A response to the "No Death Before the Fall" article

[Avin]

Hi,

This post is in response to Rich Deem's article No Death Before the Fall - A Young Earth Heresy.

Let me being by stating my views. I am a Young Earth Creationist, and have been for about 2 years, before which I was undecided for a couple years on origins issues, and prior to that believed fully in evolution, and learned about it at secular University classes, despite growing up as a Christian. I was a Mathematics major in college, and I spent some time wrestling with issues of epistemology and philosophy of mathematics as I was deciding what to do with my life, so I am not interested in discussions about the age of the earth or evolution that rest on scientific proofs because since that time, I have chosen to place full authority for my beliefs on scripture and only used methodologies such as the scientific method or literary criticism to expound on that core set of ideas. As I said, I was still undecided about evolution even after accepting the authority of scripture for a couple years; what settled me on YEC was in fact the Death-Before-the-Fall issue, primarily as it relates to Christian stewardship over creation.

Regarding this article, I have to say that this is the most convincing and complete OEC-supporting article I have read that directly addresses this issue. Others I have found to seem to skirt around the issue, ignore it, or address primarily only a strawman interpretation of the YEC position. Even this article in many places I think commits similar logical fallacies, but there remains the fact that it is the best attempt I have seen and I am interested in seeing more after an adequate response. Does the author, Rich Deem, post on these message boards? If not, I understand that there are many others here who share similar views, and I would be interested in a discussion specifically relating to the topic of the YEC and OEC interpretations of Sin, Death, and how they relate to the Fall.

To begin with, to elaborate on my position, I am defending the position of no human or higher animal death, not plant death as we currently understand it. I think the article is rather dubious as it relates to plant death however. I am of the position that as the Bible regards death, it does not consider plants to truly die in the same sense that animals or humans do, although the Bible clearly does use references to death in relation to plants - not because the Bible considers the plants capable of death, but rather as a common personification of plants, in a similar way that even today we would speak of things dying that didn't really live. For instance, I might say "the wind died." This does not mean I think the wind was once a living being, but rather that it withered away and ceased. In this way, plants can be spoken of as dying when they cease to grow of their own accord, perhaps, and you can therefore make analogies between human death and this death of plants. This sort of death is different from the death of animals and humans, however, whose life consists of both body and "nephesh", and the death in question is the death of the latter, the breath of life.

The next point is the creation of carnivores, which is claimed were created as carnivores on day 6. I submit that the Biblical text uses the language of the present at the time of Moses; animals by then were certainly carniverous and the Genesis 1 description says when they were created, but the fact that they were created then does not necessitate that they were actually carnivorous creatures at the time. In fact I think it suggests otherwise by the use of giving plants to eat, and that to argue that this is a reference to the bottom of the food chain of animals requires a stretch of interpretation that the Hebrew people would not have made. Furthermore, the same idea applies to the names Adam gave the creatures; in fact Genesis does not even record the exact names Adam gave, and it does not immediately follow that by the time of Moses, the Hebrew people necessarily used the same names for animals that the antediluvians did.

The argument that Adam did not need clarification about what death was is somewhat intriguing; however, it is an argument from silence. Given sufficient reason to accept this I would, however it seems just as reasonable that this portion of the conversation was omitted, especially since not a single word is recorded as spoken by Adam until the creation of Eve, and also because the account is being written at a time when death is well known, so this portion of the conversation would be useless for the Torah reader or listener.

The next objection presented by the article is the idea that God judged or "changed" the animals. No YEC source I know of requires that God physically altered the animals (I have seen a number of claims that the physical features we think of today as being associated with carniverous activity could easily have been used for less violent purposes originally), however, even if this were the case, this hardly seems to contradict scripture regarding God resting on the seventh day. After all, what would the author describe miracles, such as turning water into wine, as? Clearly the Bible does record a definite change in animals after the flood, so why is it impossible after the fall?

