Re: A response to the "No Death Before the Fall" artic
Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 2:54 pm
Well good. I'm glad we can talk through something anyway and come to an understanding and agreement.
I think you've got it.
God is not the author of sin. He cannot be. However, He has created this universe and this world in such a way that sin is possible. I agree with you that that ties into free choice to some degree, although I'll restate, I don't think we are capable of fully understanding all that is involved with it and simply framing it in those terms may be oversimplifying things.
Logically it does break down at some point. God is omniscient and omnipotent therefore even if He is not the author of sin, somehow, at some level, you have to say that even sin plays a role in God's perfect plan. I can't explain why that is the case. It seems self-contradictory. I lack the perspective of God and some of the characteristics of God that presumably would enable me to reconcile those thoughts. It's a mystery. Rather than continue to beat the matter to death the best path for me is to embrace mystery and take the cognative dissonance that those thoughts create and accept that these are elements of God's purpose that while seemingly in conflict nevertheless are both consistent with whom God is and what His plans and purposes are.
Or I may just be attempting to frame the question in a way that doesn't do the issue justice.
I don't want to enter into our previous discussion, but in the spirit you allude to it I would simply respond, there is certainly no reason that God couldn't declare and maintain the seventh day as especially Holy today as it was in the past to the nation of Israel. Our disagreement in that regard is over what in fact God has done and declared in this matter and we both, genuinely and sincerely have come to different conclusions, each believing the Scriptures to support our own position. That is an issue of our understanding of God's declaration and intent for the Church today, not an issue of either one of us discounting the holiness of God or His right to declare in either direction.
I believe there is every indication in the scripture and that it is supported by the evidence of the creation itself that death as a physical reality in terms of animals and plants was present in creation even before the fall. I believe that the fall had consequences within the creation itself. That is indicated by the introduction of things like weeds, hard labor etc.
I see all of this as consistent first in Scripture and then secondarily through science as necessary given the long periods of time that this world has been in existence.
That's what G-man was referring to by the way with his comment about death being necessary to avoid overpopulation. If plants and animals were reproducing and growing and yet no form of death occured either through plants being eaten or natural decay and loss of entropy etc. there would be a huge problem with populations growing and never decreasing. It's not an appeal to a direct passage in scripture teaching that, so much as it is an observation drawing a conclusion from the conditions being claimed by Young Earth Creationists and what that would have to mean if their theory were right.
There was death in the original garden before the fall. It's a question of degrees as to whether that involved just plants for food, carnivorous animals etc. To my mind the degree doesn't matter. If the appeal is to "perfection" in that western sense that we've discussed, then it's either all or nothing. If it's "perfection" however in that eastern sense that recognizes that God set in place natural cycles and self-sustaining systems which were already in place before the fall, even if the fall affected them negatively, then who are we to say that God's creative work even involving this physical creation with death to plants and animals is not fully in keeping with His plans and purposes?
God establishes that, not us.
I think you've got it.
God is not the author of sin. He cannot be. However, He has created this universe and this world in such a way that sin is possible. I agree with you that that ties into free choice to some degree, although I'll restate, I don't think we are capable of fully understanding all that is involved with it and simply framing it in those terms may be oversimplifying things.
Logically it does break down at some point. God is omniscient and omnipotent therefore even if He is not the author of sin, somehow, at some level, you have to say that even sin plays a role in God's perfect plan. I can't explain why that is the case. It seems self-contradictory. I lack the perspective of God and some of the characteristics of God that presumably would enable me to reconcile those thoughts. It's a mystery. Rather than continue to beat the matter to death the best path for me is to embrace mystery and take the cognative dissonance that those thoughts create and accept that these are elements of God's purpose that while seemingly in conflict nevertheless are both consistent with whom God is and what His plans and purposes are.
Or I may just be attempting to frame the question in a way that doesn't do the issue justice.
I don't want to enter into our previous discussion, but in the spirit you allude to it I would simply respond, there is certainly no reason that God couldn't declare and maintain the seventh day as especially Holy today as it was in the past to the nation of Israel. Our disagreement in that regard is over what in fact God has done and declared in this matter and we both, genuinely and sincerely have come to different conclusions, each believing the Scriptures to support our own position. That is an issue of our understanding of God's declaration and intent for the Church today, not an issue of either one of us discounting the holiness of God or His right to declare in either direction.
I believe there is every indication in the scripture and that it is supported by the evidence of the creation itself that death as a physical reality in terms of animals and plants was present in creation even before the fall. I believe that the fall had consequences within the creation itself. That is indicated by the introduction of things like weeds, hard labor etc.
I see all of this as consistent first in Scripture and then secondarily through science as necessary given the long periods of time that this world has been in existence.
That's what G-man was referring to by the way with his comment about death being necessary to avoid overpopulation. If plants and animals were reproducing and growing and yet no form of death occured either through plants being eaten or natural decay and loss of entropy etc. there would be a huge problem with populations growing and never decreasing. It's not an appeal to a direct passage in scripture teaching that, so much as it is an observation drawing a conclusion from the conditions being claimed by Young Earth Creationists and what that would have to mean if their theory were right.
There was death in the original garden before the fall. It's a question of degrees as to whether that involved just plants for food, carnivorous animals etc. To my mind the degree doesn't matter. If the appeal is to "perfection" in that western sense that we've discussed, then it's either all or nothing. If it's "perfection" however in that eastern sense that recognizes that God set in place natural cycles and self-sustaining systems which were already in place before the fall, even if the fall affected them negatively, then who are we to say that God's creative work even involving this physical creation with death to plants and animals is not fully in keeping with His plans and purposes?
God establishes that, not us.