On an Old Earth View, How Do You Reconcile Animal Death Before the Fall with Genesis 1?
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- Опубликовано: 27 июл 2014
- Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason brings clarity to the issue of animal death before the fall of mankind.
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When the Bible was written, writers and historians were free to shift some things around a to make a point, and it wasn’t considered deceptive or an error. It was a different way of writing. It’s the same with Genesis.
“How do I deal with animal death given Genesis 1?” The presumption is that Genesis 1 teaches animals did not die until after the fall. If you’re an old-earther, that’s a problem. Animals did die before the fall on an old-earth view, so that would seem like the old-earthers are at odds with the Scripture. We don’t see where it says that animals didn’t die before the fall in Genesis 1, and we can see an interpretation of Romans 5, which would bring someone to that conclusion. Paul isn’t talking about all creatures, he’s talking about human beings. He’s not addressing the question of animal death in the passage.
For more on animal death and suffering, see:
Genesis 1:30 mentions only the plants to eat in the Garden of Eden. Does that present a problem with your view of animal death before the Fall?
rsn.pub/3tTHv8y
Why Would God Create Animals and Allow Them to Suffer?
rsn.pub/3O6PG8p
So my question that is left unanswered, at least satisfactorly, is this: When did the first "man" get an eternal soul and when did the first "man" become an image bearer of God?
If man suddenly showed up on the scene fully formed, like Scripture seems to indicate, than why couldn't all of creation have been.
If man slowly evolved, then when did he morph or evolve into an image bearer of God capable of sinning and causing the fall?
These to me are major obstacles which we really only face because we are attempting to impose mans view of reality onto Scripture.
It seems much easier, and requires much less interpretive gymnastics, to say God created in 6 days and the Earth just isn't that old. Science has interpreted the facts wrong.
Think about this - If in the beginning God created a fully formed tree instantly and we cut it down, would it have rings giving it the appearance of being old? Of course it would if we compared it to how tree rings form in the present and applied that process to the past. However, in reality the tree is not as old as it appears! This to me seems perfectly reasonable as part of a Biblical worldview. I understand skeptics and non-believers will scoff at this notion but oh well.
Blessings. We interpret science based on scripture and the other way around.
There is no problem. It only seems problematic to those who insist on understanding scripture literally, at face value, and attempt to twist it into history or science, etc.. (BTW same holds true for Science, or ,should I say, certain scientists, who insist that what you can't describe can't exist.)
how do you know it would have tree rings?
Lots of questions there. Note that each of these days are actually 1000 years to man. 2 Peter 3:8. Hebrew does not translate into English well so words in italics were added for readability which do not always do justice to the original writing. For instance it is stated in English, ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. In Hebrew it says, ‘In beginning, God created the heavens (plural) and the earth. Understand “In beginning” does not mean in the beginning but rather it is the counterpart to ‘In Conclusion.’ So then ‘In beginning’ or rather ‘In the first place, God created the heavens and the earth. Secondly the next verse says, And the earth was without form and void, yet there is no past tense to the word in Hebrew (hay-vah) and us translated as become, came to pass. Therefore after God created, it “became” without form of order and void of understanding.
Genesis 1:1 God created.
Genesis 1:2 it became without form and void. He didn’t create it that way.
You have heard there was a war in heaven and Satan lost. That’s what you are reading here. It means, God created and we were here on earth with God for the first 4.5-5 billion years in our angelic bodies. Then Satan wanted the mercy seat instead of protecting it (Ezekiel 28) and it’s known in Greek as the Katabole or overthrow. So God had to decide to kill 1/3 of the souls he created who followed Satan or end the age and cause everyone to pass through this life one at a time to see how they would do without any direct influence from God or Satan (by doing so we might win some back). The six days of creation which followed were 6000 years. Genesis 1:26 or 27 states God made man male and female on the 6th day. This was the individual races. Male and female he created them.
Genesis 2:6 or 7 God did not have a man to till the ground so he “formed” eth-ha-Adam of the clay of the ground (this is the family Jesus would descend from)”in the day He mar him. What day was that?????. It states God caused it to rain so the herb of the field would grow but in Gen 1:10 God created the herb of the field which had seed in itself but it did not grow because God hadn’t caused it to rain. So you must insert the “forming” of Adam of Gen 2:7 here. Thee Adam that Jesus descended from was formed on the third day thus, Adam & Eve were 3000 years old when God drove them from Eden. God created the races on the 6th day and this is where Cain gets his wife from. All the days of Adam “after” he was expelled from Eden were 930 years? (I could be mistaken) so his entire age was about 3,930 years when he died.
Evolution is a lie. In order for it to be a fact you must see every link from an amoeba up through humans of today not just once, but again and again. It must be an eternal process like chemistry or physics. And it isn’t so it’s an empty theory, not reality,
This was the most honest, unbiased, take I've ever heard on this topic. Thanks for putting my thoughts into words.
Rom 8:19-22
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
Amen
Amen Greg. How we see the Earth is completely different then how the Biblical Hebrew saw it.
In addition, Genesis 1 says God saw it as “good” or “very good”. Good and very good are not the same as perfect or without flaw.
I think we try to squeeze too much juice from the "read it from their cultural perspective" fruit. Sure, that is an important matter to consider, but its become fashionable to treat people from other times and places as if they were extraterrestrial. In addition to cultural difference, there are also universal qualities to words and ideas. We share and inhabit a rational reality. So, if we assume the text is something alien and almost indecipherable to the modern mind, there will likely be epistemological implications for more essential theology.
In other words, how you read Genesis will probably catch up with how you read John and Romans. Be careful that your interpretive method is not an accommodation to the warm winds which flow from unbelieving mouths.
"To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them." Isaiah 8:20
I don’t know if anyone can “dig in their heels” towards Young or Old Earth.
I have questions like, who named the fish?
If there was no animal death, prior to the fall, what did the fish eat?
7:42
How did every planet, sun and moon become so round, if everything came from a single point and exploded as fragments into space?
How did they “settle” in their respective orbits, with the proper tilt and distance from each other?
Maybe questions that we’ll know the answer to, one day?
Scripture was written for all people, in all places and times, Greg. Devine authorial intent and understanding is more important than human authorial intent and understanding. In terms of historical context, the historical information contained in Scripture is sufficient for accurate interpretation.
Not for my grandma. She had a fall before her death. In fact, that's what caused it.
As we go further into Romans, it reveals that creation was subjected to decay by Adam's sinful choice. Death is a curse, how could animals be good and die?
Romans 8:18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that[h] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
I hold to a 6 day creation and young earth view and a 3 day resurrection view. And 40 days of temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. And 7 years of jubilee. , 40 years in the wilderness. You get my point.
How long is the 7th day?
What was the purpose of the tree of life?
How long is the "DAY The Lord God created the Earth and the heavens" (gen 2:4)?
OEC also hold to a literal 6 day creation etc etc
Most importantly, we believe in plenary verbal inspiration of Scripture ie that the Scriptures are inspired in the original texts of the original languages.
So with regard to Gen 1, why did God inspire Moses to use two different Hebrew words for “create”?
One of them can ONLY mean to create out of nothing ie creation “ex nihilo”. The other CAN mean that, but also carries the meaning of “to set into order something which was out of order”.
So if God’s intention was to show He was creating something out of nothing throughout the entire account of Gen 1, why did He inspire Moses to use two words for “create”, rather than only one?
Koukl is a great berean. We can't assume things into the text. God has left some things unclear. Let us have faith and trust in him without all the answers.
I agree, pursuant to your main point, that the book is called Genesis, not "Chronos" or similar: God was under no obligation to provide us therein with a precise chronology of events; but rather simply an explanation of the ORIGINS of certain things: most particularly, how mankind came to need redemption (or stated another way, how he came to presently be in a fallen state), and most particularly, why it was NOT God's fault (i.e., that He didn't originally make it that way: and to lay out even just THAT point requires essentially some sort of original creation account to give a word portrait of the way things originally were).
It will only make sense if it is a literal 6days creation. Ken Ham is right.
The question is if man had to eat from the tree of life to live forever. Did animals automatically have eternal life.
What a nice approach on many ways, like fresh air. And I agree we need to be patient with each other on variations.
The young earth view is the only literal interpretation of the Bible. It's an unshakable view if you understand science is not the infallible word of God. And scientists are interpretating evidence based on their worldview. And if you didn't know, professors of evolutionary views are managing the teaching of scientists.
That was the most shallow dumb & pagan trash I have ever heard in my life. Get education
Amen amen Greg!
