Death before Adam & Eve's sin ?

[Celt]

First, been super busy, so coming here has been hit and run for me. But when i do it's a breath of fresh air. Really appreciate the site and all those who are here with their impressive insight.
Have been reading Hugh Ross's book 'Hidden Treasures in the Book of Job'. He feels there was death before Adam/Eve's sin. As far as in the animal kingdom. Believes book of Job predates Genesis and bases it on Job 38:39-41 and 39:26-30. Now i have always heard there was no death at all before mankinds sin, of any type.(excluding plant life) (?)
If there was life & death amoung God's creations, other than humans before sin, my question is, why does Isa.11:6-9 speak of the wolf & lamb dwelling peacfully together, bear and cow, etc. In Genesis it says God called his creation good, very good. So if there was a life and death cycle, prey, hunting, and it was good, then why the change as in Isaiah ?
Also, if their was this death amoung the animal, insect, reptile creatures then this makes sense. A program i watched featured the trantula hawk wasp. This wasp tracks the spider by scent, upon finding the trantula it stings and paralyzes it and then brings it back to a prepared nest. The wasp then lays a egg in the spiders abdomen. The abdomen is used because the larva now feeds upon the spider avoiding the vital organs to keep the spider alive, fresh, as long as possible. this is food for the next wasp generation.
Assuming death was there in Eden from the very beggining, ok. If however there was not, then when and where did the Wasp gain this knowledge ? We know it's instinct, but this could be fuel for a Evolutionist, 'it evolved', which we know is bull. If, there was no death before sin, then when was this instinct encoded ? Did God always have these instincts in his creations beforehand ?
Am i missing something? Or overlooking some scriptures? Now remember guy's, im the new kid on the Christian block. This is all new for me, so be kind to a fresh learner. And thanks ahead of time.

[Jac3510]

As you noted, Ross holds there was already animal death before the Fall. YECs are the ones who hold the no death before the Fall view.

We had a very, very long thread discussing carnivorous animals before the fall. You can read it here if you like: http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... ?f=7&t=459

As far as the mechanism by which animals became carnivorous, all any YEC can offer is speculation. We affirm that the Bible teaches that there was no death before the Fall. We affirm that the Bible teaches that death came as a result of the Fall, and that both the Bible and experience teach that death has existed sense the Fall. The Bible, however, is silent as to how that change took place. It could have just been miracle. It could have been that animal features already existed and that a "switch" was flipped, so to speak, that caused animals to start using some of their features in a predatory fashion. In any case, there's no need to invoke evolution, nor does it make sense, as the amount time necessary for those processes to evolve would be in the order of millions of years--maybe tens of millions (assuming it is even possible, a fact that most YECs deny). And, of course, that kind of time just isn't available to the YEC. It could well be that God created the world in a way that it would operate in an ideal state that did not have to deal with death but also created it in such a way that it could operate in a fallen state in which it did have to deal with death. That seems particularly likely to me, especially since God knew the world would fall and, if nothing else, is a truly great designer. Any good design has back up systems, after all!

But, to emphasize, the only thing anyone can provide is speculation. The Bible is silent on the matter, and science cannot in principle speak to it. If it is known, it is known by faith (just like the act of creation itself). We either believe it because we believe the Bible affirms it, or we do not believe it because we either do not believe the Bible affirm it or we do believe the Bible affirms it but do not put stock in the words of Scripture (at least in this regard).

[RickD]

Celt wrote:
If there was life & death amoung God's creations, other than humans before sin, my question is, why does Isa.11:6-9 speak of the wolf & lamb dwelling peacfully together, bear and cow, etc.

Because it's talking about Christ's future kingdom.

. In Genesis it says God called his creation good, very good. So if there was a life and death cycle, prey, hunting, and it was good, then why the change as in Isaiah ?

One way to interpret "good", is that it means good for its intended purpose. To bring about the elimination of evil.

Assuming death was there in Eden from the very beggining, ok. If however there was not, then when and where did the Wasp gain this knowledge ? We know it's instinct, but this could be fuel for a Evolutionist, 'it evolved', which we know is bull. If, there was no death before sin, then when was this instinct encoded ? Did God always have these instincts in his creations beforehand ?
Am i missing something? Or overlooking some scriptures? Now remember guy's, im the new kid on the Christian block. This is all new for me, so be kind to a fresh learner. And thanks ahead of time.

