Did God create parasites/viruses etc?

[Xpistis sopheiaX]

Do you believe God created things like tapeworms, mosquitoes, and viruses within 7 day creation?

I think the traditional understanding of creation was that animals lived in harmony with each other before the fall of man, but that they became corrupted with the first sin and began to kill each other.

However in the case of parasitic organisms, like viruses, literally can't function without having a host to destroy. Were they something else entirely?

I recognize not all branches of Christianity believe in 7 day creation literally (And I don't know what the consensus on this forum is so I won't guess).

Being Gnostic myself, we consider that the world may not have been created by God, as satan is the "god" of this world (so the corruption in the systems of the physical world have always been with us). However this is not necessarily a literal belief and very open to interpretation by the individual.

I'm not trying to start a creationism vs. whatever debate (it's not important enough to argue about), but I'm just curious as to what people's opinion is about the subject.

To me it's an interesting question b/c I wonder how a perfect God could have created such miserable things. (But I think it would be much easier to accept that they were something else entirely before the fall of man.)

 

[Faulty]

You find that after the fall of man that the nature of some of the animals and plants changed, such as animals began to eat each other and plants began to develop such things as thorns and thistles, as a part of the curse we are currently under.

In other places, after creation is restored to what it once was, we find that the nature of the carnivores have changed again. What we see now as our "normal" in the creation is not the original state or the future state. All these currently harmful things will no longer be harmful, but will go back to whatever their original role was, something completely different, whatever it was.

Here's a glympse of how the scriptures describe the change:

Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.

The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah 11:5-9
​

 

[ViaCrucis]

Seeing as that

A) I don't think Genesis 1 is intended as a matter-of-fact historic and/or scientific narrative of how the cosmos came into being; but is rather a theological statement through mytho-poetic language describing God's supremacy over creation, the stripping away of divinity from the natural sphere and placing these things firmly in the realm of YHVH's creation, and finally as a temple-narrative wherein God is constructing a temple for Himself which is finalized by the act of placing His very image (humanity) to act as Imago Dei and priestly steward of creation.

B) These organisms are part of the natural world, which is the product of God's handiwork.

Then yes, God, who is Author if all creation, has fashioned all living things and the mechanisms of natural selection and adaptation have led to the evolution of these organisms and they are His handiwork.

That doesn't mean the ebola virus exists because of divine fiat, but it does mean that in this world which God has made which is governed by processes and mechanisms which He set in place these things do exist.

A tornado may happen in Kansas or a hurricane in Florida, and these aren't necessarily due to divine fiat; but rather happen due to the very natural processes and mechanisms of this universe. This doesn't mean God is the aloof clockmaker, because God can be intimately present in the natural processes of His creation. I simply mean that naturalistic explanations of natural phenomenon does not remove God from the picture.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[simonpeter]

Is this the standard Lutheran view - that genesis isn't literal? But then, arent the events too specific to be anything else?

 

[razeontherock]

To me it's an interesting question b/c I wonder how a perfect God could have created such miserable things. (But I think it would be much easier to accept that they were something else entirely before the fall of man.)

Everything in the story if Noah has symbolic meaning, pertinent to us. Why did God command Noah to bring in the "creeping things?"

This is essentially your question ... (I don't know is my answer, just thought it an interesting parallel) Some people have an answer

 

[Aibrean]

Is this the standard Lutheran view - that genesis isn't literal? But then, arent the events too specific to be anything else?

No it is not which is why he said "I think". We see parts of the Bible as not literal such as Revelations and parts of Daniel, prophesies where metaphors and such are. There is no indication that Genesis is to be taken at anything else than exactly what it says.

 

[lucaspa]

Do you believe God created things like tapeworms, mosquitoes, and viruses within 7 day creation? ... To me it's an interesting question b/c I wonder how a perfect God could have created such miserable things. (But I think it would be much easier to accept that they were something else entirely before the fall of man.)

Most Christians accept evolution. So, yes, God created tapeworms, etc. but not directly. IOW, evolution by natural selection is the direct creator. God is the ultimate creator.

What you have highlighted here is one of the main reasons Christians dumped Special Creation in favor of evolution in the period 1859 - 1884. Special Creation had been in religious trouble starting about the 1820s as the naturalists (as they were called then) discovered more and "nasty" things in biological organisms: like mosquitoes, tapeworms, ichneud wasps, etc.

The "fall of man" won't cover this. The punishments for Adam and Eve's disobedience are spelled out in Genesis 3: 11-19. They are very specific and very limited. Any idea that what you mentioned can be included in the "fall of man" is an invention and apologetic by creationists. It's not Biblical.

Evolution allows natural selection to be directly responsible for parts of biology that we don't like, like your tapeworm and mosquitoes and parasites. God created a universe where events have real consequences, and one of the consequences of evolution are parasites. It's one way for an organism to make a living.

 

[Bear.Fr00t]

God doesn't go into much detail concerning the curse resulting from man's fall, but I think this is the reason. God says he will restore the earth to its original state at some time in the future, and I don't think we'll have to deal with parasites and viruses at that time.