The toddler music for the intro kills me lol. Not literally. 😉.
It’s not to say animals wouldn’t die naturally from age. We were meant to eat vegetarian.
There is physical death which happens once…unless a miracle occurs. There is spiritual death which is everlasting separation from G-d. Which death is most significant?
I’m a mild young earther. I don’t think it really matters which one is true, since it’s tertiary. I agree with Willam Lane Craig and Koukl that animals died before the fall.
Was there cellular death before the fall? Eg, skin cells. Isn’t hair made of keratinized dead cells? Did plants grow and die?
eloquently presented, and very diplomatic, but (technically) I see it as disingenuous to label any 'truth' as 'non-essential' (but I do know how you meant it, and I do respect that). I believe firmly and with great conviction in young earth, that Paul was speaking specifically of (and only) about humans (made in the image of GOD), and that the biblical account (in it's original documentation) was divinely inspired and inerrant. I also believe that if Adam and Eve had abstained from the forbidden fruit that animal death would have been a normal part of the natural process (something I believed from my youth, and when I came to realize that it was a contentious perspective I was a little flabbergasted) but then we live in an age of which Jesus himself said "they will not endure sound doctrine" (not like it's anything new, just more prevalent than ever before). thank you for the video, and hang in there : )
Science can easily prove that the Earth is billions of years old. It is just a matter of measurement. The problem is that certain sects within Christianity insist that scripture must contend directly against Science as if they are two competing models for existence, when, in fact, they are, at most, complementary. Scientists of a certain bent do the same to religion. Science can't prove - or disprove - anything it can't measure. You can't measure Love or Value or Meaning. If you are colorblind and can only see black and white you can't really understand color and may even deny its existence. If you live in Flatland (a famous scientific allegory) you can't even conceive of a 3-dimensional universe. There is nothing in scripture, or even in Jewish pre-Christian theology and practice, that demands we accept sacred writings at face value, as science or history, rather than as it actually is - wisdom, meaning, value, taught to us through myth, allegory, metaphor, symbol, etc. This a fairly recent development, responding to the success of science in the Renaissance. Galileo proved that the Earth goes around the Sun rather than the other way, unlike what the Bible infers. The Roman Church came unglued and had Galileo tried for heresy. The Eastern Church, on the other hand, was always inclined to think of all scripture as basically allegorical. Jesus Himself admonishes those who take things literally in the scene in John with Nicodemus. You can imagine Him rolling His eyes. He also uses analogy and exaggeration when He compares the Kingdom to a mustard seed. Etc, etc..Do not cling to this 2-dimensional view of Revelation.
@@CleverMonkeyArt if you were to have an actual discussion with me you would quickly be exposed to evidence that I do not take a 2 dimensional view of anything (whether or not you would actually realize that though is another question). when working with simple algebra it is easy to demonstrate proofs, but if one is misreading one (or more) of the constants one will never come to the correct answer (except possibly by accident, but then checking their work will lead them to exclude the correct answer), unless one is able to consider the potential of ones own presumptions being flawed (most don't seem capable but it is possible), lacking the ability to assess the merit of ones own presumptions prevents one from self correcting when problems arise (such as 'rubber ruler' issues which come up earth/universe age assessments). the flatland example presumes that none of its inhabitants would be able to cognitively extrapolate beyond their sensory input (similar to the flawed reasoning that lead to the belief that there are 'vestigial' organs in the human body { 'if I don't know it's purpose it must not have one' ; arrogance} ), and any earth age measurements rely on many presumptions to even reach a conclusion at all, the theory of relativity itself is based on 2 flawed presumptions at least one of which can be easily shown to be (at best) highly questionable (the constancy of light speed) and the other untestable (in our current framework) and any supposed testing of it is subject to the 'rubber ruler' issue (this being the mutability of time). anyone refusing to admit that these are reasonably questionable presumptions is 'a resident of flatland'. but none of this is anything that will be given serious consideration because I said anything about it one way or the other (as not having my name framed with capitol letters I couldn't possibly have any knowledge with merit), so I guess we will have to wait for GOD to clear up the confusion (of which there are heaping mountains). I do wish 'true' objectivity were more common, but that's not the world we currently live in. keep the faith, .. and hang in there : )
to me personally, I do not believe there was death before the fall - the wages of sin is death. the fact that in Genesis it states that man and ever creature ate of the herb of the field Genesis 1:29 - 30 - that implies that animals did not kill each other so no death. It makes me really nervous when Theologians start saying things like "oh the Bible may say such and such and I know it sounds like it says such and such but that's not what it really says. I personally believe that God in His limitless wisdom has the Bible so the average man can understand what it's saying - if not we common folk are in A LOT of trouble.
To call something good it has to properly function for what it is made for. To me it looks like most people assume God created this world we are in now to function as our home. And that he was suprised when Adam and Eve went rogue. My toughts are that this world is just a world to get as many free will humans in relationship with God and not choose evil. Ephesians 1 shows God had his adopted children in mind before creating the world. I don't think God allowing death before the fall goes against God being good. It's like the objection "why would a good God allow evil?" I do think we can come up with enough good reasons to think why God could allow death of animals just like we can come up with good reasons God allows evil for a while. I think old earth and young earth have some good points so I am glad it's not a salvation issue.
There was no death before the fall as "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning-the sixth day" that is literal day "Yom". Death is not good. Sin affected the whole world including all life on earth Romans 8 "For athe earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For bthe creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; 21 because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of 6corruption into the glorious cliberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation dgroans and labors with birth pangs together until now. "
All creation groans - all life have been affected.
A plain reading of the text yields a plain understanding. The issue only becomes muddled as one allows for the contrary assertions of modern secular “science” and its myriad methodological assumptions.
It is observable fact that either the Earth and the Universe are obviously old, or were created intentionally to LOOK obviously old. I am a Christian.
@@ModuliOfRiemannSurfaces
, no, you’re assumptions (filter) through which you “observe” yield your facts. For example, Adam after being mere minutes old, would look like someone much older to our eyes because of how we apply induction, not because God intended to mislead.
I have been a Bible believing born again believer since November 15 1983. Since then, I’ve believed in an old Earth.
One of the strongest apologetics of God's existence is the fine-tuning argument. God's fine-tuning is evident in the ecosystem. Key to that is the necessity of plant and animal death. These are 'good'. Animals dying are part of God's design. Why would God make animals as carnivores if they weren't supposed to die? To say animal death and carnivores are a result of the fall, that takes away the powerful fine-tuning apologetic.
Video starts at 3:00
Day three of creation established the necessity of death and renewal by fruit having seed within itself.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."
"While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."
Adam needed access to the tree of life, without it, his time was limited.
no Adam had access to the tree of life but when he ate from the other tree that's when God chose to take him away from the tree of life so that he would not live for ever and the seed is not a sign of death but rather the replanting of the seed after they ate of it ,it doesn't prove that there was death before the sin it just proves God gave the fruit seed so that it could be replanted
@@tiaanniemann668 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life"....Jesus
Well let's face it, the early church didn't care about that because geological and paleontological knowledge was less than rudimentary to put it mildly.
If death had never occurred before Adam sinned, how could God's warning saying 'In the day thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die' have had any meaning? Language is for communication and God would have had to explain what this new word 'die' meant. But because Adam and Eve would have frequently witnessed the death of animals, they would have had a clear idea of what the word meant. Moreover, as they were the first and only humans on the planet, it would have been they who would actually have coined the word 'death' to refer to the phenomenon they witnessed when animals died.
There's a Hebrew word which I can't spell, that describes what would be included in no death before sin. The words mean " living being, living soul and living creatures" things that have breath and blood in them. So no death was referring to people and animals, not plants and bacteria. Sin produced death. There was no death before it.
🇷🇺☦️🤝☪️🇵🇸Wrong - there was death always, and I find it ridiculous that Roman Catholics & eastern Orthodox misinterpret our Church teachings, which never claimed there was no death, only that there was no suffering & DECAY before the fall. Meaning, that all creatures lived much much longer, maybe 7000 years like the sum of days of creation, whereas each lifespan was temporal & death was an easy thing with no pain aging or disease. As for souls: man's soul was always immortal yet corporeal, while animal & plant souls were always both corporeal and mortal & died at the same time with the body.
This is the only view that is truly Orthodox & compatible with Scripture!
@@EasternRomeOrthodoxy Romans 5:12 - Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death has spread to all men, because all have sinned.
Notice that it didn't say "that there was death, it just took a long time for things to die". Where in the Bible can you back up your claims?
