Death before the fall

[lucaspa]

Well it cannot mean that can it cause Adam did not die on the day and God is not a liar! But Adam became a mortal being the day he sinned and the countdown to his death began.

But it cannot be a "countdown", because God said Adam would die "within the day". Adam did not die "within the day", did he? Like you said. Therefore the "death" God is referring to must have been a spiritual death, not a physical death. Therefore Adam already wsa a mortal being before he disobeyed. This is reinforced in Genesis 3 when God kicks Adam out "lest he eat of the Tree of Everlasting Life and live forever". Adam had not yet eaten of that tree. So Adam was not going to physically live forever.

The special circumstances of the fall need to be taken into account here. The devil with calculating intelligence is the true initiator of the days events and the heaviest punishment falls on him.

Sorry, but you are not reading what the text says. It was not "the devil" that got Eve and Adam to eat the fruit. It was the "serpent". Satan appears in Job and he is definitely not without limbs and is in good favor with God in that book.

You are reading a lot more into the story than is there. For a YEC that wants a literal interpretation in terms of timing of creation and a young earth, you are surprisingly willing to read far beyond the literal here. There are no "devastating with ramifications not only for the physical world but for the realm of the unseen heavens also." The punishments listed in Genesis 3 are very specific and limited. Farming will be difficult, women will have pain in childbirth, the serpent loses his limbs, and there will be enmity between snakes and humans for all time.

BTW, consider the ramifications of your statement that the serpent was the devil. It means that all snakes today contain DNA from the devil, don't they? Do you really think that the devil is a creature with DNA?

Adam and Eve should not have gone along with his lies and sinned in doing so but there was a kind of simple naivety in their action being misled by a superior intelligence. The true sin here on their part was that they should have remembered what God had said over a voice that seemed to them at the time to speak with the same force.

The true sin was Adam and Eve placing their desires above what God wanted. This is why the allegory (and it is an allegory and not a literal story) is so powerful. Adam and Eve stand for each of us. We each of us disobey God at some point in our lives. It is why Jesus died for our sins. He didn't die for Adam's sin, but for your sins and mine. Because you and I sin by ourselves.

God in his mercy recognises that Adam and Eves sin while serious was a result of something. He acts justly according to his word but also wisely anticipating the eventual redemption of the naive Adam and Eve and the destruction of the devil by the actions of Eves offspring the Messiah- Jesus.

Sorry, but according to your version, God is not merciful. Instead, God is punishing everyone for the mistake of Adam and Eve. That is neither merciful nor just. The Bible elsewhere states that the offspring are not to be held accountable for the actions of the parents. Yet you have God going against this. It is not Adam and Eve that get redeemed by Jesus: it is you and I. You are waaaaay off the track of Christianity, Mindlight.

Again, that is the real danger of YEC. It is eventually heresy.

Evolution is really bad theology in my view from the point of view of understanding what it means to create. As somebody who creates things I sometimes mess up and have to redo large parts of my work. Overtime I have gotten better at getting it right first time but I am not perfect. God by contrast does not need to experiment with billions of false starts and got it right first time. In a mere 6 days he created the most complex of all creations ever and could say - yeh that's pretty good. He was of course absolutely right - it was amazing!!!!

But it is YEC that makes God imperfect and having to create with millions of false starts! I am afraid you have it backwards.

In evolution, God is not directly creating. Natural selection is. Natural selection is the secondary cause that God uses to created the diversity of life on the planet. Think of planets in orbit. Does God have to directly push planets around the sun? NO! God uses the secondary cause of gravity to have the planets move in orbits. Just so, God uses the secondary cause of evolution by natural selection to create new species.

Now, think of your position: God directly creates all the creatures. BUT, when we actually look at living creatures, we find 2 things:
1. Many of those creatures are not "pretty good". Many of them have designs that you would throw out and start over again. We can go into them later.

2. For right now, the fossil record shows us that God did not get it "good" the first time, but indeed did what you did: "mess up and have to redo large parts of my work". Look at just one set of animals: elephants. Today there are 2 species of elephants around. So you might say that God did "pretty good" with that creation. BUT, when we look at the fossil record, we find that there are lots of extinct species. For instance, we find the first species we can place in the same genus as the Indian elephant 4 million years ago. You, of course, don't believe in 4 million years, but, leaving out the years, that is the first species in the genus Elephas. Then there are ten more extinct species in that same genus before we see the modern Indian elephant -- Elephas maximus. All those, by your beliefs, are separate creations. That means 11 tries before God gets it right with the Indian elephant.

What your beliefs mean is a very imperfect god that is not very awesome at all. Kind of a bungler, really.

No, evolution rescues God from YEC and special creation. Now it is not God directly creating all those species of Elephas. It is evolution. God sustains the processes of evolution, but God is not directly involved and no longer directly responsible.

 

[crawfish]

Evolution is really bad theology in my view from the point of view of understanding what it means to create. As somebody who creates things I sometimes mess up and have to redo large parts of my work. Overtime I have gotten better at getting it right first time but I am not perfect. God by contrast does not need to experiment with billions of false starts and got it right first time. In a mere 6 days he created the most complex of all creations ever and could say - yeh that's pretty good. He was of course absolutely right - it was amazing!!!!

I understand your point, I'd like you to consider looking at evolution in a different way, and perhaps the TE perspective will make more sense.

Consider that evolution is not just important for the end-result; it is also important as a process. Natural processes do have a utility that purely supernatural events do not; they can be studied, repeated, tested and the results used for practical application. By demonstrating the long-term effects of the natural laws, in other words, the evidence left behind becomes useful to us.

I'm suggesting that evolution is not some trial-and-error method God used to ensure He gets things right. He knew the results from the beginning. The billions of years, the slow progressions, even the dead ends tell us something about the nature of God's creation.

 

[depthdeception]

I build applications for a living. The act of creation is a pleasing thing. With good reason I can look at my applications and say - that's not half bad! But the design has to factor in the fact that these will be used by a group of people whose ability to spoil, destroy and exploit is legendary - I call these people the "Users"! Even a perfectly designed world is no match for the users God has placed in the system. We have free will and naively or deliberately have always been capable of messing up Gods perfect creation. God understands all the variables and this is the best possible universe he could have created. But freewill is the most dangerous gift of all and mankind uses it. Gods design allows for breakage in order to accomodate freewill. We are not robots programmed to carry out instructions we are free beings in what was a perfect universe before we got on our hands on it.

I'm not sure I understand exactly where or what we've "broken." Yes, our hatred, violence, and sinfulness make for some terrifying existential crises in our personal and collective lives...but does our fallen view of creation mean that creation itself is broken or somehow otherwise diminished?

I would argue to the contrary. We still live in the "good" creation that God created, a universe that was meant to be a universe, one in which the cessation of biological processes is intrinsic to the very composition of biological life. The brokenness that we understand, then, is fundamentally located in our separation from God and clouded by our inability to reconcile God's love with our bent toward self-destruction. It is us--not God's creation--that is broken.