IMO, all that you have said makes sense if animals were created to kill. It's all part of the system God set up on earth. A system that sustains itself by the "circle of life". We can't have life without death. At least in this temporary world.

[neo-x]

Logic demands death must exist always. Infact death is THE IDEAL DESIGN.

[PaulSacramento]

Creation was good, but it was not perfect and can ever be perfect, only God is perfect.
Death is simply a part of life, energy doesn't die, it simply changes.
Now, it may be the in Eden, there was no death of any kind.
IMO, there was death, at leas outside of Eden and this is why:
Genesis 3:22-23
22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.

God here voices His concern that man MAY become immortal and now that Man knows good and evil that is not an option, so God expels Man from Eden and Guards the Tree of Life so that Man CAN NOT become immortal.

IMO, this means that man was mortal.

[Jac3510]

Because it's talking about Christ's future kingdom.

Do you take the passage figuratively--that is, that the lion and the lamb won't really lay down peacefully together? Or do you just deny that Isaiah through this passage is teaching that there will be a restoration to Edenic paradise?

One way to interpret "good", is that it means good for its intended purpose. To bring about the elimination of evil.

I think that's about the only way to interpret "good." God obviously didn't have moral good in mind, since He called everything prior to day six good. We could paraphrase it something like, "And God saw that it was precisely as it should be."

With that said, I don't think that the intended purpose was "to bring about the elimination of evil." There's nothing I can think of to suggest that unless you want to go all gap theorist on me and presuppose this ginormous mythology about the pre-creation role of Satan, and the problems there are largely hermeneutical. Put simply, there's just no evidence for that in the text of Genesis 1 (or in any of Genesis or the entire Pentateuch, for that matter).

It seems much better to take the "intended purpose" to be everything working perfectly together, and that to the maximal glory of God. That's played out in the rest of the story, as from Genesis 3 through the end of 11, you have basically a long story about all the things that started going "wrong."

IMO, all that you have said makes sense if animals were created to kill. It's all part of the system God set up on earth. A system that sustains itself by the "circle of life". We can't have life without death. At least in this temporary world.

Of course, YECs argue that animals were not created to kill. And I don't know why we can't have life without death even in this temporary world. It's evident that if God is more imminently present, then a lot of things could be different than they are now. I mean, think about the Isaiah passage you first commented on. If you take this literally (as I think you should), then it's pretty clear that carnivorous activity in the animal kingdom will be drastically curtailed if not completely eliminated. And yet, it's equally apparent that for a thousand years the world will not only operate, but it will thrive in ways that it hasn't up until now. So if we need death to sustain life, as you say here, then how do you explain the fact that in the Millennial kingdom--which is still a physical, temporary world--that death will be extremely curtailed? It seems to me that are only three logical possibilities:

1. There exists, unknown to us, an ecological system that can be put in place by which all animals can survive on plant life and that Christ can and will bring about the conditions necessary for that to happen;
2. There exists no such ecological system, but God will sustain animal life through miracle; or
3. There will never be a time in which there will not be carnivorous, violent activity in nature and that passage that assert there will be are either figurative or mistaken.

Now, if you choose either of the first two, it isn't clear to me why you can't say that the same couldn't be said about the pre-Fallen world, which would been that it is not true that we cannot have life without death in this temporary world. Of course, it doesn't follow therefore that there definitely was not any death in the animal kingdom prior to the Fall; but it does mean that the argument that there had to be death prior to the Fall (as you imply here) is just mistaken.

If you choose the third option you can maintain your argument that death is necessary, but you would have to concede that those of us who think the prophecy is literal have biblical support for our own view, even if it simply turns out that we are mistaken about what the passage actually teaches.

------------------------------------------------------

Creation was good, but it was not perfect and can ever be perfect, only God is perfect.
Death is simply a part of life, energy doesn't die, it simply changes.

See my comments to Rick just above, as this just doesn't seem evident to me.

Now, it may be the in Eden, there was no death of any kind.
IMO, there was death, at leas outside of Eden and this is why:
Genesis 3:22-23
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.

God here voices His concern that man MAY become immortal and now that Man knows good and evil that is not an option, so God expels Man from Eden and Guards the Tree of Life so that Man CAN NOT become immortal.

