Gen. 1? If you are not saying that physical death came through Adam and only through Adam when he sinned, and that the Curse of Gen. 3 followed which affected the whole of creation (the ground, animals, men and women), then we are diametrically opposed on these key verses. We can go no further here.

You said,
“2) Aside from the Scriptural/theological reasons for not believing this, there is an argument from design as well. There are clearly animals who are “designed” to be predators. Creatures such as sharks, tigers, etc are amazing, lethal, killing/eating “machines”. It us absurd (in my view) to posit a vegetarian tiger, or shark (to cite just two examples) and there really is no Scriptural reason to do so.
3) Thus to repeat, I believe that God designed nature this way from the beginning.”

Failure to deal exegetically with Gen.1:29-30 leaves one open to calling a vegetarian tiger ‘fanciful’. Failure to deal exegetically with the companion commandment of God in Gen.9:3 when Noah came off the Ark, might also lend one to believe that carnivory was going on in God’s ‘very good’ creation. You can conceive of a virginal birth, a man rising from the dead, lepers healed instantly, sight restored instantly to the blind, men walking on water, and a host of other miraculous things, but you can’t conceive of a vegetarian tiger before the Fall? I’m sure you have your explanations, but I haven’t heard them yet.

You said,
“4)All the talk about animal suffering and death as some how objectively sinful and immoral lacks Scriptural evidence and support. When a big fish eats a little fish it is the fault of the first Adam? When a t-rex gets mired in a tar pit, that too is to be understood as the result of the Fall? No tar pits before the fall, no earthquakes, asteroids, tornadoes? None of that?”

Since you are not willing to exegete Gen. 1, and do not wish to defend or explain this chapter based on a linguistical and grammatical explanation of the text, you would necessarily come to the conclusion in 4) above. I will also note here that you have not answered my questions in #30 above about the attributes of God and a proper Christian Theodicy in terms of the natural evil that was occurring to the animals and pre-Adamic hominids during the millions of years that you believe God was creating.

You said,
“Do you believe that animals have souls?
Will there be animals in heaven?
How does moving animal suffering and death to after the Fall absolve God of the charge of “Grand Allower” now?”

See my comment above, failure to exegete Gen. 1, or Gen. 2, or Gen.3, upon the basis of the linguistical and grammatical features of the text itself, would lead you to ask this question. The proper answer (to both your and Craig’s question here) is that Adam’s “sin” is the determining factor, and that conditions pre-sin and post-sin are not the same. Pre-sin was a ‘very good’ world (Gen. 1:31). Post-sin was a corrupted world, subjected to futility, in slavery to corruption (Gen.3:14-24, Rom. 8:20-21). The suffering that exists today originated from man’s rebellion and God’s judgment, not from God’s creative goodness. Sin has stained God’s creation.

Do animals have souls and will there be animals in heaven, you tell me, what does Scripture say?

You said,
“If God intends salvation (as we agree) to be the answer to the problem of sin — why are there no moral injunctions about animal welfare anywhere in the New Testament? If animals dying and killing and eating one another are only a result of the Fall then why isn’t there an orthopraxy of animal husbandry in the New Testament?”

Why would there be? The requirements in the Old Testament concerning animals would be sufficient wouldn’t they? The concept of God’s care for all of creation including the animals begins with the dominion mandate in Gen. 1:26 as man is to be caretaker for the earth. God commands a Sabbath rest be given to a man’s animals (Ex. 23:12). He condemns men who are cruel to their animals (Prov.12:10). He cares for creatures in this fallen world (Psalms 104:14-16, & 27-28). Christ Himself speaks of God’s care for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field (Matt. 6:26-28).

You said,
“As to your assertion that Young Earth Creationism understood in primarily scientific terms has been the only position of the church until Darwin, you are historically inaccurate. Differing schools of interpretation of the first three chapters of Genesis date at least back to Augustine. In addition, orthodox dj has a point. Some source citations for the idea that there was no death whatsoever prior to the Fall being the predominant position of all Christians needs more support than mere assertion.”

Well there you go. I’m historically inaccurate and yet you provide no ‘proof’. I’ll be as succinct as Orthodoxdj, ‘Prove it’. All you say is that an interpretation of the first three chapters of Genesis has been in confusion since at least the time of Augustine? But that’s my point, isn’t it, there have been differing church fathers who have posited some variant views, but the majority consensus until the advent of modern uniformitarianism has been that Genesis 1 read in it’s natural setting indicates a recent creation and young earth.

