Interestingly enough, Genesis also has two beginnings - Genesis 1 and 2. A beginning within a beginning, as Curtis said, is a very natural way to read it. In fact it has more beginnings than that - Genesis 12 is also a beginning.
Perfect, then I can say they “died immediately” in the same way - the process of death began as soon as they no longer had access to immortality through God’s presence and the Tree of Life in the Garden, and their mortal natures were allowed to take over.
By the way, that their natures were in fact mortal is Scripturally well supported - both by the implication that they had to be exiled from the Garden lest they eat from the Tree of Life (so that the purpose of the Tree was to give them immortality; if they were naturally immortal it would have served no purpose), and by verses linking mortality to Adam’s creation from the dust of the earth (which are saying it is because of Adam’s constitution - which he had before the Fall - that he was mortal).
1 Corinthians 15:42-49 are an example:
42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
What I’ve bolded for emphasis in these verses clearly links Adam’s mortality (and ours) to the body he was created with, not to the Fall. So it isn’t Scripturally sound even to say that Adam’s fundamental constitution as regards mortality was changed by the Fall, much less the rest of creation. Death was the result of the Fall because of Adam’s exclusion from the Garden (and by extension, the exclusion of us, his descendants), not because of a fundamental change in our physical nature.
(This isn’t to deny that there was a change in the spiritual nature passed on to us, resulting in original sin.)
Jesus defines marriage using both Genesis 1 and 2 because the institution of marriage in Genesis 2 is grounded in the created nature of human beings as male and female as described in Genesis 1. And he says “in the beginning” because both Genesis 1 and 2 are part of the beginning.
Are we speaking to you hatefully?
And if a young earth creationist and a Christian who affirms evolution can both dialogue together in love, where does that leave you? (Have you heard of this book?)
On this one point you will be incorrect. Adam had just been placed in the Garden by God and Eve was not yet created. The first thing God did was to show Adam the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil and warn him of death. As this had to have occurred in a single day, Adam was not witness to animal death in the Garden as you presume.
But the fuller argument anyway is human death before the Fall. Do you believe humans existed on the planet prior to and up the time of A&E and were they already dying? If yes, how do you reconcile that view with Romans 5 that says death came to all humans as a result of Adam’s sin?
You didn’t answer the question. You have explicitly claimed to be a witness to the evidence:
Should you be making statements about the evidence if you haven’t seen it? Your statement implicitly acknowledges that evidence should be the basis of conclusions.
Wouldn’t a more forthcoming revision of that sentence be, “A handful of people whose opinions I like says that the evidence is not good, but I haven’t bothered to be a witness to the evidence myself.”
That’s not nearly as strong, though.
You mentioned OoL. It’s not a single hypothesis nor model.
Common ancestry has a long track record of making successful predictions of new evidence. Have you examined (witnessed) any of the sequence evidence yourself? All of that evidence, unfiltered, is just a few mouse clicks and search terms away.
Why do you present your hearsay-based conclusions as evidence-based ones?
Just because an issue is contentious between a particular subset doesn’t determine whether something is true. Most Christians believe that most versions/translations of the Bible are perfectly good and acceptable, but there is a small minority that look on anything other than the KJV as heresy. The fact that people can treat other people poorly over common ancestry discussions does not nullify the science supporting common ancestry.
On a side note here - if I have treated you with anything other than respect, you can feel free to point it out to me. You can expect an apology from me.
This is exactly the point I have been trying to get you to acknowledge. Earlier in the thread, you had stated “If it had any merit, the church would’ve already been fully on board.” Now you are arguing the issue from the exact opposite side. The obvious inconsistency should be an indication that this is not a good argument.
The Bible does not contradict evolution if Genesis 1 is not interpreted in a literalistic fashion. I believe the truth of the Bible and the truth of the evidence God has left us that tells us about His creation.
I think God is responsible for all creation. I do not think sin has power over God’s intent and purpose. I would rather not have disease, but who am I to judge what God has made? God calls His creation very good, and I completely agree. I think His creation is beautiful and I think evolution is a beautiful tool that has brought about beautiful things in His creation. I also believe if God would have called His creation perfect if it were indeed perfect.
