Carnivorous animals before the fall...

[Kurieuo]

Here is a question or two for YECs:

If God brought animals to Adam before the fall to name, and carnivorous activity only happened after the fall, then why do some animals have carnivorous names? For example, "EAGLE (from oKHeL, to eat or destroy)" (http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/16_names.html)

Secondly, if animals changed after the fall, then why did not all animals change? Why couldn't lions continue eating grass like a cow or horse, as 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.

Kurieuo.

[Prodigal Son]

k,

i'm not a yec. i don't know what i am, actually. i do remember you posted info. on progressive creationism (day-age?) and it made alot of sense.

i've heard many yec views and had nearly accepted no carnivores existed before the fall. so animals ate each othere in the Garden, you think?

[Kurieuo]

Yeah, I really don't see what the big deal is some have with this. Death itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, as for one it helps us to see that life is a previous gift God has given us. Secondly, it can mean we will try to live our life more fully, especially when we're faced with death's reality. Lastly, I don't believe God intended our world to be everlasting and perfect, but only as a stepping point to the final kingdom. If He intended things here to be perfect then 1) by God's omniscience it would be; and 2) this world wouldn't have been made finite.

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). All this suggests death was apart of God's intended design for this world, and therefore as much as we may find death off-putting, death is infact good if all God does is good.

Sadly, most Western churches tend to follow in Augustine's footsteps that creation was made "perfect," when infact this is never once declared in Scripture. Creation was declared "good" and "very good," but never perfect. Such is for the final kingdom that will be established in the end.

Kurieuo.

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

Lastly, I don't believe God intended our world to be everlasting and perfect, but only as a stepping point to the final kingdom. If He intended things here to be perfect then 1) by God's omniscience it would be; and 2) this world wouldn't have been made finite.

1) God didn't want drones worshipping Him, He wanted people to have the choice to worship Him or the choice to say, "PEACE, OUTTA HERE!" That's why the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was there. He gave them a choice. They could love Him and not eat it, or they could eat and defy Him. Take a guess which they chose (though, heck, we all would have done it....I'd have been first, I'm as curious as can be).
2) God can keep things from decaying. The Israelites had to walk around in the desert for 40 years, wearing the same sandals and clothes.....they didn't wear out did they. God's power could have kept the universe from falling to the onslought of the 2nd law of thermoydnamics and entropy...

[Kurieuo]

1) If God's creation was "perfect," then it is contradictory to say something could spontaneously go wrong with it. So if you advocate a "free choice" response, then the belief needs to be dropped that God created everything perfect.

2) I'm not sure how this deals with anything. God could certainly keep things from decay, but that isn't being challenged. The point is, He didn't keep everything from decay. Therefore God never intended this world to be perfect.

I'd simply encourage Christians to advocate a less contradictory and more Biblical position that creation was "good" and "very good," and it could be said "perfect for God's plans and desires."

Kurieuo.

[RGeeB]

God threatened Adam with death, so it follows that he knew what it was.

[Felgar]

God threatened Adam with death, so it follows that he knew what it was.

Well a rabbit could still fall off a cliff or whatever - you don't need to be killed in order to die, so maybe Adam knew death from that.

What about the lion laying with the sheep Kurieuo? Isn't that the result of God removing sin from the equation, and is it not reasonable to think that the original sinless state of the world would be similar?

[bizzt]

God threatened Adam with death, so it follows that he knew what it was.

Well a rabbit could still fall off a cliff or whatever - you don't need to be killed in order to die, so maybe Adam knew death from that.

What about the lion laying with the sheep Kurieuo? Isn't that the result of God removing sin from the equation, and is it not reasonable to think that the original sinless state of the world would be similar?

Good Call

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

God didn't keep the world from decaying because Adam sinned....

1) If God's creation was "perfect," then it is contradictory to say something could spontaneously go wrong with it.

It didn't spontaneously go wrong, it was caused by sin. After they sinned, God made sure they didn't get near the tree of eternal life, because He didn't want His people to live eternally in sin. So, it follows that He didn't want the world to be eternal once sin entered. Can't find the verse that says the earth will age like an old garment...

And Kuriendo, was the name eagle assigned to the animal by Adam, or people later on? I never read the through the list of Adam's names that he gave out....because it's not in Genesis. By the time the Jews (I'm guessing) got to naming the eagle, it was already a carnivore.

[Kurieuo]

What about the lion laying with the sheep Kurieuo? Isn't that the result of God removing sin from the equation, and is it not reasonable to think that the original sinless state of the world would be similar?

It's a bit of a stretch to apply prophecy literally isn't it? That passage is in relation to the new kingdom, I'm sure we'd all agree. Only the lion laying down with the sheep, symbolises the peace that will be in the new and nothing further.

Yet, to argue with your same reasoning, sin was in the world from the beginning. At least, Satan sinned and fell before Adam and Eve, and Satan was in the world!