IMO, this means that man was mortal.

I can respect this because at least this is an attempt to justify what you are saying from what the text actually says rather than from what to me amounts to wild speculation trying to inform the text.

I think, though, you've drawn too much from the text. If nothing else, you've very much oversimplified the matter. If I may quote from something I said many years ago on this board:

• I really wish I had Vos' Biblical Theology on hand . In chapter three, he discusses the words "mortal" and "immortal" and the various ways they could be applied to Adam (and Eve) prior to the Fall. He talks about three "levels" of each word, which I'll try to summarize. We can say a person is immortal in the sense that they are everlasting creatures. The soul--the immaterial part of man--never dies. Of course, the Annialationist would disagree with this, but excluding them, all would agree that not only Adam and Eve, but everyone is immortal in this sense. We could also say that the a person is immortal in that death is not inherit in them. In other words, barring actually getting killed by some outside cause, there is nothing in a person that brings about death. The disease, we might say, isn't there. Death must come from without, for it is not present within. So we can say that he or she will never die. They are immortal. The third way to speak of "immortal" is in the tradional sense of the word, which would simply mean "immune to death." The only being we know of right now that holds this attribute is God, and it seems hard to apply it to a pre-fallen Adam and Eve. Suppose, for argument's sake, that Adam had fallen from a high cliff. What would have happened to his physical body were he "immune to death"? Have you ever seen Death Becomes Her? It is a comedy about two girls who cannot die, which at first is fun, but by the end they are trying to kill each other. They end up destroying their bodies but still being alive in those broken and useless shells. It would seem a person who is immortal in this grand sense would require a glorified body, such as Christ has and which we will have in the Resurrection.
  
  Now, when we say "there was no physical death in man" prior to the Fall, we are saying that he was immortal in some sense. The claim itself excludes the first sense, and logic seems to exclude the third. Therefore, we must conclude that pre-fallen Adam was immortal in the second sense. Thus, Adam would have been both mortal and immortal. Nothing in him would have brought him to die naturally, but death was possible from without . . . at least, if we want to say that the natural laws of the world were to remain consistent! You actually brought this up yourself when you talked about the need for food implying the need for survival.

So there are multiple senses of the word "mortal" here. And again, before I make I final comment on your logic, I want to offer one other very old source that I've quoted before.

• But some one will say to us, Was man made by nature mortal? Certainly not. Was he, then, immortal? Neither do we affirm this. But one will say, Was he, then, nothing? Not even this hits the mark. He was by nature neither mortal nor immortal. For if He had made him immortal from the beginning, He would have made him God. Again, if He had made him mortal, God would seem to be the cause of his death. Neither, then, immortal nor yet mortal did He make him, but, as we have said above, capable of both; so that if he should incline to the things of immortality, keeping the commandment of God, he should receive as reward from Him immortality, and should become God; but if, on the other hand, he should turn to the things of death, disobeying God, he should himself be the cause of death to himself. For God made man free, and with power over himself. That, then, which man brought upon himself through carelessness and disobedience, this God now vouchsafes to him as a gift through His own philanthropy and pity, when men obey Him. For as man, disobeying, drew death upon himself; so, obeying the will of God, he who desires is able to procure for himself life everlasting. For God has given us a law and holy commandments; and every one who keeps these can be saved, and, obtaining the resurrection, can inherit incorruption. (Theophilus of Antioch (mid to late second century), Autolycus, Book II.27)

So, again, we see that there are several ways to understand the claim that Adam would not have died had he not eaten the fruit and the claim that, had he eaten it, he would have lived forever. It's not enough to merely claim that man was mortal prior to the Fall.

Second, though, and more to your point, even if we accept the blanket claim that man was mortal prior to the Fall, that does not demonstrate that there was death in the world prior to the Fall. Put differently, to be mortal simply means that one is capable of death, but that there is potential for it does not mean that it has actually happened.

[PaulSacramento]

Hi Jac,
Thanks for your reply.
Yes, I agree that the passage from Genesis 3 can b e taken in a different way also, it certainly lends itself to that.
I think that what it amounts to us the individual understanding of God's nature.
Would God allow His creation to be contaminated by Man?
Why would God allow for animals to suffer and die simply because ONE of his species made a mess of HIS way of living?
If God did not make living creatures mortal ( death being a part of the life cycle) then what provisions would God have made for procreation and over-population? ( perhaps limiting the birthrate for example).
In the end, IMO, it goes back to one one theological understanding of God's nature and whether one believes that God would allow death to enter ALL of His creation because ONE of the species screwed up.