Not arguing against you, but would be interested in your thoughts. One thing that does puzzle me around the discussion of whether death and disease is good or not is what standard we are using here. How, in other words, do we determine whether something is good or not, or perfect or not even if God had called it perfect. What do those words even mean?
Good, so far as I know (and I am not a Hebrew scholar) indicates a positive assessment of something by the speaker. It doesn’t tell you what the speaker’s standards are, nor criteria are being used - just that they positively assess it in a given situation. The same would be true for “perfect”. It is too easy to slip our standards into these words - good meaning no death or disease simply because it is our standard…
It seems that you and I think along the same lines here. To assume that a “good” or “very good” creation must be free of disease and death forces us to ask what those things mean from God’s perspective, and not just ours. God also says that all things work together for the good of those that love Him and are called according to His purpose - yet we still get sick. I don’t think we are in a position to make those proclamations of what is good. I also believe you are also quite right that even “perfect” could very well mean different things from our limited perspective compared to God’s.
@thoughtful, I would like to reiterate that for me as well.
Exactly. And to expand on this further - a Christian affirmation of evolution is not a denial of the miraculous. Affirming evolution does not logically lead to denying the virgin birth, or (even more importantly) the Resurrection.
Science, properly understood, does not say that the virgin birth is impossible, even though it tells us (though we hardly need science to know this) that virgins don’t naturally give birth, because the virgin birth isn’t a natural event. And science, properly understood, does not say that the Resurrection is impossible, even though it tells us (again, though we hardly need science to know it) that dead mean do not naturally come back to life. These are events where God suspends the natural order, so science (which studies the natural order) does not tell us about them one way or the other.
No Christian who affirms evolution is claiming it is impossible for God to create the heavens and the earth and all kinds of phylogenetically unrelated animals in 6 literal 24 hour days. What they claim instead is that it doesn’t look like that is what he has done, given the reams of evidence for an ancient earth and for evolution. All of that data is extremely difficult to explain on the supposition that the world really is only 6000 years old - one ends up backed into the claim that God made world look ancient, with an evolutionary history, even though that history is false and there is no apparent reason for God to make it look that way.
That’s a really weird theological result, and it motivates us to consider whether Scripture really demands a young earth or not. This isn’t a presumption against the supernatural or a denial of the truth of Scripture, but an inference to the best explanation of all the data, rooted in a belief (very much in tune with Genesis 1, I think) that God is a God of order and not chaos.
The death of a gazelle is not good for the gazelle - but it is good for the lion who catches it. I do not believe that Psalm 104:21 is calling God evil for providing prey for lions. I think there is certainly is a very great amount of goodness in a diverse biosphere - full of “endless forms most beautiful” - even if it comes accompanied by what might be called “natural evil” (such death and disease), some of it not possible without such “evil”. So I believe that God created a very good creation, but not that he created it perfect (if that descriptor can be properly applied to anything other than God).
And I don’t believe he intended it to be perfect. God’s command to man to “fill the earth and subdue it” is introduced before the Fall. It suggest that there was something out there to subdue - that the earth was not a global, deathless paradise, but a world of danger and other “natural evils” that needed to be made fit to human habitation. God’s original creation isn’t the New Heaven and the New Earth, but the means by which God intended to bring them about.
I might be late for the party on this one, but just want to clarify…the bible (and Jesus) say exactly the opposite. Jesus corrected the false teaching of the hypocritical religious leaders, but did not reform the law, rather fulfilled it. He did not break any scriptural tradition, he broke the flawed misunderstanding of the Word.
Matthew 5:17-18 - 17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one [a]jot or one [b]tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.
And science is not the Holy Spirit in any sense.
I think the bible is pretty clear that the world is evil and darkness and death abounds, not perfect in any sense. God’s will is perfect, God’s righteousness and judgment and grace and mercy is perfect. But we only know this because we are told in scripture, I could not even begin to explain how it is true…other than that’s what scripture says. But scripture does not say that creation is perfect, but says the opposite:
Hebrews 9:11 - 11 But Christ came as High Priest of the good things [b]to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation.