Kurieuo.

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

I agree there are obviously parts of the Bible that aren't meant LITERALLY (some objects are symbols, for example)-Jesus' parables are full of them, believers aren't literally seeds. (what verse is the lion and lamb in? I looked above and didn't see it)

[Kurieuo]

God didn't keep the world from decaying because Adam sinned....

See this just doesn't make sense. Why didn't God make a spider drink nectar like other insects? Or lion eat grass like a cow? Why was the change only selective?? Also, how did such change happen? Did God begin using his creative ability again? Or did some animals simply evolve into carnivores???

1) If God's creation was "perfect," then it is contradictory to say something could spontaneously go wrong with it.

It didn't spontaneously go wrong, it was caused by sin. After they sinned, God made sure they didn't get near the tree of eternal life, because He didn't want His people to live eternally in sin. So, it follows that He didn't want the world to be eternal once sin entered. Can't find the verse that says the earth will age like an old garment...

Something did spontaneously go wrong, and you pointed it out—Adam and Eve sinned. This means God's creation was not perfect, as a perfect creation would never go wrong. If you could provide any passages which reveal God's creation was perfect in and of itself, then I'd be interested to see them?

Additionally, if God is all-knowing, then it follows that God "never" intended the world to be everlasting (since He would know we would sin against Him). To say God didn't want the world to be everlasting once sin entered, well it kind of makes God out to be stupid and not really all-knowing. I think it much better to embrace that God created our world with the full knowledge of it's finite purpose including knowing that we would sin (Christ was afterall planned before the creation of the world—1 Peter 1:20). And given such knowledge God created well aware His creation wasn't perfect, and well aware it would not be everlasting. Therefore, there is no reason why God wouldn't in the very beginning create everything to work as it does today. On the other hand, to say God changed His creation after we sinned, is to make out God was unaware to the fact we would sin, and therefore God had to make a few last minute changes to His creation.

Lastly, if "death", "pain" and "suffering" is a punishment for "our sin", then why did God bring that punishment upon the animals and our entire universe? To me, such makes God out to be rash and unfair with His punishment!

And Kuriendo, was the name eagle assigned to the animal by Adam, or people later on? I never read the through the list of Adam's names that he gave out....because it's not in Genesis. By the time the Jews (I'm guessing) got to naming the eagle, it was already a carnivore.

Perhaps so, although from what I've heard, different languages appear to be generally derived from one particular origin.

Kurieuo.

[Kurieuo]

I agree there are obviously parts of the Bible that aren't meant LITERALLY (some objects are symbols, for example)-Jesus' parables are full of them, believers aren't literally seeds. (what verse is the lion and lamb in? I looked above and didn't see it)

Isaiah 65:25

[Felgar]

Similar passage also in Isaiah 11:1-9:
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him-
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD -
and he will delight in the fear of the LORD .
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,
and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.

Your point is taken Kurieuo that prophesy is a murky place to find literal meaning. And if it were one example then I'd be inclided to agree. But the examples go on and on... Children will lead them, lion will eat straw, etc. They will neither harm no destroy because the earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord. (i.e. The knowledge of good not evil)

To me this passage says that Jesus will return, remove the wicked from the earth (including from the ground), leaving a world without death and pain. The very world I'm inclined to think was modelled in Eden.

I'm not sure why God would curse the whole earth because of Adam and Eve, but he did. ""Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life."

If I had to speculate I'd say it's because we were charged to take care of the earth, and having allowed sin to enter we ruined the earth ourselves. I'm not convinced that God caused all the animals to change, but I wouldn't rule out that sin itself caused the change. Sin causes (and actually IS death) Kurieuo... Why do you find that concept difficult to reconcile?

[Kurieuo]

Yes that passage exists in two places, but I don't get your point. It still doesn't argue for what you're trying to say existed at the beginning of creation. And it still doesn't take away the fact that it still refers to the final kingdom under Christ. Additionally sin was infact in the world via Satan. So our world pre-fall can't be compared to the final kingdom under Christ when everything is complete and sin entirely done away with. If anything your reasoning argues that there would have been death in the world pre-fall, because sin was already the world.

As for the curse passage, Adam and Eve had everything good for eating provided to them by God "within the Garden of Eden." The curse was more to do with Adam than anything to do the land (certainly not the entire Earth), as it wasn't until they sinned that they now had to till the ground and work for their food (as the full Genesis 3:17 verse has). So no longer would God provide all their food for them within the Garden, but the Garden would become wild and man would now have to work the land for his food. If interested, there is also a page on this website that talks on this passage—http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/genesis3.html.

As for death, yes I'd agree that a consequence of sin is death (I don't know what you mean by sin is death?). Genesis 2:17 says: "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Now if Adam and Eve did not "die" on the day they ate from the tree, in what way did death come to them due to their sin?

Kurieuo.