[RickD]

RickD wrote:Because it's talking about Christ's future kingdom.

Jac wrote:
Do you take the passage figuratively--that is, that the lion and the lamb won't really lay down peacefully together? Or do you just deny that Isaiah through this passage is teaching that there will be a restoration to Edenic paradise?

I was just saying that the passage is speaking of the future, not the past, as I understood Celt was inferring.

RickD wrote:
One way to interpret "good", is that it means good for its intended purpose. To bring about the elimination of evil.

Jac wrote:
I think that's about the only way to interpret "good." God obviously didn't have moral good in mind, since He called everything prior to day six good. We could paraphrase it something like, "And God saw that it was precisely as it should be."

With that said, I don't think that the intended purpose was "to bring about the elimination of evil." There's nothing I can think of to suggest that unless you want to go all gap theorist on me and presuppose this ginormous mythology about the pre-creation role of Satan, and the problems there are largely hermeneutical. Put simply, there's just no evidence for that in the text of Genesis 1 (or in any of Genesis or the entire Pentateuch, for that matter).

It seems much better to take the "intended purpose" to be everything working perfectly together, and that to the maximal glory of God. That's played out in the rest of the story, as from Genesis 3 through the end of 11, you have basically a long story about all the things that started going "wrong."

Jac, I agree with what you're saying here. I wasn't saying that bringing about the elimination of evil was what the text meant by "good". I just meant that I believe that God created this temporary world with death, because it was the world He designed to best bring evil and sin to an end.

So yes. "good" means "intended purpose". And the ultimate intended purpose is to bring about the end of evil.

Jac wrote:
Of course, YECs argue that animals were not created to kill. And I don't know why we can't have life without death even in this temporary world.

Because the life of certain species relies on the death of others. It's just the way things work. A "perfect" ecosystem.

If you take this literally (as I think you should), then it's pretty clear that carnivorous activity in the animal kingdom will be drastically curtailed if not completely eliminated. And yet, it's equally apparent that for a thousand years the world will not only operate, but it will thrive in ways that it hasn't up until now.

I'm not sure if I take the Isaiah passage as literal. There's certainly a lot of figurative language there;

1 Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse,

And a branch from his roots will bear fruit.

And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,

And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.

5 Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins,

And faithfulness the belt about His waist.

Jac wrote:
So if we need death to sustain life, as you say here, then how do you explain the fact that in the Millennial kingdom--which is still a physical, temporary world--that death will be extremely curtailed? It seems to me that are only three logical possibilities:

1. There exists, unknown to us, an ecological system that can be put in place by which all animals can survive on plant life and that Christ can and will bring about the conditions necessary for that to happen;
2. There exists no such ecological system, but God will sustain animal life through miracle; or
3. There will never be a time in which there will not be carnivorous, violent activity in nature and that passage that assert there will be are either figurative or mistaken.

Now, if you choose either of the first two, it isn't clear to me why you can't say that the same couldn't be said about the pre-Fallen world, which would been that it is not true that we cannot have life without death in this temporary world. Of course, it doesn't follow therefore that there definitely was not any death in the animal kingdom prior to the Fall; but it does mean that the argument that there had to be death prior to the Fall (as you imply here) is just mistaken.

Jac, the way the "ecosystem" works, is obvious that death is needed for life to continue. Everything we see shows that death is a necessary part of life. I'm not sure what you're getting at.

[Jac3510]

Hi Jac,
Thanks for your reply.
Yes, I agree that the passage from Genesis 3 can b e taken in a different way also, it certainly lends itself to that.
I think that what it amounts to us the individual understanding of God's nature.
Would God allow His creation to be contaminated by Man?
Why would God allow for animals to suffer and die simply because ONE of his species made a mess of HIS way of living?
If God did not make living creatures mortal ( death being a part of the life cycle) then what provisions would God have made for procreation and over-population? ( perhaps limiting the birthrate for example).
In the end, IMO, it goes back to one one theological understanding of God's nature and whether one believes that God would allow death to enter ALL of His creation because ONE of the species screwed up.