Second, the article presents the idea that it is unjust of God to "judge" the animals for the sins of the humans. This seems the most interesting argument of them all. Later in this same article, the author, in defense of OEC, argues that the death of animals is indeed consistent with the character of God and not an evil thing. I disagree obviously, but if the author's opinion is correct, why does he then think it is wrong of God to institute this process at this time? This seems a rather inconsistent position to hold; that it's alright if God had instituted it millions of years ago without anyone doing anything wrong, but it's wrong for God to impose it on them in response to something else a few thousand years ago! Elsewhere I have heard the idea, from theistic evolutionists and Old Earth Creationists, that animal death is a result of the rebellion of Satan. I think the author of this article would agree with me that this doctine presents the victory to Satan; to thwart God's good creation with no fault of the creation itself. However, my interpretation seems more justified in comparison: humans were actually given the divine responsibility of being stewards over creation; angels were not. Therefore, when they rejected their position of submission to God, those who were in submission to them were in turn affected. It is certainly a Biblical, as well as natural, idea that followers will suffer for the shortcomings of their leader - a parallel is the plague on the people of Israel for David's sin in relying on the strength of his arms. The people who died of that plague were not responsible for David's sin in the same sense that the animals, other than the serpent of course, were not responsible for Adam's decision. God did not judge the innocent: it was David who was steward over those people, and so in a sense it was David who judged them, just as it was Adam who pronounced judgement on the animals when he rejected his responsibilities to them. The animals' death was not a divine punishment but a direct natural consequence of the fact that death in an abstract sense was now given authority instead of Adam's former rightful stewardship. Both the Romans and Corinthians scriptures directly correspond to this, moving from the general - abstractly speaking of death being introduced in a universal sense - to the specific - that humans physically die and humans will physically be resurrected. So in addition, of course I don't think animals will be resurrected from the dead!

As mentioned before, I do think that animal death being pronounced "very good" from creation is inconsistent with the character of God, however the point is taken that many YEC sites use this as a primarily emotional appeal. Still, I find the author's theological points very disturbing: that animals are not under God's law? What then was the point of the task of the humans' stewardship over creation? I believe God had set up a "chain of command" in creation, which was of course broken by human sin, and so corrupted. Yet it is still today the task of humans to have stewardship over creation; to for instance turn the now self-serving ways of the animals back to serving humans and therefore God, or to care for the environment and protect the natural goodness of God's creation from being destroyed by the selfish acts of both animals and humans alike. Furthermore, consider Biblical examples such as Balaam's donkey: if the donkey was not indeed under God's law, why should the donkey refuse its human master who urged it on so? What about the fig tree that Jesus cursed? Not even an animal (and as above, I do not think the Bible would think of it as "alive" in the same sense of an animal), but it was still expected to bear fruit in the presence of its Lord, and it was in fact "judged" for not doing so. A God who created beings that were not under his law, providence, and care, does not sound like the God I worship. It is indeed because of this that the slaughter of animals for sacrifice is significant; otherwise there is no sacrifice. What can we say for the comparison to the slaughter of the Lamb of God to take away our sins? Why is that significant, if the death of animals are not? Even in this case, death is a horrible thing and it is precisely because it is so horrible, for animals or humans, that it is sufficient to atone for our sins.

In summary, to me the stewardship of humans over a perfect creation and their subsequent rejection is the only explanation that offers a satisfactory answer to the problem of animal death. This is the interpretation I had as I read scripture in the time I was searching to settle my opinion on origins questions, and since then I have grown more certain that this is the proper way to understand scripture as I have learned a bit about Hebrew myself (still working on this), researched the cultural contexts in the Ancient Near East during Biblical times, and encountered other apologetics for these questions. Rich Deem's article presents a good smattering of arguments against the YEC position, but I would like to see more: if there is substance behind the OEC position, I hope that supporters will read this post, try to understand my position and my responses, and try to better address these issues without resorting to strawman arguments or appeals to "science" or even a reading of scripture that is dependent on their preconceptions of science.

Respectfully,
Avin Fernando

[bizzt]

Welcome Avin,

I Believe in the Bible Entirely as you do. The Scriptures were written and Inspired by God. I also believe in a Literal Translation of Genesis HOWEVER I do not believe that a Day means 24 hours... On that note I think Kurieuo would be able to answer more specifically and give you greater detail then I ever Could. Hope you will enjoy Discussing and visit often

[Jac3510]

I'll actually be really interested to see how this goes. I grew up completely YEC, and since 2000 I've turned to leaning very, very heavily in the OEC direction, although I've never gotten around to a full commitment (just about 99% ). I've been studying the arguments on both sides for some time now, and I feel the vast majority of the evidence goes to the OEC'ists, but there are a few points in the position that have always been a bit sticky for me.