I infer that this scripture says directly that creation is not perfect.
I don’t think translations are a good analogy here. Because none of them are completely valid. That isn’t like science where the science of the sun being at the center of the solar system is completely valid. But I suppose I can see that the people that see common ancestry as so obviously scientifically supported get grouchy at the rest of us.
I think you jump to @John_Harshman’s defense too quickly when he gets grouchy about something I say - usually it seems it’s because I’m happy or confident or sharing a biblical truth.
I get where you’re coming from. What I’m suggesting is that we can’t compare common ancestry to orthodoxy throughout church history (like affirming the doctrine of the Trinity), but we can compare creationism to orthodoxy because the plain reading of the Bible as well as all the implications of created norms as I’ve described are supported by the Bible.
Nor do I.
You’re not answering the question I posed. Is it good or not? But I agree with your intuition that it is bad.
I agree it is a powerful providential tool that creates beauty in spite of sin. However, I see no reason our genomes could not have been perfectly preserved in a creation without sin.
I think this is very easy to say whether disease is good or not. People were brought to Jesus to be healed of disease and he healed them as evidence of His goodness. Therefore healing is good and disease is not.
Thanks! I appreciate that. I think you were dismissive of my Genesis 1 ideas for little reason. Lol, other than they are very imaginative.
I have never made that claim. I thought made God had made the world with age, like Adam and Eve were created as adults. I soon realized that’s a stupid scientific argument I think the evidence is quite clear a global flood changed creation in ways that we don’t understand. The fossil record points to design, as does evolution. All of that was put together to create a narrative God didn’t create as He said he did. But maybe that will change soon
I am of the assumption that this evidence is similar to what Israel saw when they had to enter the land of Canaan. We don’t know the reason, but God wants us to rely on Him for a time, until He reveals His plan for science to show the truth again.
I agree with all but the last sentence. Evolutionary biology is evidence of God’s providence in spite of evil, just like the gazelle is evidence of God’s providence for the lion.
I see “subdue” as man’s calling to use and discover God’s creation. Just like we humans do everyday, especially in the sciences and trades.
We had an earlier discussion on this board, and I pointed out Irenaeus who did believe the earth was in a paradise state before the fall, just like the New Heavens and Earth will be.
I see this as in reference to the New Heavens and Earth being the greater and more perfect good. But it doesn’t negate the original creation also being perfect and good. It’s just that through allowing sin and evil, God brings about a greater and more perfect creation.
My statement applies to this too. Maybe YEC is a false teaching, and Jesus is using science to rid Christians of that error.
True. That’s why it seems to me that Jesus is using science to break the YECs flawed understanding of the natural world.
Jesus invalidated the Law after his death. That’s why Christians don’t stone their daughters to death if their husbands find out they aren’t virgins. Its also why Christian women don’t need to be locked up indoors when they see their monthly flow.
Regardless, my point is quite valid. Just because “ridiculous arguments” exist and people passionately argue on both sides, it does not in any way nullify the scientific evidence.
You were in the wrong and I called you out for it. I cannot apologize for that. My effort as a moderator is separate from our current discussion. If I have mistreated you in our conversation, I would like to know about it.
That’s a different argument than what you started with, but let’s go with it. What if a “plain reading of the Bible” shows that there were other humans alive on earth with Adam, Eve, and particularly, Cain? Would that change your thoughts on human origins? You are also aware of other historical moments when scientific understanding of the universe based the “plain reading of the Bible” was shown to be wrong. What is different about this particular argument? I’m confident that you and I agree on the fundamental doctrinal teachings laid out in Genesis 1-3, yet you feel compelled to think that you MUST be write, and anyone differing from your opinion must be wrong, scientific evidence be darned.
I didn’t answer your question because I’m not qualified to answer your question. That’s a question for God, not for me.