 

[mindlight]

But it cannot be a "countdown", because God said Adam would die "within the day". Adam did not die "within the day", did he? Like you said. Therefore the "death" God is referring to must have been a spiritual death, not a physical death. Therefore Adam already wsa a mortal being before he disobeyed. This is reinforced in Genesis 3 when God kicks Adam out "lest he eat of the Tree of Everlasting Life and live forever". Adam had not yet eaten of that tree. So Adam was not going to physically live forever.

1) Adam did not die the same day he sinned
2) God is not a liar
3) Adam did physically die.
4) The reason he died was because he disobeyed Gods command and was cut off from access to the tree of life as a result.
5) Adams potential mortality before the fall was irrelevant because of the tree of life and the presence of God.
6) The process that led to Adams in practice dying began with his sin and Gods punishment.
7) There was no ban on Adam eating from the tree of life before the fall
8) There is no indication that he had not already eaten from the tree of life - it is speculation to say that he had not.
9) Since Adam did not fully die the same day he sinned then this is either cause God meant something different from your interpretation of events or because there were mitigating circumstances which changed the judgment that was fair in the situation and because God decided to be merciful.
10) No separation of physical and spiritual death is made in the account.

Sorry, but you are not reading what the text says. It was not "the devil" that got Eve and Adam to eat the fruit. It was the "serpent". Satan appears in Job and he is definitely not without limbs and is in good favor with God in that book.

I believe one should read the whole of scripture to better understand its parts. So just as the command about the Sabbath in Exodus 20 reinforces the view that God created in 6 literal days so also the verse in Rev. 20:2 reinforces the view that the devil spoke through the serpent. Just as God spoke through a donkey so the devil spoke through a snake.

You are reading a lot more into the story than is there. For a YEC that wants a literal interpretation in terms of timing of creation and a young earth, you are surprisingly willing to read far beyond the literal here. There are no "devastating with ramifications not only for the physical world but for the realm of the unseen heavens also." The punishments listed in Genesis 3 are very specific and limited. Farming will be difficult, women will have pain in childbirth, the serpent loses his limbs, and there will be enmity between snakes and humans for all time.

So you say but that is not the way this passage has been interpreted by the bulk of the mainstream global historic church and your view is not supported by the rest of scripture.

BTW, consider the ramifications of your statement that the serpent was the devil. It means that all snakes today contain DNA from the devil, don't they? Do you really think that the devil is a creature with DNA?

No I would think of it more in terms of possession as of a herd of pigs by a legion of demons and therefore there would be no DNA implications at all.

The true sin was Adam and Eve placing their desires above what God wanted. This is why the allegory (and it is an allegory and not a literal story) is so powerful. Adam and Eve stand for each of us. We each of us disobey God at some point in our lives. It is why Jesus died for our sins. He didn't die for Adam's sin, but for your sins and mine. Because you and I sin by ourselves.

Disagree about what you mean by allegory. It was a literal historical event.

Sorry, but according to your version, God is not merciful. Instead, God is punishing everyone for the mistake of Adam and Eve. That is neither merciful nor just. The Bible elsewhere states that the offspring are not to be held accountable for the actions of the parents. Yet you have God going against this. It is not Adam and Eve that get redeemed by Jesus: it is you and I. You are waaaaay off the track of Christianity, Mindlight.

Again, that is the real danger of YEC. It is eventually heresy.

The soul that sins will die, yet since Adam - no one is righteous not even one. So since Adam we all live to die. Only in Christ can we be redeemed. The view I hold has been the mainstream view of the global church for most of its history. Recent attempts at reinterpreting the text must be interpreted in that light.

But it is YEC that makes God imperfect and having to create with millions of false starts! I am afraid you have it backwards.

In evolution, God is not directly creating. Natural selection is. Natural selection is the secondary cause that God uses to created the diversity of life on the planet. Think of planets in orbit. Does God have to directly push planets around the sun? NO! God uses the secondary cause of gravity to have the planets move in orbits. Just so, God uses the secondary cause of evolution by natural selection to create new species.

Now, think of your position: God directly creates all the creatures. BUT, when we actually look at living creatures, we find 2 things:
1. Many of those creatures are not "pretty good". Many of them have designs that you would throw out and start over again. We can go into them later.

2. For right now, the fossil record shows us that God did not get it "good" the first time, but indeed did what you did: "mess up and have to redo large parts of my work". Look at just one set of animals: elephants. Today there are 2 species of elephants around. So you might say that God did "pretty good" with that creation. BUT, when we look at the fossil record, we find that there are lots of extinct species. For instance, we find the first species we can place in the same genus as the Indian elephant 4 million years ago. You, of course, don't believe in 4 million years, but, leaving out the years, that is the first species in the genus Elephas. Then there are ten more extinct species in that same genus before we see the modern Indian elephant -- Elephas maximus. All those, by your beliefs, are separate creations. That means 11 tries before God gets it right with the Indian elephant.

What your beliefs mean is a very imperfect god that is not very awesome at all. Kind of a bungler, really.

No, evolution rescues God from YEC and special creation. Now it is not God directly creating all those species of Elephas. It is evolution. God sustains the processes of evolution, but God is not directly involved and no longer directly responsible.

God created the entire enormous, powerful, beautiful and well designed universe in just 6 days. Now that's creation! Your interpretations of the fossil record are what lead you to the view of false starts and transitionary states which you attribute to natural processes etc. I have argued elsewhere that the degraded, limited and spoiled nature of the evidence and the limits of the tools we use to explore the evidence mean that there is a considerable degree of uncertainty about your conclusions and YECs have alternative explanations also.

When I create something brand new that no one has done before I cannot refer to the example of others to find the most tried and tested solution. I try out a path of development which seems to make sense but in practice it may not work out and in doing it I discover the limitations of this or that approach. Unlike God I cannot envisage the best possible way forward before I experiment with it and nor can I see it in its entirety before I take my first step. God is not a man that he needs to experiment to find the right way forward. God is omniscient and has foreknowledge. He can get it right first time because He sees the whole thing from start to finish in an instance. God is not limited by the resources available to him nor even by the potential output of a finite being over a limited time period. God can create ex nihilo. He conceives a thing and speaks a word of command and it is so. The TE God is not an accurate reflection on who God is as Creator.

 

[mindlight]

I understand your point, I'd like you to consider looking at evolution in a different way, and perhaps the TE perspective will make more sense.

Consider that evolution is not just important for the end-result; it is also important as a process. Natural processes do have a utility that purely supernatural events do not; they can be studied, repeated, tested and the results used for practical application. By demonstrating the long-term effects of the natural laws, in other words, the evidence left behind becomes useful to us.

I'm suggesting that evolution is not some trial-and-error method God used to ensure He gets things right. He knew the results from the beginning. The billions of years, the slow progressions, even the dead ends tell us something about the nature of God's creation.

I used to be a TE and as such would marvel at a God who patiently and deliberately could direct a creative process over billions of years to His desired ends. So I know what you mean.

I have come to the view that this view of God is a bottom up view. It starts with nature and then looks up. My view of God no longer does this. It starts with Him as he has chosen to reveal Himself in scripture. Creation is ambiguous in revealing anything but his power, artistry and wisdom. His love and inner nature require we listen for his still quiet voice in the storm of natural processes all around us. Furthermore as in the Incarnation while Jesus is fully God and fully man , fully Creator and fully creature I worship him because He is the Creator. His humanity is full and important and makes Him accessible to us but His Divinity is the crucial truth about Him. He came to us to reconcile us with God and to save us from our sins. Furthermore I believe the Natural record to be a broken one tainted by its bondage to futilty since the fall. So what it says is less important and more than likely distorted by comparison with straightforward readings of scripture.