In other words, I could give you what I think will be the stock answers, but I want to see what some others have to say on it first . . .

Welcome to the boards, and God bless

[Ark~Magic]

Welcome, sir! Hope you enjoy our forums!

Here's an article professing a similar view ([love] whether you agree with it or not!):
http://doesgodexist.org/MarApr01/WasThe ... itual.html

[Avin]

Hi Ark Magic,

Thanks for that link. I read through it, but unfortunately, that link was addressing the death before fall issue primarily from a perspective of scientific feasibility, which as I said I am not interested in. It is my contention that regardless of what we think is scientifically possible right now, God is capable of having done, in a logical way, that does not entail "deceit", as some OEC positions accuse the YEC view of. It does no good to look at a passage of scripture, and try to determine using the scientific method in the present day whether or not an interpretation is correct. That is allowing the scientific method to be magisterial over scripture. (Furthermore, I'm not even confident the author of that article is scientifically well versed even, since he refers to for instance the "second law of physics" - which second law was that? With that phrase apart from the context I more readily think of Newton's second law of motion than the second law of thermodynamics. And then he makes the claim that YEC think it begins at the fall, which is not my position either).

The other claims that the fall is primarily spiritual seem to show support for the spiritual aspect of the realities being discussed, but none of the arguments presented exclude the physical reality that is tied into the spiritual, and the conclusion that "making the consequence of sin physical destroys the whole point of the story of the Bible" is entirely unjustified from the preceding statements. The same arguments about the spiritual reality presented through the creation and fall can be applied equally well to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, yet it is clearly a heretical view to claim that there is NO physical aspect to that; according to Paul, if the physical reality is not true, then we are to be pitied as Christians. I take the same view about the verses in question discussing the fall - the spiritual nature of the consequences are innately tied to the physical consequences.

[Jbuza]

I also believe YEC to be true. Guess what my dog eats grass, and dogs are commonly fed comercial feeds that are mostly grain, so I don't think that carnivours eating vegetation is unreasonable.

There seems to be no way to determine how long after creation the fall happened.

[henry]

Are you suggesting that carnivores chewed grass ? Surley they were not designed that way. How could such animals or insects possibly survive not having the teeth nor the stomachs ?unless you are also suggesting there was some kind evolution from grass eater to meat eater.
When Adam named animals did the whole animal kingdom parade before him ? Was the garden of Eden the whole earth or a particular location? If Adam fell of a tree proir to sin ,and broke his neck would he have died? The Garden of Eden was peculiar location specifically designed with him inmind ,any animals within that ground were domestic and as such I suggest herbivores. Outside of this idyllic paradise was a world as we have it now full of carnivores, and death was in the world. Why should God threaten Adam with death physical and spiritual if Adam had not a clue what God was on about? This is not an argument from silence as much as it is by implication. From a theological point you must separate the death that passed upon all men by Adams sin and that of animals , since animals are not subject the law of God. Adam is federal representative of humanity. By this hangs another tale and if youwant to know more I.ll tell you. Which it is not considered by the vast majority of christians who take the accout of creation in a literal interpretation. It cannot make sense. Besides genesis was not written to satisfy the idle curiosities of everbody who likes to; have everything neatly pigeonholed. It primarily an account of God disclosing Himself to humanity for a specific purpose.

PS forgive me for the typing errors or any grammatical and sentence structure.

[Kurieuo]

Hi,

This post is in response to Rich Deem's article No Death Before the Fall - A Young Earth Heresy.

Welcome.

Let me being by stating my views. I am a Young Earth Creationist, and have been for about 2 years, before which I was undecided for a couple years on origins issues, and prior to that believed fully in evolution, and learned about it at secular University classes, despite growing up as a Christian. I was a Mathematics major in college, and I spent some time wrestling with issues of epistemology and philosophy of mathematics as I was deciding what to do with my life, so I am not interested in discussions about the age of the earth or evolution that rest on scientific proofs because since that time, I have chosen to place full authority for my beliefs on scripture and only used methodologies such as the scientific method or literary criticism to expound on that core set of ideas. As I said, I was still undecided about evolution even after accepting the authority of scripture for a couple years; what settled me on YEC was in fact the Death-Before-the-Fall issue, primarily as it relates to Christian stewardship over creation.