Do you think disease served a purpose? Do you believe that God was glorified when Jesus healed people of their disease? The world was never created perfectly in the first place, and arguments that state that a “good creation” could never have disease or death are based entirely on a human, temporal perspective. The book of Job is very clear about this.
Are you sure a “plain reading of the Bible” from a 21st century perspective is the way we’re supposed to read the Bible?
Also, my “plain reading” is different from your “plain reading”. When I read about Cain taking a wife, the “plain reading” is that Adam and Eve haven’t yet had any other children (those come later, after Seth) when Cain takes a wife, is sent away from home but marked so other people won’t kill him, and he creates a city. My “plain reading” of this story is that there are other people around from which to get a wife, potentially be killed by someone, and populate a city. I know the YEC says he married his sister and all those people are related from other sons and daughters Adam and Eve had, but the plain reading of the text has him doing all these things before Adam and Eve have any other children, and it never says he married any of his relatives.
Be careful about insisting on a “plain reading”. I prefer to try my best to see what the original author meant in the context in which he lived, talking to people that are not 21st century Americans. You can often get some surface level theology from a plain reading, but to really understand the text, you have to dig deeper.
It’s because you’re so happy and confident about rejecting a scientific truth, actually. You may consider those the same thing, and our conflict may be one of basic epistemology: you may think that your interpretation of the bible overrules any conflicting scientific evidence. That’s a possible — though to me incomprehensible — position to take, but I wouldn’t be grouchy if you just held to that. What annoys me is when you claim to both understand the scientific evidence and reject it on scientific grounds, when those are not your true reasons.
This has been my point to many here. Do we expect Jesus to work through scientists, (especially a group that may be unbelieving) or the Bible to rid us of error?
Jesus fulfilled the law by instituting the new covenant, which is why we don’t follow the Mosaic Law.
The difference about this particular argument is that it is about plain readings throughout Scripture, so we interpret Cain’s wife in light of that evidence. All of those plain readings cannot be phenomenological.
Yes I do think disease has served a purpose. Just like God allowed Job to be tested for a greater purpose, God allowed sin to happen for a greater purpose - perhaps to show his mercy, grace, and justice. None of that negates though the the world was originally created without disease.
For @ho_idiotes@Mark10.45 and @swamidass too, I’m reading through Ezekiel right now. Read chapter 31 about how Eden sank down into the pit. If there was only exile, why did it go down to the Pit? Also I think chapter 33 is definitive that Genesis 2:17 meant physical death results from sin and it will always be carried out. Ezekiel 33:8 has the same words.
When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man,you shall surely die!’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. 9Nevertheless if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have [b]delivered your soul.
10“Therefore you, O son of man, say to the house of Israel: ‘Thus you say, “If our transgressions and our sins lie upon us, and we pine[c] away in them, how can we then live?” ’ 11Say to them: ‘ As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’
There is zero Biblical evidence that Cain married his sister. A “plain reading” seems very clear that he did not.
Again, there is no Biblical text indicating that the world was created without disease. And since we can agree that disease can serve a purpose, it would stand to reason that it could qualify as “good” in the big picture.
It is certainly your prerogative and duty as a Christ follower to read scripture and work out what it means in your life. However, you are obviously interpreting what the scripture means here. There just plain is not a Biblical reason to insist that your interpretation is the only one that could possibly be true to scripture.
This is readily apparent because, as @Boscopup has already shown you, even though we have different views of the chronology of Genesis 1, we hold virtually identical theological truths. This tells us that we can agree to disagree and still hold the same basic truths.
The problem is that “the plain reading of the Bible” is a popular phrase which has far less meaning than you assume. Indeed, to many people “the plain reading of the Bible” is simply whatever interpretation they favor for a given text. All too often it is yet another manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Indeed, as a young Christian who grew up in a fundamentalist church, I was absolutely certain that I held to a “plain reading of the Bible” and thereby understood exactly what Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 were intended to convey. Not until I started reading commentaries and parallel English translations—and then a lifetime of Greek and Hebrew exegesis—did I realize the folly of my thinking that a twentieth century English speaker necessarily knew what “the plain reading” of an ancient Hebrew text meant to the original author and audience.