Sin brought death into the world.... period
@walkingaroundmoney3361 I already explained that it is a common misinterpretation of the Church fathers also. They meant death as in DECAY & spiritual death. God meant to make the flesh immortal only by rewarding them with the tree of Life. Also to say that animals, who were not made in God’s image nor with immortal bodies of light like Angels, were meant to be immortal is heretical & ridiculous. in my future channel I will expose all those modern pseudo Orthodox heretics who teach those ignorant innovations
@walkingaroundmoney3361 False. Common misinterpretation of Scripture & the Church fathers. They meant death as in DECAY & spiritual death. God meant to make the flesh immortal only by rewarding them with the tree of Life. Also to say that animals, who were not made in God’s image nor with immortal bodies of light like Angels, were meant to be immortal is heretical & ridiculous. I'm my future channel I will expose all those modern pseudo Orthodox heretics who teach those ignorant innovations
False. Common misinterpretation of Scripture & the Church fathers. They meant death as in DECAY & spiritual death. God meant to make the flesh immortal only by rewarding them with the tree of Life. Also to say that animals, who were not made in God’s image nor with immortal bodies of light like Angels, were meant to be immortal is heretical & ridiculous. I'm my future channel I will expose all those modern pseudo Orthodox heretics who teach those ignorant innovations
The idea that Adam's sin brought death to the animal world is a tad unfair isn't it? We understand that in John 3:16 the "world" means human beings. So death coming to the "world" through Adam likely also means human beings. So when did death come into the animal world? It could have been from the start of life. Or it could have been from the time of the fall of Lucifer. Interesting!
If animals died prior to the fall of Adam, then I’m wondering what type of God would create an ecosystem in which animals kill each other and eat each other alive but not have it be as a result of sin, but as the way of creation from the beginning. Would seem too vicious for me to handle
Too vicious for you to handle?
Read Job.
@@ericsonofjohn9384 Perhaps that wasn’t the way I should have phrased it. But yea it’s difficult for me to accept that parasitic behavior is something God created as a good thing. This a separate issue from Job persevering in an already fallen world
@@Dispensational_David but Job didn’t understand why awful things were happening to him, that was my point.
There’s nothing inherently evil about an animal kingdom that includes death
@@ericsonofjohn9384 I understand where you are coming from, but I am just sympathetic to someone who struggles to understand what is good about, for example, an insect who lays eggs inside of a live host and then it’s offspring feed on the living host slowly killing it in order to grow. That seems like a concept that is predicated on pain and suffering for that host insect. And if it’s not a result of sin entering the world, then it’s tough to accept that God would create pain and and suffering for anything prior to any wrong doing
If the Old Earth Interpretation of Gen 1 is correct, then is it possible that Satan fell long before the creation of Adam? Or does the fact that God calls the creation Very Good, _after_ the creation of man, indicate that Satan could not have fallen at that point?
I ask, because whilst I have no problem with animal death before the fall (Jesus ate fish, so killing and eating animals is not inherently, or morally evil, and therefore it is not contrary to a very good creation), I do however struggle with the idea of animals suffering from cancer, and arthritis before the fall (as shown in the fossil record).
If Satan however fell hundreds of millions of years prior to the creation of Adam, then that could easily explain such things (as he is described as afflicting people with sickness and disease in the New Testament, so why not in a Pre-Adam world, too?). However, again, how could that be squared with God calling the creation "very good" after the creation of Adam?
Thanks for the questions! We invite you to call in to our weekly broadcast to discuss your thoughts with Greg Koukl. He'd love to hear from you. Or you can submit an #STRask or Open Mic question. Visit www.str.org/broadcast for details.
If, as you say, animal death occurred before man was created, then it would seem that you do, in fact, hold the old earth view.
I believe God's words as breathed via the Holy Spirit thru the men who transcribed them. No need to think about what man may have been thinking in that time period.
Romans 5:12 - Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned-
Also the wages of sin is death. Romans 6:23
So either animals were sinning before the fall or Adams sin effected all the living creatures on earth.
Also Romans 8:19-23
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. [20] For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope [21] that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. [22] For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. [23] And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
Why would there be a redeeming or a new creation if they were designed by God to die from the beginning?
God is life and separation from him is death. Did all animals separate themselves from him? More likely they were under the reign of Adam who consigned them to death through sin.
It's amazing just how interpolation and reading into the text you Young Earthers do.
@@leonardu6094 How have I done that?
@@TimSTurner Well for starters, the passage you read never once says death came to every creature on earth. It only limits it to man. Secondly, it never even specifies whether it's physical death or merely spiritual death. You are simply reading your biases into the text what is not there.
@@leonardu6094 Are you aware of when figureheads represent and create outcomes for an entire group? Adam was given dominion over everything, as the entire world's leader what he did affects all. So creatures and plants aren't necessarily excluded from that hierarchy.
When you talk about spiritual death, what exactly do you mean? Specifically with regards to James 2:26 "For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead." Are you meaning this kind of spiritually dead when referring to Romans 6:23?
@@TimSTurner Nothing in that text mentions or even hints at animals, so you YOU have to insert that into the passage. The verse restricts it to Man. You're reading the passage with your theological bias.
By spiritual death, I mean separation from God that is wrought by sin. There's no indication in Romans 5 that it was referring to physical death, so this is you again reading into the text. I'm assuming you're a young earth creationist so it would make sense that you're inserting you own presuppositions into that passage.
If you believe the earth is old, then you are gullible...One of the keys to wisdom that God can give you, is knowing when you're being lied to.
The Bible says that death came after man sinned if this is not true for animals then death had already come, simple but smart unwise men will take simple things and add, but what if? To it. It did not say the death of man it said death meaning life being taken away. If death was already taking things away before Adam sinned then how could you say death had not come? Death itself came through man's sin it does not say a certain kind of death, you have to add that.
If animal death didn't occure before the fall... Then the perfectly designed echosystem we have was created by Adam's fall and not YAHAVAH.
God made it clear to Adam, that in the day you eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil, you will surely die.....Adam would have had to know what death was....so maybe the animals
in the Garden did die, and Adam witnessed that.
Possibly. But also think about the unique realm of reality Adam was in upon first being created. It seems God made Adam a full man not a baby, infant, toddler, or child. With that being said I would also assume Adam knew all the "words of the dictionary". Obviously no dictionary at that time but I stand by the point. So I believe Adam knew what death was before the fruit because of the knowledge God bestowed upon Adam when he was created.
You don't have to go to hell to know it's a bad place and you don't want to go there do you?"Die" is English. God spoke to Adam ( what language we don't know) and Die also means cease to exist. Wouldn't have been hard for Adam to figure out. We also know that Adam and eve could speak to the serpent. There's no indication of whether it spoke their language or simply that they could communicate with all gods creatures at that point. There may be a reference in Enoch I think that says the serpent could no longer speak I'm not sure but in any case Die just means end. Don't have to see gods Kingdom to know it is a reward and a good thing.
I would say it is an irrefutable fact that this is an old world creation. God is not lazy, God doesn’t cut corners, God is patient, God transcends time, He is not bound by time (but we are). God is the greatest scientist this universe will ever see. God created the physical mechanism that keep this universe in check. He isn’t using his spiritual hands to keep everything from falling apart. When we look at the bible we need to understand that Gods main goal was to show us who He is, who we are and how we are saved so we can have an everlasting relationship with him for all eternity.
One possibility missed, here, is the *_different kind of death_* for which our *_rebirth_* is the solution! Namely: *_Spiritual Death, NOT physical death._* For, as Christ said, the things of flesh are flesh, and the things of spirit are spirit.
Man was created *_twice!_* Once in the image of God (spirit), and once from the dust of the ground (chemicals; flesh). And we should not have to point out that the image of God is *_not_* one of dust! God is *_not_* Homo sapiens! The need to save His children comes from the fact that God's True Children are not of flesh, but of spirit. The Flood did not kill God's children, but only the bodies they wore!
😎♥✝🇺🇸💯
Death before the Fall? So Jesus the bringer of LIFE created animals to DIE?? Death, the "Last Enemy to be destroyed", was part of the "very good" creation? That would be a serious problem for me.
with all due respect brother, death before the fall was already present, then was God lying when He said when He created, it is good? Goodness is God's standard. When He says it's good, im sure He means perfection. How can it be good if death existed prior to the fall? To consider this to be non essential would greatly affect how we handle God's word. Accrding to Proverbs 30:5, every word of God is pure. So as a Christian, to consider another interpretation of His word is critical my brother, this is a core issue. If God created the universe from nothing, He can well create also everything in 6 days. That's why He is God.