 

[mindlight]

I'm not sure I understand exactly where or what we've "broken." Yes, our hatred, violence, and sinfulness make for some terrifying existential crises in our personal and collective lives...but does our fallen view of creation mean that creation itself is broken or somehow otherwise diminished?

I would argue to the contrary. We still live in the "good" creation that God created, a universe that was meant to be a universe, one in which the cessation of biological processes is intrinsic to the very composition of biological life. The brokenness that we understand, then, is fundamentally located in our separation from God and clouded by our inability to reconcile God's love with our bent toward self-destruction. It is us--not God's creation--that is broken.

We were made in the image of God at the end of the 6 days of creation. As such we share in the transcendence of God over merely natural processes which He has created. In this respect we are different from the animals and similar to the angelic beings. Our choices have impacts far beyond our natural weights.

When we sinned and received Gods judicial punishment on us- creation itself was cursed by the judgment and subjected to futility. This is not a merely existential event it means earthquakes and tidal waves and other natural disasters as the harmony of creation has been disrupted. Natural evil is a consequence of human sin. There were no life destroying disasters before the fall

 

[crawfish]

I used to be a TE and as such would marvel at a God who patiently and deliberately could direct a creative process over billions of years to His desired ends. So I know what you mean.

I have come to the view that this view of God is a bottom up view. It starts with nature and then looks up. My view of God no longer does this. It starts with Him as he has chosen to reveal Himself in scripture. Creation is ambiguous in revealing anything but his power, artistry and wisdom. His love and inner nature require we listen for his still quiet voice in the storm of natural processes all around us. Furthermore as in the Incarnation while Jesus is fully God and fully man , fully Creator and fully creature I worship him because He is the Creator. His humanity is full and important and makes Him accessible to us but His Divinity is the crucial truth about Him. He came to us to reconcile us with God and to save us from our sins. Furthermore I believe the Natural record to be a broken one tainted by its bondage to futilty since the fall. So what it says is less important and more than likely distorted by comparison with straightforward readings of scripture.

I don't think your "bottom-up" analogy works here. Top-down implies that you interpret the details after creating a big picture; bottom-up would involve defining the big picture from the details. The latter is what you do with a "straightforward reading" of scripture.

And, in any case, it does seem that the further you work to make sure that parts of the Genesis story stay "straightforward", the more you have to work to find alternate meanings for other passages. For instance, to keep the integrity of the length and order of the events in chapter 1, you sacrifice the plain meaning of the same order and events in chapter 2. To satisfy your view of death from 1 Corinthians and elsewhere, you sacrifice the plainer meaning of Genesis 3 on this subject and come up with an alternate view.

This seems to be a difficult truth to communicate to YEC's. If you look at your theology above, you will see that it is anything but a "plain reading". That is the problem with YEC literalism - the bible simply has too much ambiguity and conflict for it to work on its own. You pick and choose which things you must take 100% literal; and then you find some way to make any seemingly conflicting scripture work through methods like symbolism or word manipulation.

 

[shernren]

When we sinned and received Gods judicial punishment on us- creation itself was cursed by the judgment and subjected to futility. This is not a merely existential event it means earthquakes and tidal waves and other natural disasters as the harmony of creation has been disrupted. Natural evil is a consequence of human sin. There were no life destroying disasters before the fall

Except that the Bible doesn't say this. The closest you can get to a theology of accursed creation is a single line in Genesis 3: "The ground shall be cursed because of you", which refers specifically to agriculture instead of a general kind of curse.

Think through your literal view of Genesis 2-3 with me, ok? In Genesis 2 Adam names all the animals. And they're all herbivorous. So Adam and Eve know that the lion has a pretty cool mane and eats bananas and oranges. And the crocodile has some pretty funky scales and grazes for algae on the river bottom. And the velociraptors probably run around making daisy chains for each other.

Then Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. Sin happens and before they know it they're getting their collective behinds hauled out of the Garden and the last thing God says to them is: "Growing food is hard work, and it's going to be the death of you."

So here's Adam and Eve wandering around the countryside. They haven't got the foggiest notion what wheat or corn are (since those are polyploid mutants of their wild-type relatives, and mutation just doesn't happen in a perfect world, so they couldn't have been in the Garden of Eden, right?), and they're trying to figure out what God meant when He said "bread", and they've just learned that sweat is what rolls down your brow on a hot day. Suddenly Simba (the grown-up version) runs across to them and Adam says "here, kitty, come lick my hand!"

And Simba obliges, and then (being Christian, presumably) thanks God for an easy meal.

... considering that God is about to, in YECs' theological estimation, turn the world upside down, His speech in Genesis 3 is remarkably short. God is quite literally going to drop them, unarmed, in a colosseum of formerly-vegetarian carnivores (not to mention earthquakes, and typhoons, and mosquitoes) and the only thing He warns them about is that farming is hard labor (and labor is hard labor too). Quite frankly, I don't think that's taking the Bible literally at all. I think that's reading an interpretation into the Bible that the Bible doesn't warrant at that point.

I think that the Fall is not so much about creation itself turning rogue, but us turning rogue and then causing havoc on creation. Think of creation as a little brother who occasionally wets the bed. (Not just a random example: early civilizations settled down on the banks of great rivers to do agriculture, where earthquakes or hurricanes weren't normally a concern but floods were the worst disasters ever.) And think of humanity as a kind, responsible big brother. What would you do if your younger brother wet the bed? You'd help him clean it up, air the mattress, and in no time your younger brother would be fine and you'd be fine with him too.

But then big brother grows to be 13 years old and, as any parent knows, that's when they start producing their very own brand of original sin. Now when younger brother wets the bed, big brother gets all upset and shouts at his little brother for being such a baby and whines about having to sleep in the same room and absolutely refuses to help with the cleaning up ("because it's not my fault!")

Nature isn't fallen; we are fallen, and our fallenness makes nature groan under our heavy yoke and makes us victims of nature's whims where we once could have been governors. Read Genesis 2 carefully. It describes a "garden" of Eden: a garden because it is cultivated, unlike the rest of the Earth which is not cultivated. And the man is put in the garden to "work it and keep it" (v15). Why on earth would a garden need a gardener if there were no pests, no weeds, no disasters which threaten the order of the garden? Even before the Fall there were natural forces at work which threatened to cause mess and chaos, and even before the Fall man was meant to be God's agent of order and creativity harnessing and limiting those forces for the good of God's creation.

But after the Fall, we thought of ourselves as our agents instead of God's. We impose our order and dominion on creation instead of God's, and as a result we rail and complain when nature doesn't play by our rules. No wonder creation is groaning and waiting for redemption!

 

[mindlight]

I don't think your "bottom-up" analogy works here. Top-down implies that you interpret the details after creating a big picture; bottom-up would involve defining the big picture from the details. The latter is what you do with a "straightforward reading" of scripture.