I appreciate you introducing yourself, and the manner in which you appear to have approached this issue. I am not Rich, but I do share a lot of his views since some years ago now when I came to appreciate the many insights he shares on his website.

To provide history of myself, the first time I became introduced to this topic of creation was perhaps in highschool while doing "Earth Science." In light of certain facts, the teacher presented us with a range of Christian creation viewpoints. I really did know much then so didn't really know how to feel towards the various positions, although I remember feeling uneasy about some. Most of the time was spent examining how volcanos form, layers of strata, erosions, weather and so forth anyway, and this was simply perhaps two pieces of paper touched on for about 10 minutes in class. Most of my time up until about 20 was spent without really considering this issue; however I do distinctly remember thinking of the days as "God days," and never thinking they were really 24-hour periods or the like.

To make a comment at this point, I never did biology although I studied the cosmos a little within my Earth Science class. In the general science subject I never paid much attention either. I never needed to do much with science since my main interest was with computing and information technology which I went on to study at university. So I think it is important at this point to state that I was never influenced by an evolutionary position in my decisions regarding creation as this is a claim often leveled again Christians taking a different position to YEC. My take on the Genesis creation days was based purely upon my own understanding. That is until I was 20 and began listening to creation tapes by Ken Ham. Within he said something like, "there is only one main reason why people do not accept the days in Genesis are literal 24-hour days... and that reason is because they don't have faith!" Oddly enough I remember my listening being interrupted by Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on my door, and never returned to listen to those tapes again. I was a little annoyed that some "pastor" would say I didn't have faith; however, I remember taking aboard that the days were 24-hour days since, in my naivety, I thought he was the pastor and would know the Bible better than me.

The next time I came across this issue I believe was on this website at 20-21 years of age. I read Richard's Day-Age position. It rang true with my first held beliefs, and I became further annoyed at the scandal against my faith that was pulled on me while listening to those Creationism tapes. Not only did Richard sound a lot more nice and Christian, but what was said just rang of truth to my first suspicions of days being "God days" and really amazed me. I eventually picked up copies of Hugh Ross' "The Fingerprint of God," "The Genesis Question," and "The Creator and the Cosmos," and became a really enthusiastic online Christian debater, debating non-Christians everywhere. I've now mellowed a bit, and have tired of seeing the venom fly in Atheist vs. Christian debates, and seeing the swarming of Atheists against one or a very few Christians. One reason why this board does not allow non-Christians debating and tearing into Christians here is because I got sick of it, and I thought Christians needed to be able to dialogue and discuss these important issues amongst themselves. There is enough inside Christianity to discuss, without the constant interjections and ridicule of those outside.

Regarding this article, I have to say that this is the most convincing and complete OEC-supporting article I have read that directly addresses this issue. Others I have found to seem to skirt around the issue, ignore it, or address primarily only a strawman interpretation of the YEC position. Even this article in many places I think commits similar logical fallacies, but there remains the fact that it is the best attempt I have seen and I am interested in seeing more after an adequate response. Does the author, Rich Deem, post on these message boards?

It does contain good information, but Richard prefers to answer emails as he believes people are more open in them.

If not, I understand that there are many others here who share similar views, and I would be interested in a discussion specifically relating to the topic of the YEC and OEC interpretations of Sin, Death, and how they relate to the Fall.

I'll bite.

To begin with, to elaborate on my position, I am defending the position of no human or higher animal death, not plant death as we currently understand it. I think the article is rather dubious as it relates to plant death however. I am of the position that as the Bible regards death, it does not consider plants to truly die in the same sense that animals or humans do, although the Bible clearly does use references to death in relation to plants - not because the Bible considers the plants capable of death, but rather as a common personification of plants, in a similar way that even today we would speak of things dying that didn't really live.