The "Fall" is just a fable, but death has always been a part of life, just as night and day are parts of the same cycle.
At 5:10, you say, "well justified information from an examination of the natural world seems to indicate". The key words here are "seems to indicate". Understand that you are making reference to a narrative that has been artificially applied to the evidence at hand. A very different narrative fits the evidence much better. The evidence was laid down in a very short time, which means all those extremely old dating methods are entirely unreliable, which disproves the notion that Man did not come along until relatively recent times. One such proof of a short time for deposition of the fossil layers is the petrified forest. A better one is overlapping isolated folded rock layers, which prove that the so called millions of years of fossil layers were all layed down in a few months, at the most. And the petrified forests could not have taken more than about a decade. Don't let them fool you about that age of the evidence. Their narrative of millions of years does not fit all the evidence. They conveniently ignore the evidence they don't like. One such evidence is exodus 20:11, where a God who cannot lie, wrote in stone with his own finger, that he created everything in the universe in just 6 days, and rested on the seventh.
The reasoning behind the explanation of animal death before the fall is flawed. Literal interpretation of the Bible is clearly not difficult, based on Paul's writings. But Paul is not the only one who makes it clear. The flood was unnecessary if that was the case. Man was, and is still, dominant over the animals, and all life had to die, except for the ones Noah had on the Ark.
Do you want to assume that Adam was in the garden even after his children were born? What I mean by that is, the only record of death, is after the fall of man, God killed animals after Adam sinned. And there was a reason to feel the loss, by blood being shed.
"It's not the parts of the Bible that I don't understand that trouble me. It's the parts of the Bible that I do understand." Mark Twain.
...yes, quite messy...
Read the last 3 (edit: 5) Chapters of Job - clearly God is proud of the death of animals before the fall.
bad hermeneutics
@@jeremiahlayug336 Can you show how?
@@343jonny by your analogy humans who are capable to commit mass murder are designed for mass killing why do you think the Fruits of the Spirit consists of Love, Joy Peace, Patience, "Gentleness", Goodness, Meekness, Faith, temperance?
@@jeremiahlayug336 I don't understand how you went from "God is proud of the way he made carnivorous animals" to "God designed humans to murder". God can design the food chain to work the way it does because it's not immoral for animals to eat other animals. God did not design human beings to murder each other because it is immoral to destroy God's image.
I would also point out, you haven't said anything about the text itself (hermeneutical argument), you simply made a philosophical/theological argument of conclusion. Your initial claim was that I had bad hermeneutics, not bad theology/philosophy.
@@343jonny where is the behemoth classified as carnivorous? Or the Leviathan? Clearly you're reading it too far, the food chain today was never mentioned before the fall, it's only by eating herbs and fruits, and it is presumptuous to say that animals preying on other animals is considered moral by God, however "consequences" are moral because of Justice, thus resulting in the current food chain.
It's a science fiction book not a science book!!!
Creation of earth man and woman was not same as forming a garden with man Adam. Foundation of " this earth" was at Adam's fall. The greatest confusion comes from equating (Adam, Eve, and Garden of Eden in Gen2) to (man & woman & earth of Gen1) these 2 accounts are completly different & try make as same is great confusion. Bible is but a love story of a jilted lover and the apple of his eye. Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of this world... so when was this sinful world founded but upon the day of Adam & Eve disobedience for it was then that God discarded Adam and Eve fig leaves and gave them covering of animal skins.. of necessity was the shedding of the lambs blood and Christ was appointed as He who would give his life as seed of woman to redeem men from their sins
Jesus was clear and precise doubt no more. He drew a line into the sands of time by saying
Luke 16:16 The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.
There were 4kYrs of sin prior to John and there remain 3k years from Jesus 3 day prophesy
John 2:19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
From Christ baptism & anointing unto the anointing dedication of Solomons temple was one God day of 1000yrs and from that dedication unto Adam's sin is yet another 3000yrs from OT chronology... but to equate Gen2 with Gen1 is a grave error leading to great confusion. The time between events of Gen2 and Gen1 is wholly unspecified by scripture
Provide examples that back up the claim that ancient people thought and wrote in a way that explains how Moses could write about 6 days of creation and not mean 6 days of creation.
But I'll move on to something else, the order of the creation that Moses gives defies logic. Putting the earth and plants before the sun, is illogical to us today with our current knowledge. But just putting plants before the sun was understood by ancient people to be making a bold statement that God didn't do things the way we think they should have been done. Ancient people knew plants don't grow in caves. They worshipped the sun, and had sun gods because they knew the sun was critical for life giving light and warmth. Creating plants before the sun is obviously a message from God saying that he is more important and powerful than the sun.
But if the order of creation given in Genesis is not accurate, we have God making a false boast.
The point I just made says nothing about the length of the creation period, it's possible in my faith system that each day took millions of years. However, that means the earth was flying around in space without a sun providing light for the earth's plants for whatever extended period of time you want to say it was. Unless you also throw out the order creation given in Genesis, and that makes God a false boaster.
And why are long periods needed when we know from observation of the natural world that macro-evolution doesn't happen, and Genesis says God created all of the different kinds of creatures before he made Adam? How does long ages of micro-evolution, including physical death, glorify God? And what does it say about God who declared that everything he had made at the end of his creation period was good? And God has said he is going to throw death into the lake of fire because it is bad.
I assume that the old universe - old earth, idea is accepted because of what people observe in the world and in outer space. I am not a scientist, but I have been interested in astronomy, geology, paleontology, etc., for a long time, and see how people in those fields have worked out logical methods that support slow processes that led to the level of development we are at right now. But I also know that the fundamental belief in their work is that everything they see must be explained by natural causes. The first thing the bible says is that the explanation for everything is God. Those two are diametrically opposed. I can accept flowery language in the bible, but it appears the contradiction between Genesis and current science is too great and it Genesis doesn't just look florid, it looks like it's utterly false.
I go back to the point about the strange order of creation given in Genesis, and repeat that it is written that way to show that God did not use natural causes to create in the beginning. The laws and materials he created in that period have certainly changed by natural causes since the creation period, but Genesis wants us to believe that God was solely responsible for everything before he rested. I can only say that science must be wrong about many of its conclusions. Dr. James Tour has been pointing out false claims made by scientists in the origin of life field. I assume that other fields also make claims that are not supported by the evidence.
Provide examples that Moses wrote Genesis?
The evidence you ask for is the same evidence for how you know David uses non-literal hyperbole in the Psalms and John uses non-literal symbolism in Revelation. You know based on the styles of writing at the time of the author and you can tell from the text that the author can't possibly be taking these things literally.
Within early Genesis we have many things within the text itself that indicate it is not to be taken literally. For example, the Genesis 2 account has a different order than Genesis 1. Also, in Gen 1, plants grow before there is any sunlight. There is night and day before there is even a sun and moon. And there is a physical deity described as walking around in the garden which the Gen author in Gen 1:1 clearly believes God transcends space and time. All of these and many more add up to inform us of the literary genre of proto-Genesis and being non-literal.
"Provide examples that Moses wrote Genesis?"
I don't know exactly what you mean with that question. All I can say is that there are many verses in the bible, O.T. and N.T., that say Moses wrote the five books of Moses, one of which is Genesis. You are free to find them yourself. Obviously, Moses was not present when God created the heavens and the earth so God must have provided him the information in some way. We are not told what form that took, so all we can do is speculate and admit that we can't say anything about it with certainty. At minimum, there was a verbal tradition passed from generation to generation.
Of course, there is lots of hyperbole in the bible. If you actually read my comment, you'd see the evidence I gave that supports a straight understanding of the creation narrative given in Genesis 1. You would have also seen that I addressed the plants before sun issue, and how that actually supports a realistic interpretation rather than a fictional one.
You do not believe chapter 1, and that is why you believe that chapter 2 contradicts it. Chapter 2 describes what it says it does, which is a patch of land on the earth that a pair of humans were assigned to garden by God. Chapter 1, heavens and the earth. Chapter 2, humans in the garden. But chapter and verse divisions were not given by God, they were invented by men a very long time later. Not all of the division places men selected fit the subject matter properly. The subject of chapter 1 actually ends in what men designated as the first half of 2:4. Read chapter 2, verses 1 through 4A, and you'll see that they fit better as summary for chapter 1, than as introduction to chapter 2. The subject changes in the middle of 2:4 to the garden. Reading 2:4B, beginning with "When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens...", and going forward from there with the idea that the focus has then shifted to the garden, you will see that there is no reason to run through everything just mentioned in chapter 1. The focus has turned to humans in the garden, and things that don't revolve around them are left out. From 2:4, the chapter gives a more in-depth description of man's beginning. Chapter 1 mentioned that man and women were both made on day 6. Chapter 2 shows how Adam was placed in the garden, and since Eve was not alive yet, it must have been on day 6, even though it isn't explicitly stated. Eve was made from a section of Adam's side, again, on day 6. The animals that Adam named were almost certainly restricted to just the animals that God placed in the garden since it's almost certain that it would take a lot longer for a man to name all of the animal types that inhabited the entire planet.