And, in any case, it does seem that the further you work to make sure that parts of the Genesis story stay "straightforward", the more you have to work to find alternate meanings for other passages. For instance, to keep the integrity of the length and order of the events in chapter 1, you sacrifice the plain meaning of the same order and events in chapter 2. To satisfy your view of death from 1 Corinthians and elsewhere, you sacrifice the plainer meaning of Genesis 3 on this subject and come up with an alternate view.

This seems to be a difficult truth to communicate to YEC's. If you look at your theology above, you will see that it is anything but a "plain reading". That is the problem with YEC literalism - the bible simply has too much ambiguity and conflict for it to work on its own. You pick and choose which things you must take 100% literal; and then you find some way to make any seemingly conflicting scripture work through methods like symbolism or word manipulation.

Of course there are difficulties with aspects of the passages and in reconciling the macro-level perspective of Gen 1 with the more localised view of Gen 2. But the straight forward meaning of the text here suggests a number of things which are well supported by the rest of scripture:

1) Adam and Eve were deliberate unique special creations of God
2) The world was created in 6 days
3) Since we have lifespans for Adam and his descendants to the time of more dateable historic figures we can guess at the age of the earth in terms of 1,000s of years.
4) The fall of man led to death and to a curse of creation.

 

[mindlight]

Except that the Bible doesn't say this. The closest you can get to a theology of accursed creation is a single line in Genesis 3: "The ground shall be cursed because of you", which refers specifically to agriculture instead of a general kind of curse.

I interpret scripture with scripture. Romans 8 affirms a different view of creation. The book of Revelation affirms a different view in which creation itself has become the tool of a wrathful God to bring people to repentance or judgment.

Think through your literal view of Genesis 2-3 with me, ok? In Genesis 2 Adam names all the animals. And they're all herbivorous. So Adam and Eve know that the lion has a pretty cool mane and eats bananas and oranges. And the crocodile has some pretty funky scales and grazes for algae on the river bottom. And the velociraptors probably run around making daisy chains for each other.

Then Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. Sin happens and before they know it they're getting their collective behinds hauled out of the Garden and the last thing God says to them is: "Growing food is hard work, and it's going to be the death of you."

So here's Adam and Eve wandering around the countryside. They haven't got the foggiest notion what wheat or corn are (since those are polyploid mutants of their wild-type relatives, and mutation just doesn't happen in a perfect world, so they couldn't have been in the Garden of Eden, right?), and they're trying to figure out what God meant when He said "bread", and they've just learned that sweat is what rolls down your brow on a hot day. Suddenly Simba (the grown-up version) runs across to them and Adam says "here, kitty, come lick my hand!"

And Simba obliges, and then (being Christian, presumably) thanks God for an easy meal.

... considering that God is about to, in YECs' theological estimation, turn the world upside down, His speech in Genesis 3 is remarkably short. God is quite literally going to drop them, unarmed, in a colosseum of formerly-vegetarian carnivores (not to mention earthquakes, and typhoons, and mosquitoes) and the only thing He warns them about is that farming is hard labor (and labor is hard labor too). Quite frankly, I don't think that's taking the Bible literally at all. I think that's reading an interpretation into the Bible that the Bible doesn't warrant at that point.

I think that the Fall is not so much about creation itself turning rogue, but us turning rogue and then causing havoc on creation. Think of creation as a little brother who occasionally wets the bed. (Not just a random example: early civilizations settled down on the banks of great rivers to do agriculture, where earthquakes or hurricanes weren't normally a concern but floods were the worst disasters ever.) And think of humanity as a kind, responsible big brother. What would you do if your younger brother wet the bed? You'd help him clean it up, air the mattress, and in no time your younger brother would be fine and you'd be fine with him too.

But then big brother grows to be 13 years old and, as any parent knows, that's when they start producing their very own brand of original sin. Now when younger brother wets the bed, big brother gets all upset and shouts at his little brother for being such a baby and whines about having to sleep in the same room and absolutely refuses to help with the cleaning up ("because it's not my fault!")

You are a funny man and you write well. But I think this is spin doctoring not being true to the text. I understand your analogy and what you are trying to say. But I disagree that this is simply a matter of existential persception of creation. Augustine notions of original sin messing up our very desires may be an interesting analogy here. The main reason for disagreeing with your view that its all existential in the end is that whichever bubble of existential existence you happen to inhabit we all end up dying. Death bursts all of our bubbles. Well it did not before the fall so something has changed that has messed us up physically down to the cellular level. Since physically we are interwined with creation- we came from dust and will return to it - this fundamental brokenness to our design cannot be separated from the world we inhabit. Creation is broken- entropy is real- it is bondage to futility- the clock is running out.

Cultivation of wheat developed as farmers saw one crop produced more food than another so these seeds were reused. In a relatively short period of time mans choices produce the desired result of a selected version that produces more of the good stuff and less of the straw.
Also unlike with an orchard it required tilling the soil itself- see later comments.

Vegetarian lions and algae eating crocs are very hard to believe in I grant you and I do not have an answer for that one right now.

Nature isn't fallen; we are fallen, and our fallenness makes nature groan under our heavy yoke and makes us victims of nature's whims where we once could have been governors.

Nature is inanimate not personal- it falls with us and is restored with us. I hold an anthropomorhic view of its value. We are still its masters even after the fall- but yes we are both harsher and nature is harder to govern because of what we have done.

Read Genesis 2 carefully. It describes a "garden" of Eden: a garden because it is cultivated, unlike the rest of the Earth which is not cultivated. And the man is put in the garden to "work it and keep it" (v15). Why on earth would a garden need a gardener if there were no pests, no weeds, no disasters which threaten the order of the garden? Even before the Fall there were natural forces at work which threatened to cause mess and chaos, and even before the Fall man was meant to be God's agent of order and creativity harnessing and limiting those forces for the good of God's creation.

But after the Fall, we thought of ourselves as our agents instead of God's. We impose our order and dominion on creation instead of God's, and as a result we rail and complain when nature doesn't play by our rules. No wonder creation is groaning and waiting for redemption!

Cultivating is not just pest control, weeding and disaster management. The words used to describe the gardeners role were care for and maintain the trees of the orchard. This was an orchard God planted with the very best trees and made to grow from the soil. After the fall Adam no longer has this level of provision and must grow stuff from the ground up- actually cultivate the ground- but the ground (indeed as is later made apparent) the whole of creation is cursed because of his fall. To the point indeed where it must all be destroyed and remade at the end of things. So he had a fairly easy job - bit of pruning here and there of an Orchard God had set up etc but now he has it real hard.

The better analogy is the kid in his parents house been thrown out onto the streets to fend for himself after an expecially sheltered existence.

 

[mark kennedy]

One of the key concepts of YEC - that is, that there could not be death before the fall of Adam - has always seemed untenable to me. Many times, I've been in discussions over origins, and presenting information that is not being countered, when my entire argument will be dismissed by saying something along the lines of "evolution requires death before the fall of Adam, and that would destroy the very basis of Christian faith". This is a troubling statement because, as far as I can see, scripture does not support this idea.

I don't really see the problem, the only thing evolution requires is for Adam to have ancestors.