Yet, it is important to state that plants are from a scientific standpoint considered life. It is also clear Scripture affirms vegetation as life, for example in Job 14:7-8 we read: "For there is hope for a tree, When it is cut down, that it will sprout again, And its shoots will not fail. "Though its roots grow old in the ground, And its stump dies in the dry soil." Only something with life can "die." In Psalm 90:5-6 we also have a comparison of the life of men with that of grass: "You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning-though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered." Rich never attempts to dubiously assume that grass is conscious or on the same level of life to that of animals, humans or even insects... only that it is indeed life. You may not defend that plants did not die before the fall, but Rich is also clear in saying "[plants dying] prior to the Fall is the extreme position of a minority of young earth creationists." Thus, if vegetation is life, and some hold to there being no death before the fall, then Rich is very right to point out in Scripture that vegetation dies. Your position however limits life (or life you consider important) to that of a higher category of life, so I don't see that you should have any qualms here with Rich.

Now the doctrine of no death before the fall I believe was introduced by Augustine in his theodicy that all evils in our world are due to the fall of humanity where Adam and Eve sinned by their God-given free will. To explain why pain and suffering in the world exists (and Augustine saw death as something that caused pain and suffer so considered it evil), Augustine attempted to get God off the hook by putting the blame on the sin of mankind. Augustine's theology has become largely accepted within much of Western Christianity; however, I wish to make some further comments on Psalm 90:5-6 above.

First, who is directly responsible for taking away the lives of men? We have in the Psalm that God is responsible for taking the lives of men, and therefore God it naturally follows that God is responsible for causing much pain and suffering to humanity from death. Thus, Augustine's theology which attempts to distance God from death is wrong if Scripture is to be believed. So if there is no reason to distance God from animal and human death, then there is no need to say that death came in as a result of humanity's sin.

The next point is the creation of carnivores, which is claimed were created as carnivores on day 6. I submit that the Biblical text uses the language of the present at the time of Moses; animals by then were certainly carniverous and the Genesis 1 description says when they were created, but the fact that they were created then does not necessitate that they were actually carnivorous creatures at the time. In fact I think it suggests otherwise by the use of giving plants to eat, and that to argue that this is a reference to the bottom of the food chain of animals requires a stretch of interpretation that the Hebrew people would not have made.

For an animals body to change from herbivore to carnivorous, many biological changes are required. Are you advocating some form of sin-induced evolution of carnivorous animals? What is it that would have changed—digestive system, teeth, jaws, claws, speed, strength, and other related carnivorous and predatory attributes? Would the animals which remained herbivores also evolved, for example, to have features such as camouflage, defensive mechanisms (e.g., how a lizard's tail breaks off), swiftness and so forth? What I am getting at is not only are great evolutionary changes required, but the whole environment requires changing so everything runs smoothly. Some of design characteristics we see today in predators and their victims are so fascinating, and seem so well thought out, that to attribute such creations to sin would be an insult to the true designer who made everything work so brilliantly—God. And if God made all these changes and balanced them within His creation, then God is still responsible for creating carnivorous animals which kill and eat their prey—not sin.

Additionally, if various animals changed into carnivores after the fall, then why did not all animals change? Why couldn't lions continue eating grass like a cow or horse as many YECs would believe they did before the fall? Why couldn't spiders be like other insects that eat nectar, but instead they eat other insects? Why did they have to change? From a YEC perspective, it seems like sin was selective in what it ruined within the "perfect" creation of an "omnipotent" God.

Finally, I see nothing in Scripture which requires one to say carnivorous animals were once herbivores, and that this changed at the fall. This doctrine seems to be read into Genesis through Western church tradition, rather than being an actual exegesis of Genesis. If the punishment for humanity's sin extended to all of creation, such a dramatic change surely would have been pronounced as apart of the pronounced punishment in Genesis 3?

Furthermore, the same idea applies to the names Adam gave the creatures; in fact Genesis does not even record the exact names Adam gave, and it does not immediately follow that by the time of Moses, the Hebrew people necessarily used the same names for animals that the antediluvians did.