As for God taking a body and walking with humans, it seems that you are unaware that you have brought up the entire motivation God had for creating the universe and the earth. God walking with men was and is God's will and plan for eternity. The Old Testament has multiple passages that describe God taking on a physical body and interacting with humans. Jesus is God who took on a body through conception and birth. That body died physically, and he brought it back to life again. It became an immortal body that Jesus retains forever forward. He is in that living body right now, and he will return to earth in that body. He will then rule the earth in physical form until he burns the entire universe and creates new heavens and earth, which he will also rule in physical person for eternity.
God created angels as he created the heavens, and they watched him create everything else. The angels saw that man was blind to the spiritual realm, and many of them took that to mean that man was inferior to them. They were correct, but they did not understand that humans were the point of God's creation, not them. Angels were created to be witnesses of what God was going to do with men. Neither angels, nor men, could imagine what God had planned to do.
I hope I have made some things clear to you. I have not provided biblical references to back up my claims, but I have made no claim that does not have at least one supporting biblical reference. Google can find them, or I can if you strike out.
@@deezynar 1. It is not my burden of proof to provide the biblical citations to prove your argument that Moses wrote Genesis. Respectfully, it is yours because you are making the claim.
2. I'm not sure I caught how you dealt with the sun and plants problem.
Day 3 - "then God said, “Let the land sprout with vegetation"
Day 4 - "God set these lights [sun and moon] in the sky to light the earth." This means there was no light on the earth before Day 4.
3. Your division of Gen 1 and 2 is not warranted. In Gen 1 it says man was created on day 6 and in Gen 2 it says man was created prior to plants (day 3) . If I am understanding your view correctly, you take Gen 1 and 2 as literal. So then which day was Adam created on? 6 or 2?
4. Your explanation of God walking in the garden isn't coherent. By affirming that God the father took on physical form, you are admitting that God the father does not transcend space, matter, and time. And if you say instead that this was Jesus walking in the garden, then you would be saying that Jesus' virgin conception wasn't anything special as, on your view, that wasn't the first time Jesus took on human flesh (he would have already taken it on in the garden). Thus it wasn't REALLY Jesus' incarnation that we celebrate on Christmas (since he incarnated all the way back at the garden).
Hope this helps.
@@343jonny
By not reading your reply, I can say anything about it and claim that you didn't deal with the facts accurately.
That's what you did to my comments. So, there's no point in taking you seriously.
@@deezynarAlright, well I gave good responses back to you and I'm happy to clarify any of them if needed. But if you don't want to engage in reasonable dialogue, that's your prerogative.
🇷🇺☦️🤝☪️🇵🇸First off, if you are a Protestant or secularist you aren't qualified to speak on Scripture at all
Secondly, I find it ridiculous that Roman Catholics & eastern Orthodox misinterpret our Church teachings, which never claimed there was no death, only that there was no suffering & DECAY before the fall. Meaning, that all creatures lived much much longer, maybe 7000 years like the sum of days of creation, whereas each lifespan was temporal & death was an easy thing with no pain aging or disease. As for souls: man's soul was always immortal yet corporeal, while animal & plant souls were always both corporeal and mortal & died at the same time with the body.
This is the only view that is truly Orthodox & compatible with Scripture!
These are the sort of gymnastics and hoops you have to jump through when you reject the clear teaching of a Young Earth and 6 literal 24 hour day creation. The amount of ho humming and unsteady movements on camera is the demeanor of a person with low conviction and low authority. Imagine if someone asked Jesus, the eyewitness and creator of creation this question. He would give a concise answer with conviction and clear understanding just as it’s stated in the Bible.
Either you take Genesis as God wrote and is plainly written, as Jesus did, or you are a compromiser. Maybe we should apply a little Occam's Razor to the matter. Your double talk only serves to undermine the very foundation of the Bible and Christianity. Consider that your Biblical compromises have no observational science to back it up, and that such science fits Biblical (Young Earth) creation better than anything else. Convince followers that Genesis is not true, and it is easier for Satan to complete the job and turn people away from Christ.
What a sad ministry to explain how the Bible might not mean what it says. :(
This is a desperate attempt to explain away the inconsistencies of an old earth view with the Historical Biblical record.
Evolution is the problem and you guys always skip it.
Augustine was not an old earther at all if you actually read his writings he states that creation did not have a "plodding pace like it does now" and the natural processes of nature did not apply . Also "unbelievers are deceived by false documents claiming the earth is many thousands of years old" note even then millions of years was never even considered. The Romans passage says sin came into the world 🌎 all of it not that it came to men. This is just adding to scripture and false teaching.
@N/A yes I'm aware of day age theory and gap theory and they both imply large spaces of time in order to work. Augustine never implied he didn't believe them to be 24 hr days either. It's intentionally misleading to try support a theory ( only been around as long as Darwinism) the world was never thought go be millions of years old nor is it proven to be today. There is far more evidence to prove the contrary
@N/A they do not say not 24 hr days as to duration they don't say that at all. Not that Augustine is an authority on creation its simply saying that they were not like we know them for instance answering they how can there be a 24 hr day if the sun wasn't created . This is addressed by saying not solar days. No because the light of the world was not from solar existence but the light of God. So no they were not like they are today however scripture clearly states evening then morning so there were durations of time where light was lessened for evening. Trees do not survive in constant darkness nor constant day light. Then the sun and moon was created to continue as signs to mark the days... days that had already been created previously by God the sun simply continues the cycle God already put in place. Augustine does not refute duration only that the days were different.
@N/A He spoke and they were made, He commanded and they were created. Creation, therefore, did not take place slowly in order that a slow development might be implanted in those things that are slow by nature; nor were the ages established at plodding pace at which they now pass. Time brings about the development of these creatures according to the laws of their numbers, but there was no passage of time when they received these laws at creation.17
@N/A Unbelievers are also deceived by false documents which ascribe to history many thousand years, although we can calculate from Sacred Scripture that not 6,000 years have passed since the creation of man [emphasis mine].18
@N/A According to Scripture, less than 6000 years have elapsed since he began to be. . . . If it offends them that the time that has elapsed since the creation of man is so short, and his years so few according to our authorities, let them take this into consideration, that nothing that has a limit is long, and that all the ages of time being finite, are very little, or indeed nothing at all, when compared to the interminable eternity.
God created everything good, how could there be death before sin?
Thanks for the question! We invite you to call in to our weekly broadcast to discuss your thoughts with Greg Koukl. He'd love to hear from you. Or you can submit an #STRask question. Visit www.str.org/broadcast for details.
Consider this (in all humility):
God's Truth does not contradict empirical evidence (science). Where the two may seem to be in conflict, there is an error in interpretation of either scripture, physical evidence or *_both!_*
And now consider this possibility: Adam died spiritually 13.8 Billion years ago and his consuming the dichotomy (good-evil) produced the dichotomous universe (physical reality). Heaven is *_not_* dichotomous, but *_perfect!_* In an other video in this channel, the point is made that sequence was *_not_* important to the ancients, but thematic truth was.
Out of all the billions of galaxies produced, and out of the hundreds of billions of stars in each galaxy, one star was chosen to host the planet of man. Only one was needed!
It seems that evolution is a part of God's truth, yet Homo sapiens may have been a special order job! It may have been that humans may not have been a natural product of nature without Divine intervention.
God's Purpose seems to be this:
* Purify Adam -- His son, by allowing his many parts to use free will to choose nature or heaven.
* To create a creature with continuity of consciousness sufficient to think about spirituality and salvation; no other animal can do this. Unraveling our fall is not possible in our dreams; we needed physical consciousness.
* To have man create language so he has a tool for developing ideas.
* To have man create civilization so that he can concentrate part of his time on spiritual pursuits.
* To have man create a nation based on God's principles, but with the freedom to explore their meaning (these United States of America).
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“Maybe it wasn’t meant to be read that way”, “those words mean something different in the Bible than what they mean outside of the Bible”, “God is mysterious and we can never understand his ways”, “Everything that is bad that contradicts what god is supposed to be is because of the world being fallen.”