I was going over this with a friend and compiled a list of the results of the study of verses that I've seen YEC's use to support this idea, and have attempted to explain why they just don't work. I think it's pretty obvious. I have tried to be comprehensive (by reading about a half-dozen articles on the subject from AIG, ICR and other sources), but please let me know if I missed something.

Romans 5 comes to mind.

My question to YEC's is: why am I wrong in my assessment, and if I am not wrong (or have a strong point), what does that mean to YEC theology?

1) If death did not exist before Adam's sin, then God's threat of death would have no teeth. Adam needed to understand death before he understood the consequences of sin.

Death is the absense of life just as darkness is the absense of light. Adam only needed to understand he had a choice between life and death. Adam may not have understood the full implications of his actions or what all death included but he had ample opportunity to ask God about it since he walk with him in the early evening. There is no real question whether or not Adam understood what God meant when he said, 'you will surely die', he just bought into the deception that told him, 'you will not surely die'. Notice he never asked what the word meant.

2) The Tree of Life makes absolutely no sense in a garden where no creature could die.

It doesn't say that they couldn't or that they didn't.

3) When Adam sinned, he did NOT physically die that day as might have been implied from God's warning in verse 17. However, Adam's spiritual death did occur that day when he was separated from God. Thus, God's warning has to primarily indicate a spiritual death.

Adam still had a spirit, death came to him as a curse. Now he was driven from God's presense and there was a spiritual seperation but the curse was not just spiritual. The way it is constructed in the Hebrew goes something to order of 'dieing you shall die'. It's not always a good idea to be presumptive of the meaning of the words being used since we are generally looking at a translation.

4) In Genesis 3:17-19, it is important to understand that Adam is never cursed. Instead, the ground is cursed and increases his labor and toil in bringing forth food. The rest of the curse reads, paraphrased: "you will work the land from the day you are born until the day you die". This is not a statement of curse; this is a statement of fact. God is not condeming Adam to death here; he is condeming him to hard labor.

You kind of have a point there but not really. The curse was extended to the land but he was still under the curse of sin and death.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned—for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. (Romans 5:12-14)​

You really should consider a little cross referencing if you want clarification.

5) In Genesis 3:22, God prevents Adam from eating from the Tree of Life. It is stated that if he does, Adam will live forever. The clear implication here, in light of what is read above: Adam's sin was not the ultimate cause of physical death, his separation from the Tree of Life was! True, sin was the indirect cause of physical death because it led to separation from the Tree of Life; however, Adam's "clock did not start ticking" when he ate the fruit. It was already ticking and had always been ticking.

That tree makes another appearance at the end of the Revelation.

6) Genesis 1:29 is considered a command to all creatures to eat only plants. However, the text does not read as a command; it reads as a gift. Plants are being given as food, but there are no restrictions on eating meat. The text is setting up the "circle of life", where animals are placed above plants, and it is wrong to read this as an absolute command. Nature also strongly indicates this as well - there are carniverous animals who are built to eat meat, and many whose digestive systems cannot process plants. Now, we might suggest that the fall brought around a fundamental change that caused the change of some animals into a carniverous diet, but that would conflict with basic YEC belief.

No it wouldn't, YEC is a Biblical theology and the Scriptures are silent with regards to the eating of meat during the Antideluvian period.

7) Genesis 1:31 is always used to justify the absence of death before the fall. After all, if God is creating a place for Him to rule, and he called it "very good", then wouldn't it be perfect in every way? Problem is, the text "very good" does not imply physical perfection. It implies "apt-ness". God is saying that the creation is apt for His purposes, but the ultimate purpose of THIS creation is never revealed (I understand the arguments from Revelation, but won't address them here).

It was complete in all it's vast array, that is not the same as perfect. You can be a good guy or even blameless but it's really not the same as the righteousness of God in Christ. I think you are trying to make sweeping generalities based on percieved implications rather then explicit meaning.

Now God creating Adam from the dust or Eve from a rib, that's pretty explicit.

8) Isaiah 65:25 is often used to justify the absence of carnivores before the fall. "The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox...". This is viewed as a prophecy of a future of the perfection of heaven; and heaven is what our earth was before the fall. On first blush, it makes sense and seems to be a strong argument, but a contextual view makes this idea invalid. For in the same prophecy just a few verses ahead (20), you read "Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought to be a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered occursed". Wait a minute! If this verse is speaking of the upcoming wonders of heaven, then is it implying that our days in heaven are numbered?!? Because that would conflict with other parts of scripture, I will say "no", although discussion of what the passage actually means is beyond the scope of this email.

It seems odd that the Scriptures would be teaching an absense of carnivores when 'beasts of the field' are a general referance to carnivors. If you ever want to search this out you might try comparing some of the passages in Genesis to Revelation.

9) Now, the meat of the discussion: Romans 5:12-21. This is usually viewed as the ace in the hole for the death argument. But taking in mind my point in (3) above, consider this: Paul is drawing a comparison between Adam and Christ (the new Adam). "Just as sin and death entered the world through one man" is matched by "so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men". Adam's sin brought death, but God's grace through Jesus' sacrifice brings life. Let me ask you: are you going to die physically? No matter how much God blesses each of us, we will one day physically die. Eternal life through Christ is a spiritual life that comes through resurrection. Although the text *can* indicate both physical and spiritual death as it does not call out one or the other specifically, through the information above it would appear to be more correct to conclude that Paul is speaking of a spiritual death, or the separation from God which Christ restored through His sacrifice.

First of all, no I won't physically die should Christ return before I expire physically. Secondly Adam was our first physical ancestor which is why Luke refered to him as 'son of God' in his geneology. The idea of Adam having ancestors is unknown in the Scriptures, among the ancient Hebrews and the early Church. The question was never even considered until the Mythographers of the nineteenth century assumed it.

10) 1 Corinthians 15:20-26. This verse seems to be even more of a slam-dunk that the passage in Romans. After all, Paul is arguing that Christ had a real, physical resurrection, and through that fact we can know that we will also be raised. However, you get the same problem as before in that all men, even those who belong to God, will physically die. Verse 22 assures us of the same thing that Romans 5 does; that Adam's sin brought separation from God, but Christ's sacrifice and triumph over that spiritual separation through his resurrection means that we will inherit eternal life. "The last enemy to be destroyed is death" - when all of God's enemies have been thrown down, there will be no more separation from God. Physical and spiritual will both be co-existence with God for all eternity.

I honestly have no idea what you think was slam dunked here. We anxiously await the redemption of the purchase price, that is, the ressurection of our bodies. (See Romans 8)

Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory. (Eph 1:13,14)​

Some things are lost in the translation from the Hebrew text, some things are not. I don't care if lions were eating lambs because the Scriptures are silent on the issue. I do care about the creation of Adam and Eve, their sin and how the curse was broken at the Cross.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[crawfish]

Mark,

Thanks for the reply. I understand that you, like mindlight, do not believe the standard YEC notion of no death before the fall; however, the original post is a response to a challenge by a local YEC radio personality who stated that "evolution cannot be true because it would mean there was death before the fall". I am glad that you comprehend the unbiblical nature of this particular stance, but it is one that is commonly held and purported by many.

I don't really see the problem, the only thing evolution requires is for Adam to have ancestors.