But see, I don't see man as just "one species [that] screwed up." The world was created for mankind. When man fell, so did his whole world. Again, look at the language describing the future kingdom. It's described as a land of great abundance and of perfect peace. When nature fell, it made man's life harder. And lastly, I would point out that the Bible explicitly says that at least part of creation was affected by man's fall: "Cursed is the ground because of you." So if one part of creation could be affected by man's sin, why not any of the other parts?

You have the same principle applied analogously throughout Scripture. Why is it when the head of a household sinned, the entire family suffered? Why is it when a king sinned, the entire country suffered? It's the general principle of headship--when the head does wrong, the body suffers. The same idea holds here.

Lastly, I would point to Gen. 9:2. God says, "The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth." Now, this wasn't a direct result of the Fall, but it's hard to deny that, according to this verse, prior to the Flood animals did not fear people. So that's a huge change in the created order, one that I don't know how OEC advocates handle (what, do you think that for tens of thousands of years prior to the Flood that animals just weren't afraid of men?).

So the bottom line, for me, is that I have absolutely no problem with the entire world falling as a result of Adam's sin. Far from having a problem with it, I think that's a central point to the entire message of Scripture. Man has a special place in creation, and what he does has a direct impact on the rest of creation.

fdit: As to the mechanisms of how things would be different, all I can say is, "Who knows?!?" I take it that God is far more ingenious than I am. I don't believe it's true because I have all the scientific answers. I believe it because I think the Bible absolutely teaches it. Perhaps there will be a natural limit to conception (perhaps animals' sex drive will be massively depleted). Perhaps there will be a LOT LOT LOT more food than there is now such that the world will be able to sustain a LOT LOT LOT more animal life. Like I said, I don't know. But I don't have to know any of that. So long as we stipulate that God is, in principle, capable of coming up with such a system, then the question isn't what God could do but what He said He did do (or will do). And that means the question isn't whether or not we can answer scientific difficulties of producing a deathless ecosystem, but rather whether or not there is any evidence in Scripture that God has said that there has been or will be a deathless ecoysystem. That's all that matters.

------------------------------------------------

Jac, I agree with what you're saying here. I wasn't saying that bringing about the elimination of evil was what the text meant by "good". I just meant that I believe that God created this temporary world with death, because it was the world He designed to best bring evil and sin to an end.

So yes. "good" means "intended purpose". And the ultimate intended purpose is to bring about the end of evil.

Okay, but notice the part I put in bold. I just want you to see that, whether you are right or not, you don't get that from Genesis 1. So whatever Genesis 1 means when it says that the world was "good," it does not mean that it was the perfect place to destroy evil. That may be something that turns out to be true, but it isn't what the text means in its own context. That ought to drive us to go on and ask what the text actually does mean, though, and to leave the issue of the ultimate destruction of evil to the side until the text actually does address it.

Because the life of certain species in this ecosystem relies on the death of others. It's just the way things work right now. A "perfect" ecosystem.

FTFY

I'm not sure if I take the Isaiah passage as literal. There's certainly a lot of figurative language there;

1 Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse,

And a branch from his roots will bear fruit.

And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,

And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.

5 Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins,

And faithfulness the belt about His waist.

Then you are suggesting that we should possibly opt for (3) in my previous set of logical possibilities. And that's fine. I think it's wrong, but that would just mean that our difference is methodological. I think you should ask yourself two questions:

1. On what basis do I decide whether or not the language in this passage is figurative or literal? and
2. If the language of the passage is to be taken literally, then can and how do I maintain my argument that death is necessary in any temporary, physical world's ecosystem?

Jac, the way the "ecosystem" works, is obvious that death is needed for life to continue. Everything we see shows that death is a necessary part of life. I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Rick, my whole argument is that it is NOT obvious. If the passage in Isaiah is to be taken literally, then that shows that it won't be necessary in that ecosystem, and YECs have long argued that it isn't necessary in this ecosystem either. You don't get to just assert that death is necessary. You have to argue that. Look at the way the conversation would go:

YEC: Was there death before Adam's sin?
OEC: Yes.
YEC: Why?
OEC: Because death is necessary.
YEC: Will there be death in Christ's millennial kingdom?
OEC: No.
YEC: But I thought you just said death was necessary?
OEC: I was talking about the original creation.
YEC: So death was necessary in the original creation, but it won't be necessary when Christ reigns?
OEC: Right.
YEC: Why was it necessary before but it won't be then?