Indeed, I grew to appreciate what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:12:
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
According to Genesis 1, all that God created was TOV. So I would rephrase the question as, “Is disease TOV or not?”
From Genesis 2 and 3 we can conclude that God gave HAADAM the opportunity to be spared aspects of his creation which which were TOV but not ideally intended for him. Disease certainly has a very TOV role in that creation. For example, infection by viruses prevents bacteria from basically taking over the entire biosphere and wiping everything out. Likewise, some bacteria and fungi can be disease-causing in various circumstances and yet life-giving in others (such as helping other organisms process and/or synthesize essential nutrients.)
In other words, in the creation described in Genesis 1 what we would consider disease-causing aspects of that creation were TOV but God also intended to protect HAADAM from such disease. (See Tree of Life. And many would point to its reappearance, whether symbolic or not, in Revelation where its fruit is for "the healing of the nations.)
Thus, disease in general was TOV but fallen man’s vulnerability to disease certainly doesn’t seem TOV to a suffering human.
We all depend on intuition on a regular basis. But let’s keep in mind that it is one of our most fallible characteristics. (My intuition as a young Christian was that my “plain reading of the scriptures” was very reliable. Over time I learned otherwise. See 1 Corinthians 13:11.)
Disease wasn’t intended to afflict HAADAM in the garden—but that doesn’t mean that disease couldn’t be good within the biosphere overall. Indeed, like death itself and the recycling of nutrients that comes with it, infection/disease had a role from the beginning in God’s very TOV creation.
Amen!
The “or” is totally unnecessary. All truth is God’s truth. God uses both scientists and the Bible to rid us of error.
Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counselors there is safety. — Proverbs 11:14 (KJV)
The Bible alone is not what God intended for correcting and educating us. He provides wise advisors to improve our understanding of all sorts of things.
Yes, the Bible is not our only source of correction. I’m thankful that God has used countless scientists through the years—many of them Bible-affirming Christ-followers—to correct all sorts of errors in our thinking.
That is exactly what that scripture says (hebrews 9:11)…heaven will be made perfect, not like creation (which is not perfect). I don’t think there is anything in the bible that claims creation is perfect. Cite a scripture if I’m wrong.
I get the following thoughts from a quick study of the text and a couple commentaries…primarily from a Nelson NKJV study bible.
Ezekiel 31 is about the impending fall of Egypt in comparison to the past ruin of Assyria, becoming dead in the captivity of Babylon…(hell, or sheol, is an image of death in this chapter, not a physical place). The chapter refers to the nations as trees, so great that there was no tree that rivaled them in Eden (the trees of Eden are the nations of God’s chosen people). Ezekiel is prophesying that Egypt, which was lesser in greatness compared to Assyria, will also be brought to ruin (death) and scattered just like Assyria was. Just as the “trees” of Eden (the nations descended from Adam) were also destroyed and scattered on the earth. This chapter is a prophecy of the fall of Egypt (a tree, or nation less than the great Cedar of Assyria) to Babylon, and that Egypt will suffer the same fate as Jerusalem (the trees, or nations of Eden, referring to the Jews).
Both Ezekiel 31 & 33 are in regard to the penalty of disobedience to God…that God is fair and just and will punish disobedience. The chapters are again in regard to spiritual death, the figurative death of nations, the fall of Egypt and Jerusalem into the hands of Babylon, a pagan (spiritually dead) nation.
Eden did not go to hell and experience physical death, Eden (God’s chosen people) was brought into captivity and died as a nation.
this passage is the same as Gen 2 only in the sense that God warns specifically that disobedience to the Word of God (in this case through the prophet Ezekiel) brings spiritual death. The end of Ezekiel 33 is similar to James, that God wants us to be doers of the word and not hearers only.
I think the evidence is quite clear a global flood changed creation in ways that we don’t understand. The fossil record points to design, as does evolution. All of that was put together to create a narrative God didn’t create as He said he did. But maybe that will change soon