The apostle Paul explains:
Romans 5:14-19
14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
15 But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.
16 And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification.
17 For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.)
18 Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.
19 For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous.
You're going to have to help me understand this one. From my perspective, which admittedly may be faulty, I see Paul asserting multiple times that sin entered through one man. From Paul's perspective, he had no reason to think it was any other way though. I'm not seeing the significance of it being
one man that sin entered the world through. It's significant that one person redeemed us from sin, but a non-literal Genesis has nothing to do with changing that. And since it is multiple people that are redeemed by one man, I don't see the significance yet of sin entering through one man.
On a side note, that may or may not be related, didn't sin enter the world through two people? Or is this about the fact that Adam willfully sinned, and Eve was deceived?
There is nothing in the Genesis account to suggest that the death that came upon Adam and Eve was primarily spiritual. In fact, in God's judgment upon Adam He clarifies exactly what sort of death is going to come to Adam (and Eve):
Genesis 3:19
19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return."
Adam and Eve didn't need to die the moment they sinned for the sentence of death to be upon them.
When they are told that they will die
that day, but they don't physically die until much, much later, but they do become separated from God
that day, I see the threat of dying on that day only referring to a spiritual death.
I have no idea what the Tree of Life did in Eden. Adam and Eve were not forbidden from eating of it, however. Does its existence in Eden prove death was a part of God's initial Creation before the sin of Adam and Eve? Not if we allow Scripture to explain itself.
Well we know that eating from the Tree of Life granted eternal life. So what you seem to be saying is that even though there was no such thing as physical death for any creature, animal or man, God put a tree, aptly named the Tree of
Life in the Garden, that would cure people of physically dying, even though there was never any intention of anyone or any creature ever physically dying.
As
Genesis 1:31 declares,
Genesis 1:31
31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
It's hard to imagine God's Creation could be good while the death and corruption - and the pain and sorrow they produce - was an integral part of what God had made.
Well now we're getting into the territory of you saying what must be good in God's eyes and what must be bad. Consider His answer to Job about why He would allow suffering. God is sovereign. If He thinks natural, physical death for animals is a good part of the system He designed, it isn't up to you or me to decide it is or isn't. Remember, that from a theistic evolutionists perspective, we didn't become humans until God put a soul in us, so it was only animals that died up to that point. Now He probably did want to give us eternal physical life, but we thumbed our nose at Him, so He didn't.
Where does Scripture say, "The Earth is flat and not actually a sphere"?
Depends upon the literary context in which such statements are made. Scripture speaks of the "table of the heart" in a number of instances, but we all know when it does that it is speaking figuratively. Scripture also uses the phrase "the four corners of the Earth" but no one understands this to mean the Earth actually has four corners. Again, this is plainly figurative language. Are the instances of which you are thinking actually figurative ones?
I'm talking about Jesus being tempted by Satan in the wilderness in Matthew 4. That is a literal story, I assume, and not merely a vision Jesus had. In the story Satan takes Jesus up to an extremely tall mountain so that He can see every kingdom on Earth. That only works with a flat Earth.
That's right. The Bible's use of figurative language, or its speaking from the limited point of view of the human observer, does not mean it is in error when its figurative language or perspective does not perfectly accord with science. I don't know how many atheists I've talked to over the years, however, who have asserted that it does.
Bolding added by me for emphasis. That's a key point someone else brought up earlier as well. There were no human witnesses to creation. Moses wrote the story down thousands of years after it all happened. How did God reveal the story to Moses? By telling him word for word what to say, or via a vision Moses had that, no matter which way it went down (literal or figurative) was going to be confusing to him either way. Moses knew it was history, so he wrote it like he would any other history, as literal as possible. That doesn't mean he got everything exactly right, and I see no reason for God to nitpick the things that don't matter if Moses got them wrong.
Well, it is at least a non sequitur. But this is exactly the sort of thinking many atheists hold. Some very liberal "Christians" adopt a softer version of this sort of reasoning, suggesting that while the Bible is, in the light of modern science, obviously mythological it still has some good bits that may help us live better lives. The entire Story of Redemption that is at the core of biblical revelation, however, is gutted by this sort of thinking and the authority of Scripture to mandate behaviour and thinking is also dissolved. If the Bible contains genuine falsehood and error in any part, it cannot truly be the word of the perfect God it claims to reveal and from whom it claims to have come.
And if Genesis is merely the best job that Moses could do to explain something vastly, vastly over his head (you know, all of creation and thousands of years of human history) delivered through who-knows-what kind of medium (a vision, a dream?) then I don't consider that to be a genuine falsehood or error at all.