You see the problem here? If we grant that death will NOT be necessary in Christ's kingdom, then anything you say to explain how that could be true demonstrates that death is NOT necessary and could be applied to the pre-Fallen world. In other words, here is the OEC argument for death before the Fall:

1. Any and all ecosystems for any temporary, physical world will necessarily include death
2. The world prior to the Fall was temporary and physical
3. Therefore, the world prior to the Fall included death.

But the problem here is that if Christ's millennial reign does not require death, then (1) is proven false. It is NOT true that any and all ecosytems for any temporary, physical world necessary include death. We know that because we know of one such world that does not include death, and that will be Christ's millennial reign. So if you are going to argue that Christ's kingdom won't include death but that Adam's did (pre-Fall in particular), you need to account for the difference.

That's all I'm trying to say -- if we grant that Christ's kingdom will be a world without death, then you can't say that death is a necessary part of any natural world. And if you do say that death is a necessary part of any natural world, then you cannot say that there will be no death in Christ's kingdom.

[PaulSacramento]

I agree that Man fall effected creation for a very big extent ( understatement).
I believe that man's fall and his "out-of-harmony" with creation has caused some serious issues in the ecosystem, including the mutations that bring about viruses and plagues.
Man's war-like tendencies harm the ecosystems to a HUGE extent and since Man was to be steward of creation BUT become it's "plague" in many ways, it makes sense that creation is indeed suffering because of man's fall.
But the issue is how was creation BEFORE the fall and not just creation in the garden but all over the world and if it was so dramatically different ( no death) why would God allow for death to effect ALL of creation?

[Jac3510]

But the issue is how was creation BEFORE the fall and not just creation in the garden but all over the world and if it was so dramatically different ( no death) why would God allow for death to effect ALL of creation?

Because that is what sin brings, by its very nature: death.

I had a very long post written up, but I just deleted it. I suspect you'll argue that animals don't sin, and I agree with that. But ask why sin brings death and you can see why the principle runs across all life. Sin brings death because sin is ultimately rooted in the belief that the self is more important than the other. The great "irony" is that for any being to focus on its self ultimately results in its own death. I put "irony" in quotes because that's something that the world naturally understands when it is in direct connection with God. But in the Fall, the whole world changed because God withdrew to a degree. Man's world changed, not just because man changed it by his sinful behavior, but because the world in which man lived was changed so that man's "stage" would be more difficult for him to live in. And part of that change was that, for all creatures, the desire for self-preservation became their most important priority--even if that meant bringing about the death of another animal.

Look, if God were to take care of EVERY creature, there would be absolutely no need to worry about self-preservation. That we and animals in general have that need testifies to the Fall itself. So why would God allow ALL of creation to suffer for Adam's sin? Because it was the natural consequences of God's withdrawal from Adam's world. All souls suddenly became interested in themselves. In mankind, that selfishness is manifested as sin, since we are moral agents. For all other souls, since they are not moral agents, that selfishness manifests as things like predator/prey relationships.

In essence, you're asking me why God would allow mankind to become essentially selfish but not the rest of creation. Well, were that the case, then while mankind may have fallen, his world would not have, and God apparently thinks that it is important to a fallen man for him to live in a fallen world.

[RickD]

RickD wrote:Jac, I agree with what you're saying here. I wasn't saying that bringing about the elimination of evil was what the text meant by "good". I just meant that I believe that God created this temporary world with death, because it was the world He designed to best bring evil and sin to an end.

So yes. "good" means "intended purpose". And the ultimate intended purpose is to bring about the end of evil.

Jac wrote:
Okay, but notice the part I put in bold. I just want you to see that, whether you are right or not, you don't get that from Genesis 1. So whatever Genesis 1 means when it says that the world was "good," it does not mean that it was the perfect place to destroy evil. That may be something that turns out to be true, but it isn't what the text means in its own context. That ought to drive us to go on and ask what the text actually does mean, though, and to leave the issue of the ultimate destruction of evil to the side until the text actually does address it.

That's fine Jac. I never meant that "good" means bringing about the end of evil.

Because the life of certain species in this ecosystem relies on the death of others. It's just the way things work right now. A "perfect" ecosystem.