Perhaps the language is different, but it could perhaps be argued that the Hebrew retained the original meaning. Furthermore, it seems deceitful if the Tanakh was written for Israel, that the Hebrew word, chayyah (meaning "beasts" or "wild animals" in Genesis 1:24-25) would be used. For if these animals actually only existed in this form after the fall, then they quite literally did not exist in Genesis 1:24-25. The Genesis accounting would therefore appear deceitful to those it was intended for, since it represents specific kinds of animals which infact did not exist when Genesis says they were created. One therefore has to go to even further lengths then you have gone to argue for there being no carnivorous activity before the fall, and usually tall stories are well... just that... tall stories.

Yet, I understand this may not be enough to conjure belief in carnivorous activity existing before the fall, so I'll provide here some other reasons for accepting that there was death before the fall:

Reasons to believe in carnivorous activity pre-fall

1) The fact that God gives lions their prey, and ravens which eat rodents and insects their own food (Psalm 104:21; Job 38:39-41), that God withheld wisdom from the ostrich to look after her young properly—"unmindful that a foot may crush them" (Job 39:13-18). Given this, there is no reason to try disassociate God from physical death.

2) Furthermore, Psalm 104:21 reads: "The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God"? The passage is quite explicit that the lions look to God for their food. Furthermore Pslam 104 is known as the "Creation Pslam." Therefore this passage is actual support for carnivorous activity before the fall since it parallels God's creation. A page I'd highly recommend reading further is Psalm 104, The Creation Psalm.

3) From the same Pslam in verses 29-30 we have:

• When you hide your face,
  they are terrified;
  when you take away their breath,
  they die and return to the dust.
  30 When you send your Spirit,
  they are created,
  and you renew the face of the earth.

The last page I linked to comments regarding this passage:

• "Here we have an even clearer case for carnivorous activity. It is clear that God provides food for His creatures. It is also clear that His creatures die. But most compelling is verse 30, where God creates them, and renews the ground. God's creative acts ended at the end of Day 6, with the creation of man. Thus, here we have God creating animals AFTER previous animals had died and returned to dust! The renewing of the ground is a clear indication of the renewing nature of God's creation, i.e. the food chain. As animals die, they decay and feed the plants, which in turn are eaten by plant-eating animals, who in turn are eaten by meat-eating animals, and the process starts all over. God's self-renewing creation is perfect for a system which maintains itself, and is indeed "very good" as God states in Genesis 1:31." (http://www.answersincreation.org/psalm104.htm)

To add my own comments on this passage, it is interesting to note that this passage appears to fit well with a Progressive Creation accounting of God creating life, that life becoming extinct, and God recreating life again on Earth. As is said in verse 30 after it is expressed God takes away the breath of life from living creatures, "you renew the face of the earth." And all this at the end of Day 6, God's last day of creation!

4) 1 Timothy 4:1-4:

• 1Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
  2Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
  3Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
  4For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving.

Here we see God created creatures to be received as food with thanksgiving! God created us as omnivores to eat both plants and animals, which He created to be received as food with thanksgiving. Additionally, every one of God's creatures is good. There appears to be no exceptions here such as those animals which many YECs believe have been corrupted by sin. Now yes, some animals were forbidden under Mosaic law as being unclean, and some in Paul's time believed this still to be true. However, Paul here appears to be declaring all animals eaten by the Gentiles as clean if they are received with thanksgiving for God created them good and to be received with thanksgiving.

5) On the topic of carnivores, why did animals and humanity have to eat anything before the fall, unless eating was required to survive? It seems nothing at all needed to be eaten if there was no death, and no pain or suffering. Therefore what was the point of eating?

The argument that Adam did not need clarification about what death was is somewhat intriguing; however, it is an argument from silence. Given sufficient reason to accept this I would, however it seems just as reasonable that this portion of the conversation was omitted, especially since not a single word is recorded as spoken by Adam until the creation of Eve, and also because the account is being written at a time when death is well known, so this portion of the conversation would be useless for the Torah reader or listener.

I accept your point that such a conversation need not be recorded. Yet, it seems unfair for God to tell Adam that something would happen as a consequence, if Adam did not have a full understanding of such a consequence. Consider the following exchange:

God: Adam, do not eat fruit from the tree because you will surely die.
Adam: What is "die"?
God: It is when your body dies.
Adam: Err. Ok God.