Just like YEC does not require a belief in death before the fall, TE does not demand that Adam is a "special creation" and formed directly from dust. It does imply that other human beings existed at the same time. There are a few TE's here who believe that. I won't go any further, because it's will just distract from the intent of this thread.

Romans 5 comes to mind.

Thanks for pointing that out. My arguments are pretty much the same here as for the other NT texts, but I will address it in another post.

Death is the absense of life just as darkness is the absense of light. Adam only needed to understand he had a choice between life and death. Adam may not have understood the full implications of his actions or what all death included but he had ample opportunity to ask God about it since he walk with him in the early evening. There is no real question whether or not Adam understood what God meant when he said, 'you will surely die', he just bought into the deception that told him, 'you will not surely die'. Notice he never asked what the word meant.

The success of the deception shows the duality of God's statement. As when Jesus said "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life", so God is using a physical word to describe a spiritual matter. Adam did need to understand at least one meaning of the word for God's rule to make sense, and the fact that the serpent alluded to the physical reveals which.

Adam still had a spirit, death came to him as a curse. Now he was driven from God's presense and there was a spiritual seperation but the curse was not just spiritual. The way it is constructed in the Hebrew goes something to order of 'dieing you shall die'. It's not always a good idea to be presumptive of the meaning of the words being used since we are generally looking at a translation.

The meaning of the statement "dying you shall die", to mean two forms of death, is a blatant misuse of the Hebrew. A language without punctuation, the presence of a word or idea twice implies an exclamation (!). This is one place where the going assumption of YEC - the absolute history of Genesis 1 - is driving the subsequent text into alternate, and lesser, interpretations.

You kind of have a point there but not really. The curse was extended to the land but he was still under the curse of sin and death.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned—for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. (Romans 5:12-14)​

You really should consider a little cross referencing if you want clarification.

I am well-versed in cross-referencing and parallel passages, thank you very much. The key here is to let the scripture define the idea rather than the idea defining scripture. The curse ONLY mentions the land. I'll address the verse in Romans later.

That tree makes another appearance at the end of the Revelation.

To be fair, I did mention that I was avoiding the verses in Revelation. That topic was definitely more than I wanted to bite off at the time (context and correct symbology is very important when interpreting Revelation).

It was complete in all it's vast array, that is not the same as perfect. You can be a good guy or even blameless but it's really not the same as the righteousness of God in Christ. I think you are trying to make sweeping generalities based on percieved implications rather then explicit meaning.

I'm only debating the arguments that have been used against me. I am glad that you see things more clearly, at least in this area.

Now God creating Adam from the dust or Eve from a rib, that's pretty explicit.

...unless God is speaking in allegory to communicate a truth to an early, nonscientific audience. But again, this is a digression from the main topic.

It seems odd that the Scriptures would be teaching an absense of carnivores when 'beasts of the field' are a general referance to carnivors. If you ever want to search this out you might try comparing some of the passages in Genesis to Revelation.

I agree on the first part, but the comparison required a bit more development than I felt I had time for.

First of all, no I won't physically die should Christ return before I expire physically. Secondly Adam was our first physical ancestor which is why Luke refered to him as 'son of God' in his geneology. The idea of Adam having ancestors is unknown in the Scriptures, among the ancient Hebrews and the early Church. The question was never even considered until the Mythographers of the nineteenth century assumed it.

The question was considered long before the 19th century. However, the discoveries of the past few centuries have finally given the argument legs. It's no different than any number of other passages that have been reconsidered in light of discovery.

I honestly have no idea what you think was slam dunked here. We anxiously await the redemption of the purchase price, that is, the ressurection of our bodies. (See Romans 8)

I was suggesting this seemed more of a "slam dunk" from the YEC side.

Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory. (Eph 1:13,14)

Some things are lost in the translation from the Hebrew text, some things are not. I don't care if lions were eating lambs because the Scriptures are silent on the issue. I do care about the creation of Adam and Eve, their sin and how the curse was broken at the Cross.

This is why tools such as BlueLetterBible.com, which lays the original language out so neatly and conveniently, are so important. Or why it is always best to use multiple translations to truly get the idea of a piece of scripture.

I, too, care about the sin of all men, their fallen nature, and the restoration of our relationship through God through the cross.

I also care very deeply about scripture, how to read it, and how not to read it. I care very much about how bad interpretation, or misuse of scripture, both separates us and acts as a barrier to the lost to come to Christ. If I attempt to deconstruct an argument it is only because I believe it must be deconstructed to be dealt with honestly

God bless.

 

[crawfish]

Of course there are difficulties with aspects of the passages and in reconciling the macro-level perspective of Gen 1 with the more localised view of Gen 2. But the straight forward meaning of the text here suggests a number of things which are well supported by the rest of scripture:

1) Adam and Eve were deliberate unique special creations of God
2) The world was created in 6 days
3) Since we have lifespans for Adam and his descendants to the time of more dateable historic figures we can guess at the age of the earth in terms of 1,000s of years.
4) The fall of man led to death and to a curse of creation.

You have no idea how much that support falls when the basis for it - the historicity of Genesis 1 - is removed. Items 2 and 3 are eminently debatable with excellent hermeneutic. Item 1 is also debatable once you have accepted the validity of the reponses to 2 and 3. Item 4 is true, but the view of what "death" truly means is very debatable.

Again, you sacrifice the straightforwardness of some scripture in order to satisfy the straightforwardness of other scripture. You build and argument based on what you wish to be straightforward and it drives the interpretation of the other scripture. That is simply not the way solid bible scholarship should work, and becomes absolutely wrong with science proves *enough* that your basis is shattered.

 

[shernren]

I interpret scripture with scripture. Romans 8 affirms a different view of creation. The book of Revelation affirms a different view in which creation itself has become the tool of a wrathful God to bring people to repentance or judgment.

Romans 8 says that creation is frustrated and subject to futility and the bondage of corruption; it doesn't say what exactly those are. And the book of Revelations, almost by definition, shows creation acting in a completely different way from how it behaves in this current age, whether one takes it literally or not. So it can't provide any evidence about creation now.

You are a funny man and you write well. But I think this is spin doctoring not being true to the text. I understand your analogy and what you are trying to say. But I disagree that this is simply a matter of existential persception of creation. Augustine notions of original sin messing up our very desires may be an interesting analogy here. The main reason for disagreeing with your view that its all existential in the end is that whichever bubble of existential existence you happen to inhabit we all end up dying. Death bursts all of our bubbles. Well it did not before the fall so something has changed that has messed us up physically down to the cellular level. Since physically we are interwined with creation- we came from dust and will return to it - this fundamental brokenness to our design cannot be separated from the world we inhabit. Creation is broken- entropy is real- it is bondage to futility- the clock is running out.

I present two pieces of evidence:

1. Christians die physically every day.
2. According to those who believe in hell being bodily punishment, non-Christians will all be physically resurrected one day.

If physical death is applied on all Christians and will be removed from all non-Christians, how can it possibly serve as the punishment of sin?

Dying only bursts bubbles for the non-Christian. For the Christian, physical death is no punishment but simply a transition into a better life; perhaps physical death is no punishment for the non-Christian either - the punishment lies on the other side of what is just a simple door.