Do apologist’s ever get tired of having to make up new reasons to cling onto stories that were largely passed down by word of mouth from illiterate desert tribes that used a created authority to justify their actions? It honestly has to be exhausting.
Just remember: God has the power to forgive directly as he stated in the Old Testament, but instead he decided to sacrifice himself to himself so he can save you from himself.
I was not always a Christian. I at one point was obsessed with KNOWLEDGE.... scientific knowledge, esoteric knowledge, mysteries, conspiracies, etc etc etc. I tried to take all this knowledge and piece together exactly what was going on. In the end, I couldn't do it. There was too much information to comprehend, and even with all the information we could possibly have as a collective, it was STILL so miniscule compared to all that is, that eventually any "good" mystic has to conclude that the ultimate meaning and structure and fate of the universe cannot be known. "The Truth cannot be known." This was an easy thing to fall back upon when people argued against the logical fallacies this created in my own mind. I would just conclude that nobody can know the truth, and that their logic is too limited, so debate was fruitless, and that was the end of it. Now that I am a believer in Christ (very long story, doesn't do much good to tell it), there is this cognitive dissonance that occurs in my mind when it comes to Genesis. On one hand, I know enough about current scientific knowledge that, if I were to cling to that current understanding of things, would make me lean towards an old earth theory or an intelligently assisted evolutionary theory or something.... but it still doesn't line up with the Biblical account. It bothers me because, if it is something like that, that means that the Bible cannot be fully trusted. However, why I am a Christian is because I have assurance based upon divine intercession that the Bible IS in fact true, and it's not even just a metaphorical kind of poetic lie-truth, but literal in the sense that it describes concrete events and reality as it is and has been and will be.What I have come to realize is that we don't actually know for sure what exactly happened in the pre-historical past (let alone what exactly happened yesterday). We don't even know what time is. We don't know what we're looking at when we piece together the fossil record. We don't know what we're looking at when we use radiological dating methods. We don't really know even whether our perception of scientific verification methods is reliable or not. Quantum physics can teach us a ton about how much we just don't know about what we observe.So how exactly could there be fossil records which seem to indicate billions of years of history of animal death before human arrival, yet at the same time there are Biblical accounts which seem to indicate the universe, earth, animals, and humans, all created in a relatively short period of time? I have absolutely no idea, and I don't think there is anyone who could tell you with any absolute authority (other than God himself) anything other than more or less educated speculation.To base one's faith in God upon examining a seemingly endless amount of data which one could never hope to make even the slightest dent in even very fractionally understanding seems to be a fruitless endeavor. People like that, because I myself was one like that.... they miss the point entirely. The point I that we don't know. We're in the dark. We're in the wilderness. If knowledge of the exact mechanics of existence is our only torch in that darkness, it's not even enough light to see our hands in front of our faces, let alone Supreme Truth.Eventually, you have to give up your arrogant insistence that you can know the truth, and you just have to trust in God, who has stated in the Bible that He IS the Truth. If God is the Truth, then what use does it do in pouring over endless data to find truth. Data is not God, therefore there's no truth there. So stop looking for it there.My suspicion is that many people just hate the idea of God measuring things, and cleave to their own broken understanding because they know what that means for them: that their actions will be judged, and that judgment will be against them, for their actions were evil.That's what Christ said:And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.So they spend their lives arguing against God and his Christ by using every piece of empty data, empty ritual, vain philosophy, delusional experience, in order to divert attention from the crux of the matter.... that they are evil and deserving of judgment, and that it is just as likely, if not more than likely, that they will be judged accordingly by an authority infinitely more reliable and trustworthy than themselves: God. It's a very short time, evil has, to glorify itself.... and so it may seem very powerful and very convincing, and it might tempt us to try and shift theology in order to find some compromise, to attempt to entice others because we ourselves have become shaken and disturbed by the deception that the faulty man-made establishment of science has the higher authority, but the reality is that science itself when it is honest, admits that it does not know very much. So why attempt to shift theology for such an incomplete and broken source of authority? Is God so weak and distant from you that these empty and broken vessels, by the millions or even the billions, have made you stumble and reconsider?
Dang did preach
Love it where is this mans Ted talk
@@brycehardin3047 It's right next to my hit record.
"Then God spoke all these words, saying, 'I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery... For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.'" (Exodus 20:1-2, 11) Did God not do what He said He did to Moses?
This is also a scripture that supports young creation.
“But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.” -Jesus Christ
Mark 10:6 KJV
Jesus claims Adam and Eve were made in the beginning.
If creation were millions of years old by the time God made man, then that would put Adam and Eve at the relative end of creation.
Old earth creationists are consequently claiming That Jesus lied.
How long was the 7th day?
I believe the Bible makes it absolutely clear that death is an intruder, an enemy of the natural order. 1 Corinthians 15:26 says “The last enemy to be destroyed is death”. God did not give us a world full of death. He gave us a perfect creation that He sat back on day seven and declared “very good”. Animals were a gift from God for us to love and enjoy. I just can't imagine before the curse animals dying and rotting away as being "very good" in the eyes of God.
We have to be careful how we interpret death, we often paint death with broad stroke but I am always curious about insects that live, breed and die in short time. If no death of any kind then insect just keep breeding, is this what God had in mind. Death can be good if understood in the natural law of order, the tree of sustained life or prolonged life without it man dies naturally, without sin being an issue. Animal life death is simply the natural order and it is good. Death as a result of sin is not natural, it's an intrusion into the natural laws. This may be the death that Paul had in mind... Just a thought
urawb We also have to be careful in assuming that "the natural order" is what existed before the fall! In God's economy, people can walk in a hot desert for 40 years without their shoes wearing out, water comes out of a rock and a Sea can be separated into "walls" leaving a dry path on either side. In the "natural order" After the fall, theser were called "miracles," But Before the fall, perhaps it These things WERE the natural order!
rolysantos Great point! Yes, before the fall, these "miracles" were the natural order of things. Creation itself is the perfect example.
urawb If we believe in creation, then wisdom would show us that these insects that lived, bred and died in such a short period of time right now, did not have the same lifespan and breeding capacity as they do now. Sin changed a lot of things, and that would include the actions and interactions of species.
Another argument of the old earthers has to do with the features that certain creatures have. For instance, they wil argue that a lion is a meat eater, if they were not eating meat before the fall, then why do they have canine teeth which (appear) to specifically designed for biting and tearing (i.e. killing). But don't forget, in Isaiah 11, which speaks of the "New Heaven and New Earth," The original order will be restored and thus....."The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them."
Yes, carnivorous beasts will no longer be carnivorous. Why? Because their "Nature" will be restored to non violent, non predatory, "Non Death!"
This is what Romans 8 is speaking about! We are "new creations" in Christ, and have the First Fruits (God's Spirit) of what is to come in the "New Heaven and New Earth," in which ALL of creation will also be redeemed!
I think the Old Earthers presume that God is not able to override the "natural order" and/or that is he is not able to creat an earth and univserse that have the appearance of age. I also believe that the real underlying reason for their belief in an old earth is that they do not want to appear "foolish" among their unbelieving "scientific" peers!
Excellent.
Death before Sin: Ken ham has asked the question " What does the death of Jesus mean if there was death before sin?' The next question is, If there isn't death before sin, how does a sinless man die?
I made the same argument. He literally came and said he conquered death and sin , He said death is the final enemy, How is death an enemy if it existed before, Plus the problem only occurs when you take Genesis 7 days of creation NOT literally, God said we must become like children , How is it that no confusion existed prior . Death is a bad thing It is not Good. If we consider that the text goes to great lengths to say evening and morning one day, Rested on the 7th day etc. The only confusion comes on the recent since the 1700's dating of the earth, and all of this makes so much sense that it would be a lie by Gods other enemy .. satan, it even effects his people!!! The devils lies are brilliant. Jesus says death is swallowed up in victory, Death will be defeated, So lets do this.. We know for sure from the text that one day NO DEATH will exist whether animals or humans... So what was the point fo them dying before when we are being restored at the end.. If we were restored.. why wouldn't we go back to animal death, Well you would have to say God made the world imperfect.... Yet he called it Good, A world of possibilities but those all stemmed from the choices we made, Now it ends with that choice as well, Faith in the one who conquered death and the grave.
I like this talk, thanks :)
Mr Koukl, you are telling me that Yahweh, the creator of the universe, couldn't give us a religion we must follow to be saved that IS tidy?