Yes, such a conversation is clearly rigged for my purposes, but the problem should be obvious. I would contend, as I'm sure Rich would, that it seems unfair of God to tell Adam that he would receive a punishment of death if Adam could not really understand what death was. Sure it could perhaps be explained, but it would lack proper seriousness without visual imagery of a lifeless and decaying corpse.

Now I am not saying that God couldn't explain the concept to Adam, perhaps in a way an adult might explain it to a child who doesn't have a grasp of the concept of death. Rather, I am saying this is perhaps not enough to be fair to Adam about what the true consequences will be. Consider being told that a someone died. Yes, you understand even as a child, that this means such a person no longer physically exists. Now say you have to witness a close family member or friend's dead body. I'm sure many will agree such brings home the seriousness of death, and the reality of how it comes to all of us. I put forward that without a proper visual experience of physical death, that simply telling Adam he would die if he ate from the tree was likely not fair in communicating to Adam the true consequences of death.

Now I am going to leave my response here for now, but I intend on tackling the last issues you present particularly of stewardship. For now I write everything with the best intentions, so hope you are able to take everything I've written as such.

Kind regards,
Kurieuo

[Jbuza]

I was just reading through Genesis and I don't see where their is any information to tell us what animals ate. Why could they have not eaten prey animals?

[puritan lad]

I was just reading through Genesis and I don't see where their is any information to tell us what animals ate. Why could they have not eaten prey animals?

David Snoke has an interesting article on this online somewhere. He makes a great point that a YEC must believe in evolution at a rate that would put must Darwinists to shame. Afterall, a lion that didn't eat meat, an anteater that didn't eat ants, etc. would be totally different animals before the fall, from their teeth to their digestive systems. In this view, the fall didn't just affect this animals, but totally changed their entire physical structure.

Besides, we know that plant death occurred before the fall.

[Yehren]

And not just post-fall. To make enough room on the Ark, creationists must imagine post-flood rates of evolution that would produce new species of mammals weekly or monthly.

Yet no one seems to have found this process to be remarkable; at least no one ever commented on it.

Odd, indeed.

[Kurieuo]

And not just post-fall. To make enough room on the Ark, creationists must imagine post-flood rates of evolution that would produce new species of mammals weekly or monthly.

Yet no one seems to have found this process to be remarkable; at least no one ever commented on it.

Actually it has been commented on, just not in this thread.

The YEC organisation Answers in Genesis believe that natural selection and "evolution" is an obvious process but it also has limitatations:

Natural selection, operating on the created information in the original gene pools, makes good sense in a fallen world. It can fine-tune the way in which organisms 'fit' their environment, and help stave off extinction in a cursed, dying world. By 'splitting' a large gene pool into smaller ones, it can add to the amount of observed variety within the descendants of an original kind, just as with the many varieties of horse from one type. Even new 'species' can come about like that, but no new information. This helps to explain greater diversity today than on board the Ark. (http://www.answersingenesis.org/creatio ... waters.asp)

Infact AiG postulates extraordinarily fast evolving with the "kinds" of animals that were taken on Noah's ark, and I evolutionary speeds that would be beyond what many evolutionists would even dare to postulate. AiG even comment on this:

Creationists have long proposed such 'splitting under selection' from the original kinds, explaining for example wolves, coyotes, dingoes and other wild dogs from one pair on the Ark. The question of time has, however, been seized upon by anti-creationists. They insist that it would take a much longer time than Scripture allows. Artificial selection is quick, they admit, but that is because breeders are deliberately acting on each generation. The usual 'guesstimate' of how long it took for Darwin's finches to radiate from their parent population ranges from one million to five million years.

However, Princeton zoology professor Peter Grant recently released some results of an intensive 18-year study of all the Galápagos finches during which natural selection was observed in action.1 For example, during drought years, as finches depleted the supply of small seeds, selection favoured those with larger, deeper beaks capable of getting at the remaining large seeds and thus surviving, which shifted the population in that direction.

While that is not very surprising, nor profound, the speed at which these changes took places was most interesting. At that observed rate, Grant estimates, it would take only 1,200 years to transform the medium ground finch into the cactus finch, for example. To convert it into the more similar large ground finch would take only some 200 years.