FTFY

Jac wrote:
Because that is what sin brings, by its very nature: death.

But where in scripture does it say animal death is a result of sin?

[Jac3510]

Jac wrote:
Because that is what sin brings, by its very nature: death.

But where in scripture does it say animal death is a result of sin?

You should keep reading what I wrote:

• Because that is what sin brings, by its very nature: death.
  
  I had a very long post written up, but I just deleted it. I suspect you'll argue that animals don't sin, and I agree with that. But ask why sin brings death and you can see why the principle runs across all life. Sin brings death because sin is ultimately rooted in the belief that the self is more important than the other. The great "irony" is that for any being to focus on its self ultimately results in its own death. I put "irony" in quotes because that's something that the world naturally understands when it is in direct connection with God. But in the Fall, the whole world changed because God withdrew to a degree. Man's world changed, not just because man changed it by his sinful behavior, but because the world in which man lived was changed so that man's "stage" would be more difficult for him to live in. And part of that change was that, for all creatures, the desire for self-preservation became their most important priority--even if that meant bringing about the death of another animal.

edit:

And more generally, it doesn't say it directly, but it seems to be a fair inference, indeed the only inference, given several other debated points. If there was no death before the Fall and then there was lots of death after the Fall, then it seems that the only thing that changed was man's sin. If the future kingdom has the death of animals greatly curtailed if not completely eliminated and if the future kingdom is a restoration to an Edenic paradise, then it seems the only thing that's really different is the rule of a sinful man versus a righteous king--that is, that the "curse" is lifted, and that curse can really only be attributed to the Fall. If "the word' refers to the entire creation in Rom 5:12 (as I have argued extensively in the previously linked thread that it does) then Paul is just flat saying that death came into the whole of creation by Adam's sin. And if "the creation" in Rom 8:19-21 refers to the whole of creation excluding saved man, then it seems that part of the curse it is liberated from includes death, and the only logical inference is that death was levied on creation as a result of Adam's sin.

Things like that. None of those are indisputable, of course. If they were, we would all be YEC. But I find each of them persuasive individually, and taken together, they (along with others) provide for me way more than enough proof of that the Bible teaches that, prior to the Fall, there was no death in the animal kingdom.

[RickD]

Jac wrote:
If "the wor(l)d' refers to the entire creation in Rom 5:12 (as I have argued extensively in the previously linked thread that it does) then Paul is just flat saying that death came into the whole of creation by Adam's sin.

But we know that sin had already entered all of creation before Adam's sin, because Satan was in the garden. You would agree that Satan sinned somtime prior to his being in the garden, right?

[Jac3510]

But we know that sin had already entered all of creation before Adam's sin, because Satan was in the garden. You would agree that Satan sinned somtime prior to his being in the garden, right?

No, we don't know that at all, and that for a plethora of reasons.

1. It's unclear what a non-physical being's relationship to time would be, so it isn't even immediately clear what it strictly means to ask if Satan sinned "before" Adam did;
2. Even if kosmos refers to the creation, as I argue, and not to mankind, it does not follow that angels and demons and heaven and hell and other spiritual realities are in view, for the simple reason that such things are not subject to death. Put differently, kosmos probably ought to be taken to the whole physical creation. Remember that Paul's entire point in that section is the presence of death and how it is that death can be overcome by and through Christ.
3. You don't have to appeal to Satan to make your point. You would do better to ask about Eve. She is a person who sinned before Adam did, and yet Paul attributes the entrance of sin and death into the world through ADAM's sin. What this tells me is that it is not sin in the abstract that brings death to all of creation, but it is the sin of the first man that brings sin into all creation. It wouldn't matter if Eve sinned or Satan or anyone else. The question is what the first man did, and what he did was cast mankind and by extension all of man's world under the darkness of the curse of sin and death.

So I think that, no matter which way you turn, the argument that Satan sinned before man doesn't have any bearing on the claim that sin and therefore death entered the creation through Adam's sin. And, as an aside, I think all this is just another reason that we ought to stay away from mythologies around Satan and what he did before the Fall or before creation and how that affected anything and everything. As far as the Bible is concerned, the purpose, state, and fate of creation is bound up with the purpose, state, and fate of mankind (and that could well include that of angels!). So we need to keep our emphasis where the Bible does: on what man did.