Orthodoxdj, is a philosophy teacher, (by his own admission). I assume that this is at an institution of higher learning, although he could be teaching philosophy to high school students, I’m not sure, he hasn’t said. You don’t teach philosophy with a Bachelor’s Degree, so I assume he has at least a Master’s Degree, and possibly higher. Therewith he has much more evidential support for his position than I do, yet fails to use this support in his posts. We can throw around the charge of “Prove it” all day long and it wouldn’t lend itself to ‘open’ discussion, would it?

Thank you for your interaction pastor, please continue the dialog as you are able. Blessings.

“there was an experiment that was done, fraudulently as it turned out, but there was a famous experiment that was done in the past in which light and dark moths were released and the light moths survived better in certain trees where there was lighter bark and the dark moths survived better on the other trees where the bark was darker.”

Unless new information has arisen, this experiment’s results were not fraudulent. The researchers simply used death moths for their photographs (AFTER the experiment) because the dead moths were easier to keep still. :) But as far as I know, the actual experiment is not controversial.

I’d be glad for more info if anyone has it.

I was wondering that myself.

It seems to me that the questions of theodicy “before the Fall” are simply the questions of theodicy. Any theodicy offered now to defend God’s character would apply just as well to a “pre-Fall” theodicy, with one major exception: the question of moral evil. However, since this question of moral evil appears to apply only to humans, it would not seem to matter to the “pre-Fall” theodicy.

I am thinking of that great line from Blake’s “The Tyger”: “Did He who made the Lamb make thee?” If He did, does that fact make Him “cruel”?

If by lurking you mean checking this blog now and again for a moment to keep tabs on the conversation, why yes, I have been “lurking”. I have not, until this afternoon, however, had any time to really consider or respond.

You seem to find a problem with that for which I can’t really account nor understand. But no matter, I have a “real” life, as clearly do you…. I hope your wife is well and your car troubles easily solved. Respond at your leisure or not at all if you so wish…

pax christi vobiscum

I am going to leave aside what I take as the unnecessarily confrontational (my position is “weak”; I am “unwilling to defend” it; shy to “teach” on theodicy etc.) and condescending tone of your reply to me, because I don’t think you intend it that way, at least I hope not.

Let me first say that it seems to me you have avoided or perhaps misunderstood my statements all the way back in comment 15. In those comments I make or at least hint at the following observations that I believe to be true.

1) I see nothing in scripture that compels me to believe (or even hints) that ALL of living Creation (animal, vegetal, human) was made to live forever and that death entered the world only after the Fall.
2) Aside from the Scriptural/theological reasons for not believing this, there is an argument from design as well. There are clearly animals who are “designed” to be predators. Creatures such as sharks, tigers, etc are amazing, lethal, killing/eating “machines”. It us absurd (in my view) to posit a vegetarian tiger, or shark (to cite just two examples) and there really is no Scriptural reason to do so.
3) Thus to repeat, I believe that God designed nature this way from the beginning.
4)All the talk about animal suffering and death as some how objectively sinful and immoral lacks Scriptural evidence and support. When a big fish eats a little fish it is the fault of the first Adam? When a t-rex gets mired in a tar pit, that too is to be understood as the result of the Fall? No tar pits before the fall, no earthquakes, asteroids, tornadoes? None of that?

There are also some other questions that occur to me.

Do you believe that animals have souls?

Will there be animals in heaven?

How does moving animal suffering and death to after the Fall absolve God of the charge of “Grand Allower” now?

If God intends salvation (as we agree) to be the answer to the problem of sin — why are there no moral injunctions about animal welfare anywhere in the New Testament? If animals dying and killing and eating one another are only a result of the Fall then why isn’t there an orthopraxy of animal husbandry in the New Testament? Does the salvation accomplished by the second Adam thereby redeem the shark, the tiger? And how does the animal kingdom experience the in-breaking of the Kingdom?

As to your assertion that Young Earth Creationism understood in primarily scientific terms has been the only position of the church until Darwin, you are historically inaccurate. Differing schools of interpretation of the first three chapters of Genesis date at least back to Augustine. In addition, orthodox dj has a point. Some source citations for the idea that there was no death whatsoever prior to the Fall being the predominant position of all Christians needs more support than mere assertion.