For starters,
Genesis 1:29-30
Isaiah 11:6-9
Mark 10:6
...and the early church fathers talked quite allot about the age of the earth. You can read Dr. Jonathan Sarfati's book Refuting compromise or see his talk here on RUclips Refuting Compromise-Bible only teaches 6 day creation (Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. chemistry).m4v
But all this is irrelevant to the fact that age dating methods rely on fundamentally anti-biblical assumptions that we must just accept because we cannot know them to be true because they are claims on history and we cannot see into the past. Its like saying I assume the Bible is wrong to prove that the Bible is right.
The anti-christian lawyer Charles Lyell said that his goal in popularizing James Hutton's Uniformitarianism was to "...free science from Moses..."
check out CMI's video on Neo-catastrophism vs uniformitarianism for a good demonstration of the history of these assumtions.
Neo-catastrophism vs uniformitarianism (Creation Magazine LIVE! 3-23)
Greg I encourage you to look more into this matter. Don't just accept an age that your told. Know why it is true or why it is false. If I asked you how we get the age of the earth could you answer correctly?
I'm curious if Mr. Koukl believes in the inerrancy of Scripture.
He does.
That's debatable. I'll need to look into it.
Siri Bright Nothing Greg outlined in this video goes against inerrancy. Biblical inerrancy simply means that the scriptures, in their original manuscripts, do not affirm anything that isn't fact. I know Greg believes this. He is simply pointing out that we need to take into account the writing style, motives and language of the author. We can't just read things with our 21st Century glasses on. That's not being theologically weak. That's good hermeneutics.
@Paul Carey
Yes I agree on how we should study Scripture. My question came from an accumulation of comments he's made not just these. thanks.
Siri Bright There is nothing to debate, he does hold the position that Scripture is inerrant; whether you agree with his conclusions, or perhaps how you think his belief in inerrancy should look could certainly be debated. Due to the fact that this is typed, and I am unable to convey expressions/body language, I wish to add that this comment is not meant in a disrespectful or quarrelsome manner. I just wanted to clarify what he has stated. There is nothing unorthodox about his espoused positions on the major, or even minor doctrines.
Well, it certainly sounds to me like he is taking one side of the issue over the other. I'm not sure I could deny Romans 5:12 to mean humankind in creation, and not all of creation. I think the context of the passage, and the usage of the word (at least in the English and without studying further in the original language) "world" carries with it the idea that death, other than plant life (which apparently was by design since in the beginning God gave it to us for food), came to everything that existed at the time sin was committed for the first time. Additionally, I think Romans chapter 8 clearly describes creation as waiting to be set free from the bondage of corruption that it is under. How could there have been any corruption (and death is a form of corruption) before the fall? We also know that death is a result of sin, Roms 6:23. For the wages of sin is death. The passages in Romans seem to clearly indicate that Adam's sin brought death to ALL of creation!
I'm sure someone will mention about John 3:16 and the fact that the world there is clearly meaning humankind and not all of creation. However, the context of the verse spells that out because "world" is not the only descriptor, but the "whosoever" limits the meaning of the passage (not necessarily the word world) to humankind's believing.
But even then, taken in light of the passages in Romans, the argument could be made, however weak we may think it to be, that the word world means all of creation, but that "shall not perish" is the only portion that is limited by the faith of the whosoever. To me, that would be a very weak argument considering the context of the surrounding verses; but I could see how it could be made.
I just can't understand how or why Christians think they need to agree with ungodly scientists points of view and fit it into the Bible! It's not like there aren't other plausible explanations of what we see in the natural world around us that don't conflict with Scripture! But even if there weren't, that still doesn't give us the right to make Scripture say something that it doesn't! Natural scientists are very comfortable giving the excuse that they don't have all the answers, but that they keep on studying. So, just because something in nature appears to us differently than we might expect it to, it doesn't mean that if it conflicts with the Scriptures we cannot deny it outright and wait patiently for a better understanding of either the passage (without eisegeting anything) or a better understanding of what it is we think we are seeing in nature.
Take light from distant stars for example. That's a problem for both sides of the discussion! So in that case, BOTH have to wait for a better understanding to be realized. But one thing is for sure, allow Scripture to say what it says without changing for fear of looking ridiculous!
Absolutely agree there is nothing in scripture to suggest millions of years. It is only through Darwinism and the like that those numbers were ever conceived. Borrowing from evolutionist theory to make creation fit a modern day world view. As for the distance of stars. Light years are a distance not a time. And scriptures constantly say God stretches out the heavens. On so many occasions
11¹
: There is no passage in scripture that tells us that there was no animal death prior to the fall. Indeed, scripture says elsewhere, “[God] alone has immortality” (1 Timothy 6:16). Even if we granted the YEC argument that plants aren’t really life, the case for there being no animal death prior to the fall is built on inferences. Romans 5:12 and 1 Corinthians 15:21 are first interpreted as to be about death generally. Then the invitation to eat all plants is turned into a command to vegetarianism. This is a basic exegetical error. An invitation to eat all vegetables is not a prohibition from eating meat. A waitress who tells a diner that he or she is free to eat from the salad bar is not forbidding the diner from ordering a steak.
Despite YEC claims that they are taking scripture at face value and not making it say less than it actually does, they must define “life” and “death” as excluding plants. The permission to eat “every green plant” (Genesis 1:30) is interpreted not to involve death because, according to many YEC advocates, plants are not truly living. This appears to be an inference based on prior theological conclusions: there cannot be any death prior to the Fall and therefore plants are not living.
Genesis 1:11-12 does not exclude plants from being considered living things. Indeed, the passage has the plants reproducing “according to their kinds”, on day three, in exactly the same way as the sea creatures and birds do in 1:21 and as the livestock, creeping things and beasts do in 1:24-25. That both plants and animals are said to reproduce “after their kinds” (three times on both days three and six), suggests that plants were understood to be living. Further, the Hebrew word for “alive, living” (chay, חי) is, in fact, used of vegetation (thorns) in Psalm 58:9 (translated as “green” in ESV), being the same word as used of cattle in Gen. 1:24 and of Adam in Gen. 2:8.
I've always assumed that animals died before the Fall simply because The Most High instructed Adam not to eat of the Tree or he would die... that concept would have been completely lost on Adam if he didn't understand what death was. Adam HAD to understand what death was in order for the consequences to have any meaning to him.Therefore... he had to have seen something die before this warning was issued.
I disagree with that logic- Adam understood right from wrong before he ever committed any wrong.......or witnessed any wrong/sin.
That may be true, but that doesn't mean he understood what death meant. For example, if you tell a 2 year old not to touch a hot stove because it will burn, that 2 year old will know that you said not to touch the stove... however he will not understand what it means to be burned if he's never been burned or seen something burn. The 2 year old will need context to understand what you mean. That's my argument. I'm positive that Adam was one of the most intelligent men ever, but this isn't a matter of intelligence, this is a matter of experience. If you've never experienced something how can you truly understand it without context?
Demetrius Barrett The bible doesn't mention all the discussions that Adam had with God. Creation was a quick overview of how God created everything "in the beginning" and documented the fall of man and our need for a Savior. To say that Adam would not know what death was if there was no death for him to witness precludes the idea that Adam did not receive such knowledge from God at some point. I agree that knowing about something and experiencing it are two different things. Adam found that out quite quickly.
to say that you cannot understand death without seeing it is false. Adam knew full well of life and of seeing a new living being in Eve. It is not necessary to experience something in order to understand it. I know life and donot want it taken away, death.
to say that you cannot understand death without seeing it is false. Adam knew full well of life and of seeing a new living being in Eve. It is not necessary to experience something in order to understand it. I know life and do not want it taken away, death.
You are right it is even IN GENESIS. God said let us send them out so that they don't eat the FRUIT OF LIFE given them immortality. God didn't create the earth to be immortal. Humans died spiritually from God not a physical one.
15 Reasons to reject an Old Earth view and hold a Young Earth view of scripture
PLAIN READING OF GENESIS. What would happen if you were to do an experiment and take 1000 people who had never even heard of the idea of the universe/earth being billions or millions of years old and lock them each into their own little room and let them read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation 10 times? Then you let them out to ask them how old the earth was according to the Bible they had just read? 100% or very close would report the earth was probably thousands of years old and that God created everything in 6 normal days. It is inescapable that the plain reading of Genesis and the Bible seem to indicate the world was created in 6 days a few hundred generations ago. This is why it is very difficult to find a lot of Bible scholars before the “advancements” of modern geology who believed in the day-age theory or gap-theory. The people who read and believed the Bible in the past before modern geology are essentially the people in the experiment suggested above and almost all chose a young earth view of scripture. In general we need to be careful to adopt a view on scripture that is contrary to a plain reading and it should be the exception, not the rule, where we impose a secret meaning not obvious to an “uninformed” reader without special knowledge from outside the Bible. The old earth view in essence does this - it says the plain reading is wrong and one must have special knowledge from modern man’s dating methods applied to the text to really understand what it means. The old earth view employs a subtle type of chronological snobbery which essentially says that ‘the vast majority of Old Testament readers throughout the millennia of human history didn’t really know God’s intent behind the “day” timeframes or “gap” in Genesis 1 but we do understand because we’re so smart with our modern dating methods’.