I'll leave the last word with Paul, who certainly shouldn't be taken literally when he says in 1 Cor 15:31:

"I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day!"

Try making sense of that from a creationist viewpoint.

 

[lucaspa]

I interpret scripture with scripture. Romans 8 affirms a different view of creation. The book of Revelation affirms a different view in which creation itself has become the tool of a wrathful God to bring people to repentance or judgment.

First, Revelations cannot possibly be read plainly. The entire book is in code, and we've lost the code. The only theological message you can really get from Revelations is succor for persecuted Christians.

Romans 8 does not present a different view of creation. The message of Romans 8 can be found in verses 2-3:

"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:"

Jesus sets us free from our sins and the resulting spiritual death. Basically, that idea of sin and spiritual death is the same as Genesis 2-3.

(BTW, notice that Paul here, if you really want to interpret him literally, leads the way to a couple of heresies in that he says that Jesus was only in the "likeness of ... flesh", not really human. So you need to be careful how narrowly you interpret Paul and use other scripture to modify some of his more radical and heretical statements.) What you are thinking of is verse 22. But that would contradict Genesis 3 where the effects of Adam and Eve's disobedience are very limited.

So, your interpretation of scripture with scripture is not really interpretation, but rationalization for a theory you want to hold.

The main reason for disagreeing with your view that its all existential in the end is that whichever bubble of existential existence you happen to inhabit we all end up dying. Death bursts all of our bubbles. Well it did not before the fall so something has changed that has messed us up physically down to the cellular level.

Sorry, but scripture is very clear that physical death was before the fall. There is nothing in scripture to suggest a wholesale altering of our cellular chemistry.

Creation is broken- entropy is real- it is bondage to futility- the clock is running out.

LOL! Entropy is not an indication that creationis "broken". Entropy was always there -- otherwise we would not have had to eat! We eat to gain energy from the surroundings to counter entropy within out bodies. But entropy is still happening: the entropy of ourselves and surroundings still increases, even if entropy inside us decreases. Entropy is part of creation.

Cultivation of wheat developed as farmers saw one crop produced more food than another so these seeds were reused. In a relatively short period of time mans choices produce the desired result of a selected version that produces more of the good stuff and less of the straw.

Notice you are advocating artificial selection and changing one kind into another. Evolution. Orchards also require tilling otherwise weed species will choke it out also. The implication in Genesis 3 is that weeds did not grow in the Garden and, therefore, it was very easy for Adam to tend the Garden to get all the food he wanted. As part of his punishment, farming is going to be difficult, with weeds trying to choke out the food plants.

Vegetarian lions and algae eating crocs are very hard to believe in I grant you and I do not have an answer for that one right now.

That is because they never existed. God made a complete creation, and that included carnivores from the start.

Nature is inanimate not personal- it falls with us and is restored with us. I hold an anthropomorhic view of its value. We are still its masters even after the fall- but yes we are both harsher and nature is harder to govern because of what we have done.

Genesis 1 affirms what everyone can see: human technology is powerful enough that humans can change nature. We can dam streams, cut down trees, hunt any animal to extinction, plant crops we want, etc. Genesis 1 affirms the power that humans have; that is why we are "in the image" of God. In terms of dealing with the planet, what we do is as if God does it.

but the ground (indeed as is later made apparent) the whole of creation is cursed because of his fall.

No. In Genesis 3 the "whole of creation" is not cursed. Just farming. That's all. There is no curse on shepherding, fishing, or any other food gathering activity. Just farming. It is a naive, and touching, explanation of why farming is so hard. You are reading a lot that is not there in the text. For someone who tries to "interpret scripture with scripture", what you are doing is interpreting scripture with your prior theory.

 

[lucaspa]

Of course there are difficulties with aspects of the passages and in reconciling the macro-level perspective of Gen 1 with the more localised view of Gen 2. But the straight forward meaning of the text here suggests a number of things which are well supported by the rest of scripture:

1) Adam and Eve were deliberate unique special creations of God
2) The world was created in 6 days
3) Since we have lifespans for Adam and his descendants to the time of more dateable historic figures we can guess at the age of the earth in terms of 1,000s of years.
4) The fall of man led to death and to a curse of creation.

Genesis 2 is not a localized view of Genesis 1; they are 2 separate and contradictory stories. That is because they were meant to tell different theological messages.

1) In Genesis 1 God creates men and women -- both plural in the Hebrew -- at the same time. Not one man followed by one woman, but a population of men and women.
2). In Genesis 2:4, the "heavens and the earth" are created in a single day. The word used is the same one used in Genesis 2:1-3 to limit the 7th day to a single day.
3) That is what Bishop Ussher did. However, the evidence God left us in His Creation says the earth is much, much older than that. Christians accepted an old earth by 1800.
4) The disobedience of Adam and Eve led to a very specific set of punishments, not a "curse of creation". Creation isn't cursed, just the ground Adam tries to farm upon. Nor did Adam's disobedience lead to physical death. It could not have. In Genesis 2:17 we are told that, if Adam eats the fruit, he will die "in the day". The Hebrew is even more specific, meaning that Adam has to die within 24 hours. He does not physicaly die, does he? Instead he lives for 900 more years. You can't ignore that. The only way for the passage to be true and God not a liar is for Adam to die spiritually.

Nor can there be a curse of death to Adam's descendents without contradicting other scripture.
Deut. 24:16 "The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers (2Chron.25:54) :every man shall be put to death for his own sin." (2 Kings 14:6)

Ezek. 18:20 "The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him."

Your human interpretation contradicts all of these. However, if we read Genesis 2-3 as it was meant to be read -- as allegory -- the contradiction disappears.

 

[mindlight]

You have no idea how much that support falls when the basis for it - the historicity of Genesis 1 - is removed. Items 2 and 3 are eminently debatable with excellent hermeneutic. Item 1 is also debatable once you have accepted the validity of the reponses to 2 and 3. Item 4 is true, but the view of what "death" truly means is very debatable.

Again, you sacrifice the straightforwardness of some scripture in order to satisfy the straightforwardness of other scripture. You build and argument based on what you wish to be straightforward and it drives the interpretation of the other scripture. That is simply not the way solid bible scholarship should work, and becomes absolutely wrong with science proves *enough* that your basis is shattered.

Well you have yet to argue that Genesis 1 like the rest of Genesis with all its historical accounts of real people and places is not an historical account. Are we talking Blochers framework theory here or some other way of avoiding a literal interpretation?

All 4 of those statements have been the mainstream global churches interpretations for the bulk of its history and was definitely the original interpretation of the Hebrew people closest to the original languages used in the text. The burden of proof is on TEs to argue their case here.

You will have to show me where I am being inconsistent cause I am not clear on where you are saying where I am so. So I cannot respond to this last accusation.

 

[mindlight]

I present two pieces of evidence:

1. Christians die physically every day.
2. According to those who believe in hell being bodily punishment, non-Christians will all be physically resurrected one day.

If physical death is applied on all Christians and will be removed from all non-Christians, how can it possibly serve as the punishment of sin?

Dying only bursts bubbles for the non-Christian. For the Christian, physical death is no punishment but simply a transition into a better life; perhaps physical death is no punishment for the non-Christian either - the punishment lies on the other side of what is just a simple door.

