A response to the "No Death Before the Fall" article
Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2005 11:45 am
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
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
). 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.