Maybe the dinosaurs existed at the same time as Adam and Eve, and died in the Flood...that's what some YECers think.
And if you don't believe that, how do you explain the theology of it?
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What do you guys think about dinosaurs? Here is my dilemma. According to Christianity, death came into the world with the original fall...so theologically, it makes no sense that dinosaurs would die before Adam and Eve. Or did animals die, just not humans?
Maybe the dinosaurs existed at the same time as Adam and Eve, and died in the Flood...that's what some YECers think.
And if you don't believe that, how do you explain the theology of it?
Dinosaurs were not renowned for their theology, brains too small really.Dinosaurs and Theology
But seriously.What do you guys think about dinosaurs? Here is my dilemma. According to Christianity, death came into the world with the original fall...so theologically, it makes no sense that dinosaurs would die before Adam and Eve. Or did animals die, just not humans?
Maybe the dinosaurs existed at the same time as Adam and Eve, and died in the Flood...that's what some YECers think.
And if you don't believe that, how do you explain the theology of it?
A few things to consider:
-Genesis 1:29-30 says we must eat. Why eat if we were created immortal?
Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.
-Genesis 3:22-23 says that the Tree of Life was created so that man could live forever. What purpose would it have served if man was created immortal?
-More often than not, the death spoken of in the Bible is spiritual death, rather than physical death (e.g., Rom 5:18; Rom 6:13).
Here are some select articles written by pensive evolutionary creationists re: death and the Fall:
www.asa3.org/asa/PSCF/2006/PSCF6-06Phillips.pdf
www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2004/PSCF6-04Snoke.pdf
P.S. What do I think of dinosaurs? I think they're awesome!
What do you guys think about dinosaurs? Here is my dilemma. According to Christianity, death came into the world with the original fall...so theologically, it makes no sense that dinosaurs would die before Adam and Eve. Or did animals die, just not humans?
Maybe the dinosaurs existed at the same time as Adam and Eve, and died in the Flood...that's what some YECers think.
And if you don't believe that, how do you explain the theology of it?
Dinosaurs were not renowned for their theology, brains too small really.
But seriously.
Dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, long before man arrived on the scene. I know that YECs say that all death, spiritual and physical, human and animal is the result of the fall. The bible talks about human death coming from the fall, and even there it is open to interpretation whether this is talking about physical or spiritual death. I would say the picture of the tree of life in the garden tells us man was created not immortal, but able to receive immortality as a gift from God, if he ate the fruit he would live forever. That was, until we lost our relationship with God and were cut off from eternal life. But Genesis says nothing at all about animals living forever.
All I know for sure is that Christ died and rose again, and will come back again and give us eternal life.Maybe that is different than what the 'original plan' was with Adam.
The simple answer is that the bible was not written by people who had any scientific ability to explain either where the earth came from or themselves. The created stories to explain these events occurred at the direction of God. The fact that they had no idea how God did it and therefore were incorrect in their presentation, is of no matter.
Dinosaurs existed millions of years before the first humans walked the earth. This is well documented in the fossil record. YEC folks say a lot of things, they can prove exactly NONE of them.
God and evolution are perfectly compatible as long as you understand the usage of metaphor, analogy, and allegory in the bible.
Yet according to Revelation, Christ is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world". Maybe it was very much the original plan.
Why the focus on dinosaurs? What about trilobites? They existed even before dinosaurs and became extinct before dinosaurs did. What about Anomalacaris?
http://www.trilobites.info/gallery2.html
And do you have any idea how many different species of dinosaurs there were?
There was lots of extinction of many kinds of plant and animal life before humanity existed. That is simply a fact. Remember, theology does not get to say what reality is. God determines reality; theology is a believers' response to that reality. Denying the reality is not doing theology. It is calling God a liar.
What is an appropriate theological response to the fact of death before human existence? There are several. One is that death was not a curse until it was entangled with sin. Another is that the death associated with the fall is spiritual and not relevant to animal death. After all, Adam did not literally die physically in the day he ate the fruit. He lived, according to the text, another 930 years. But he did, immediately, die spiritually, for now he was cut off from God.
Here is still a third take on the theological possibilities.
http://www.asa3.org/asa/PSCF/2006/PSCF6-06Phillips.pdf
maybe...but do you believe that we shall one day have eternal life, as promised in the Bible? That would mean that the 'new earth and new heaven' would not be a return to the 'way it was' before the fall, but would be a completely new reality....that is a possibility too.
Nope. You understood me right the first time. Why would an immortal human need to eat? I'm not so sure your analogy of Christ works, because (apart from the fact that Jesus did die... temporarily) even he felt hunger, which is a physiological response to keep the body alive and energized.Why not? Did not Christ eat when He appeared to His disciples?
Or are you asking something like..."doesn't eating animals involve killing them, so there was death then too"? To that, I would say that the Bible implies that we were all to eat plants...
Of course they ate from the Tree of Life! They had to in order to stay alive! Genesis tells us this much. What purpose would it have served otherwise?In Revelation, it mentions tree(s) of life..doesn't it? And we'll be immortal then. I personally think that Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Life...it only says they were forbidden to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. I don't know..
Yes, but God does tell Adam that one of his punishments is that he will descend back to dust, from which he was made....implying that he was immortal before...
hmm..if
ah this is so confusing!!
maybe...but do you believe that we shall one day have eternal life, as promised in the Bible? That would mean that the 'new earth and new heaven' would not be a return to the 'way it was' before the fall, but would be a completely new reality....that is a possibility too.
You are right. What exactly is the point of Genesis if not to elucidate what we were before the fall and how things will be after the final redemption.
You have to remember the bible is composed of dozens of writers, hundreds of redactors, copyists. God inspired them to write to the best of their ability the truth. The bible is quite factual at many points, verifed by documents and archeology.hmm..if they just made up the Biblical stories, what's stopping us from saying that everything in the Bible is made up, including the New Testament?
But even if you are right, that still leaves the theological problem...even if the Bible is not historically or scientifically correct, it must still be theologically correct...and if that is the case, how can dinosaurs die before there was death? I guess it also depends on how you define deathah this is so confusing!!
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