All die, all will be raised- true. Believers to eternal life and unbelievers to eternal damnation. The stakes are raised. Thus Adam died but may yet be saved. It seems Judas died and is dammed.

That all die is a physical proof of the fall. That even Christians die means that our hope is to be raised in Christ and to live with Him for all eternity.

Death itself will be thrown into hell.

I'll leave the last word with Paul, who certainly shouldn't be taken literally when he says in 1 Cor 15:31:

"I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day!"

Try making sense of that from a creationist viewpoint.

Not sure this means what you think it means:

Net Bible quotes:

15:30 Why too are we in danger every hour? 15:31 Every day I am in danger of death! This is as sure as my boasting in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. 15:32 If from a human point of view I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, what did it benefit me? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.

Wesley's Notes
15:31 I protest by your rejoicing, which I have - Which love makes my own. I die daily - I am daily in the very jaws of death. Beside that I live, as it were, in a daily martyrdom.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
I die daily-This ought to stand first in the sentence, as it is so put prominently forward in the Greek. I am day by day in sight of death, exposed to it, and expecting it (2Co 4:11, 12; 1:8, 9; 11:23).

Christians who can daily face death for the sake of Christ ,in this manner, are showing that the hope of the resurrected life with Jesus is what sustains them. Their witness is all the more real because of the perils that they face. But if Christ is not physically raised then our hope is not a real one and we might as well eat, drink and be merry for tommorrow we die and that is it.

 

[mindlight]

First, Revelations cannot possibly be read plainly. The entire book is in code, and we've lost the code. The only theological message you can really get from Revelations is succor for persecuted Christians.

So you do not believe in a second coming, a judgment day, a future with God and other clear teachings of the book of Revelation?

Romans 8 does not present a different view of creation. The message of Romans 8 can be found in verses 2-3:

"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:"

Jesus sets us free from our sins and the resulting spiritual death. Basically, that idea of sin and spiritual death is the same as Genesis 2-3.

We are born again to the life of the Spirit rather than the Mosaic law. there is no connection here with Genesis 2-3 because the Life of the Spirit is only a deposit and a foretaste of what is to come. We still die. We taste of heaven and we witness to it with an obedient life but we still all suffer the penalties built into our Adamic physical natures. If Christ could have saved us with a simple spiritual change he would have done so. But no he had to die on a cross and as we share in his life and his death we share in Him and can hope to be resurrected to be with Him. Daily we face this prospect of death without fear because we shall be raised with him. If Christ is not physically raised we have no real grounds for hope and are to be pitied more than all men.

(BTW, notice that Paul here, if you really want to interpret him literally, leads the way to a couple of heresies in that he says that Jesus was only in the "likeness of ... flesh", not really human. So you need to be careful how narrowly you interpret Paul and use other scripture to modify some of his more radical and heretical statements.) What you are thinking of is verse 22. But that would contradict Genesis 3 where the effects of Adam and Eve's disobedience are very limited.

Christ was fully human, he had to be for his sacrifice on the cross to be the answer to Adams disobedience.

Paul is not a heretic but he is radical. I disagree on your interpretation of genesis 3

So, your interpretation of scripture with scripture is not really interpretation, but rationalization for a theory you want to hold.

Sorry, but scripture is very clear that physical death was before the fall. There is nothing in scripture to suggest a wholesale altering of our cellular chemistry.

Our cells stop reproducing at a certain point and we start to wear out and die. before the fall I do not believe that happened due to the tree of life and also the renewing presence of God in the garden.

LOL! Entropy is not an indication that creationis "broken". Entropy was always there -- otherwise we would not have had to eat! We eat to gain energy from the surroundings to counter entropy within out bodies. But entropy is still happening: the entropy of ourselves and surroundings still increases, even if entropy inside us decreases. Entropy is part of creation.

There are things that brings together and things that disappate energies. From being in a state of balance we have now swung to a state where entropy is the prevailing law. That is a change from before.

Notice you are advocating artificial selection and changing one kind into another. Evolution. Orchards also require tilling otherwise weed species will choke it out also. The implication in Genesis 3 is that weeds did not grow in the Garden and, therefore, it was very easy for Adam to tend the Garden to get all the food he wanted. As part of his punishment, farming is going to be difficult, with weeds trying to choke out the food plants.

Adams job was easier in Gods orchard than in his own farmed fields. The difference is the curse on the ground and within his own nature - so that things have become a struggle and being cast out of Gods immediate presence and counsel.

Genesis 1 affirms what everyone can see: human technology is powerful enough that humans can change nature. We can dam streams, cut down trees, hunt any animal to extinction, plant crops we want, etc. Genesis 1 affirms the power that humans have; that is why we are "in the image" of God. In terms of dealing with the planet, what we do is as if God does it.

No. In Genesis 3 the "whole of creation" is not cursed. Just farming. That's all. There is no curse on shepherding, fishing, or any other food gathering activity. Just farming. It is a naive, and touching, explanation of why farming is so hard. You are reading a lot that is not there in the text. For someone who tries to "interpret scripture with scripture", what you are doing is interpreting scripture with your prior theory.

The tower of babel was the attempt of secularised man to achieve by his own efforts.

Romans 8 and the judgments in revelation and the fact of physical death and that we must be raised to eternal life, are all proofs of the curse on creation. Also that there needs to be a new creation and a new heavens when all is said and done

 

[crawfish]

Well you have yet to argue that Genesis 1 like the rest of Genesis with all its historical accounts of real people and places is not an historical account. Are we talking Blochers framework theory here or some other way of avoiding a literal interpretation?

I like the framework hypothesis, as well as Lamareux's positions on the subject. I also agree that Genesis 1-11 are dramatically different in style and genre (legendary) than the rest of Genesis (historical). Consider these few items about the genealogies alone:

* The numbers for ages in Genesis 5 appear in number patterns.
* The significance of people in Genesis 4 and 5 is based on their numerical position (numerology).
* The names of the people in Genesis 4 present a growing separation from God.
* The names of the people in Genesis 5 build to point to the messiah.

No genealogy outside of Genesis in the bible has this level of symbology.

All 4 of those statements have been the mainstream global churches interpretations for the bulk of its history and was definitely the original interpretation of the Hebrew people closest to the original languages used in the text. The burden of proof is on TEs to argue their case here.

"Mainstream global interpretation" has been wrong before. Quite often, in fact. If you were to enumerate the "mainstream interpretations" through the years, esp. as defined by the Catholic church (which was nearly the totality of Christian thought for over have of Christianity's existence), I daresay you will probably disagree with more than you agree. If you have read ancient Hebrew commentaries (midrash), you will find that even then the argument was far from decided.

You will have to show me where I am being inconsistent cause I am not clear on where you are saying where I am so. So I cannot respond to this last accusation.

Note that by "you" I mean young-earth believers in general, but I will answer. The order of creation implied by a straighforward reading of Genesis 1 differs from the order of creation implied by a straightforward reading of Genesis 2. For instance, plants come before man in ch. 1 but after man in ch. 2. To make a literal reading possible, you must accept a less straightforward reading of ch. 2.