(http://www.answersingenesis.org/creatio ... inches.asp)

I have several comments regarding this portion of AiG's article. Firstly, AiG do infact appear believe in very fast evolution, as even they admit, beyond what many evolutionists would even adhere to. Secondly, they forget to mention that the finches beaks reverted back to normal when the drought ended, but I guess it suits their purposes not to mention this point here since they are trying to prove that the extraordinarily fast evolution they require could happen.

Now if they are aware to the fact the beaks reverted back to normal, then they are just being plain deceitful in the last quote above by not mentioning this point. And yet, they are aware of the point that beaks reverted back to normal since they state it in another document of theirs:

Finches developed slightly different sizes of beaks due to a drought. However, when the draught ended their beaks went back to the original shape.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/cec/stu ... ord_MR.pdf

One thing I don't like about AiG (and I don't mean this to offend anyone as I'm only talking about AiG), is that they seem to choose science and disgard it as they see fit. And on this occasion they have been caught out. Infact it could be said AiG actually believe in a form of theistic evolution post-Ark, since they believe God does selective breeding or something, and then natural selection takes away certain traits to bring about a new breed (??). This mixture of God+nature is generally what I understand theistic evolution to be...

Kurieuo

[Kurieuo]

I was just reading through Genesis and I don't see where their is any information to tell us what animals ate. Why could they have not eaten prey animals?

I believe mainly due to Augustine's theodicy (solution to the problem of evil and God). Death is pain and so is seen as evil by some. Augustine therefore postulated that an all-good and all-powerful God would not create pain and suffering. Thus, in order to distance God from death which causes pain and suffering, he put forward that death came in at the fall when Adam and Eve freely chose to sin. As Augustine was a main theologian in the Western church, his theology filtered down quite easily throughout the West.

Although I disagree with Augustine on this point, not all of his theodicy I believe is to be rejected. For example, I think he was quite right in touching upon our free will side of things to say that evil often exists because of our free actions. Yet, the part of death only existing amongst animals post-fall is something I believe ought to be rejected for the reasons I previously made.

Maybe Avin has some other reasons why people accept animals did not prey upon other animals pre-fall??

Kurieuo

[Yehren]

Yehren observes:
And not just post-fall. To make enough room on the Ark, creationists must imagine post-flood rates of evolution that would produce new species of mammals weekly or monthly.

Yet no one seems to have found this process to be remarkable; at least no one ever commented on it.

Actually it has been commented on, just not in this thread.

Sorry, I meant no one commented on it at the time. It would have been a remarkable change from the pre-flood world, but not a word of it appears anywhere.

The YEC organisation Answers in Genesis believe that natural selection and "evolution" is an obvious process but it also has limitatations:

I've asked Jon Sarfati directly on another board to show me what the limits are, and how they work, and he declined to answer. In science, if you make such an assertion, you are required to demonstrate it with evidence.

Natural selection, operating on the created information in the original gene pools, makes good sense in a fallen world. It can fine-tune the way in which organisms 'fit' their environment, and help stave off extinction in a cursed, dying world. By 'splitting' a large gene pool into smaller ones, it can add to the amount of observed variety within the descendants of an original kind, just as with the many varieties of horse from one type.

There's a big problem with that. Any pair of vertebrate organisms can have at most 2 alleles for each locus. But most organisms have many such alleles. These could not have been inherited from a single pair or even several pairs. They must have evolved since any such pair.

Infact AiG postulates extraordinarily fast evolving with the "kinds" of animals that were taken on Noah's ark, and I evolutionary speeds that would be beyond what many evolutionists would even dare to postulate.

No kidding. Impossible rates that could not be supported in any reasonable way. And no one at the time thought all these new species popping into existance was in the least worthy of comment.

While speciation may take only a few thousand years, the evolution of new genera and familes would take much longer, even with the very intense selective pressure the Grants saw on Daphne Major. It won't fly, even with the absence of any evidence from human observation.

[Jay_7]

I dont think it meant 24 hour days, because the Bible says evening passed and morning came, that was the first day, and this was before the sun was created, so it cant be referring to 24 hour time. Because the earth didnt revolve around the sun as it didn't exist.

So, i also think alot of other things in genisis arent meant to be taken literlly. Reason being is that alot of it seems to be just examples of how God created the laws of the universe, and morals etc, especially the garden of eden story, if you look carefully.