SYMBOLIC OF WHAT? The first time a word is used can’t really have symbolic intent, can it? One must first establish an actual literal definition of something before metaphors and symbolisms can be made with them. If the word hasn’t been used in a literal sense before then we can’t know what it is symbolic of? In the beginning of Genesis the word “day” cannot be a non-literal metaphor of a long period that is “like a day” parallel to the literal day because the literal sense of a day hasn’t been even established yet in the writing.
24 DAY CONTEXTUAL INDICATORS. As Ken Ham is fond of saying, the days in Genesis are each corroborated as being normal days by being labeled with numbers and the descriptive words “evening” and “morning”. These contextual indicators of them being numbered strongly suggest these days were a closed/fixed amount of time with boundaries (not an open ended long age of undetermined duration) and that they were like our days where they included one morning and one evening. One could do astronomy gymnastics to try to find some sunlight and planet-rotation way for a morning and evening to be a long age but again what motivates us to twist the “plain reading” understanding of the words “morning” and “evening” into millions of years or blur the idea of a single numbered day into a long age of mystery duration?
ANIMAL DEATH VERY GOOD? Just looking at God’s commentary on His creation before the fall He calls it “very good”. Doesn’t saying that animals suffering and dying and experiencing violence and various diseases are very good in God’s eyes give us a different view of the character and nature of God than it would otherwise? It sure does. What God deems “good” determines what we call “good” in all areas. Does animal death & suffering being labeled “very good” seem consistent with the character of God we see in the rest of the Bible? I would submit that it is an experiential common sense knowledge deep inside of us for anyone who loses a pet that animal death is not good. Animal death is part of the fallen nature of this world. Knowledge of animal death being “not good” can even be experienced watching the death of an animal which is not a pet. We’ve become numb to the true horror of animal death because we’re so distanced from experiencing it in our modern industrial food acquisition systems. In Revelation 8 God’s judgment upon the earth includes massive burning of trees & grass and huge quantities of sea creatures dying. This is meant to be seen as a bad thing in this passage, not a normal or good thing, but an old earth view reverses this and says God calls animals dying “very good” so contradicts the plain reading/meaning interpretation of aspects of the (bad) judgment depicted in Revelation chapter 8.
CLOTHING FIRST NAKEDNESS SPECIAL? By saying animal death is a normal customary thing prior to the sin of Adam & Eve makes God’s clothing of their nakedness (Gen 3:21) a very non-special non-event. Animals could be killed (for clothing or whatever) as a normal matter of practice…so it’s big deal that God kills an animal for clothing for the nakedness they’ve now experienced from their sin. But with this being a special event, God is giving a beautiful picture of an innocent substitute (dying when it did not have to die) in their place to take their sin (and nakedness and shame) upon itself so that they could be clothed (and their sin/shame removed/covered)…it’s a great picture of Jesus and the need for substitionary atonement for sin through the death of an innocent substitute and how He takes away our sin/shame.
OT ANIMAL SACRIFICES. After God makes garments from a dead animal in Genesis 3:21, we immediately begin to see the death/loss of animals lives offered as sacrifices to God with Abel in the very next chapter of Genesis. After countless animals die due to man’s wickedness in the flood we see Noah again killing animals as an offering (“soothing aroma”) to God in Genesis 6:20-21. Later Abraham offers animal sacrifices and at one point an animal even dies as a direct replacement/substitute for his son Isaac. The plain understanding of all this is that innocent animals are dying because of our wicked sinfulness and give incredibly powerful symbolic picture of Jesus’ payment/death for our sins. If animals have always died, then this pattern, and later the entire Letivical priesthood sacrificial system, loses its special meaning, purpose, and powerful picture of Christ. These animals’ death would be normal and routine rather than a tragic picture of what sin causes/costs. But the message throughout scripture is that without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sins (Hebrews 9:22). Animals dying in the Old Testament was the pattern of this “sin results in the need for death/bloodshed” principle dispersed throughout all of scripture and old earth reduces the theological impact of this principle/message.
WHY MENTION SWITCH FROM VEGETARIANISM? After the global flood, in Genesis 9:2-4, God makes a change in diet and how man deals with the planet when he tells Noah that animals will now become food. If animals have been dying all the time anyway and animals have been eating each other since they were created, and therefore man has probably been also eating animals all along, then why is this even mentioned? What is the point? Rather it makes more sense to see this mention as a significant shift whereby man (and perhaps animals as well) had been vegetarians up to this point and that animal death for food was going to become a new pattern. And this pattern reinforces the animal sacrifice meaning on a more basic physical survival level. Needing animals to die just for basic sustenance food reinforces man’s need for innocent life to die as a result of their sin so that they can live (physically AND spiritually). Just because we’ve sadly become callous and numb to the horror of the death of animals just so we can have food to live on doesn’t mean that’s not part of the original intent of God for us to feel and learn by allowing animals to die as food.
BASIS FOR 7 DAY WEEK. The basis for our 7 day week comes from God’s creation of the world in 7 days. If God wanted to, He could certainly draw a metaphorical parallel with our week of 7 days of 24 hours from 7 long ages/epochs, but again referring to the “plain reading” principle described above, how would one ever come to the conclusion that God did do this, without trying to take man’s fallible “millions of years” dating methods and fit them into scripture somewhere? Exodus 20:10-11 taken at face value seems to speak of the days of creation as being very much the same type of days as the days in the weeks of our everyday lives.
HISTORICAL LITERATURE. Genesis is historical literature so our ‘by default’ interpretive mode should be to interpret the meaning of the text as literal history. Some people try to say that the beginning of Genesis is poetic and therefore can be interpreted as symbolic or allegorical, not literally. But what’s the textual basis for this? What rules of literature clearly make Genesis chapter 1 poem but chapters 2 onward non-poem? And once an attempt at that is made, we can ask where did those rules of literature classification come from? Were those literature classification parameters tailored to specifically allow Genesis 1 to be poem? Could those rules be used consistently with the rest of scripture where it is more obviously poetic (Psalms) and is there good reasons to adopt such rules? Are there examples where poetic literature abruptly interrupts historical narrative in other historical writings of the Bible? If not, is there strong reasons why we should we think Genesis 1 is a unique case or are we just trying desperately to find a creative way to fit millions of years into the text? Just because old earth proponents choose not to compromise on other historical literature in the Bible (i.e. the Gospels) doesn’t mean it’s not justifiable once the process of allegorizing historical literature has been deemed acceptable as a hermeneutic practice for interpreting scripture. Therefore taking the old earth view of Genesis 1 we are indeed opening up the possibility for future compromises on literal history become poetic allegory in our Biblical interpretation.
CREATION IS GROANING. Romans chapter 8 implies ALL of creation (including animals) is experiencing corruption (of which death is the pinnacle when it comes to the natural world). It is groaning and suffering for redemption just like we are for (v. 23) our body (physical). If fixing death is not part of the redemption for all of creation then what redemption is in view for the non-human part of creation? What is the list of things which will be remedied and why would these things being corrected be significant or noteworthy if death itself still remains (even if it’s just in regard to animals)? In fact we know death (in general, not just for humans) is one of the things in the list of corruptions that will be fixed because Revelation 21 says in the glorified/redeemed/eternal state there will be no more death, which will be discussed in the next point. But, tracing the logical progression at a very basic theological level, if death is a corruption, and death is part of the groaning, then it should be categorized along with sin as part of the fall.
SIN TIED TO DEATH. Throughout scripture there is a strong consequential tie between sin and death (examples: all life, including animals, dying in the global flood due to the wickedness of man on the earth, Romans 5:12 says “sin entered the world and death through sin” and Romans 6:23 says “the wages of sin is death” but many more examples could be provided, such as where Jesus curses the fig tree even connecting plant death as a consequence of not “bearing fruit”). Old earth proponents try to weaken this consequential tie between sin and death as it relates to animals (and even plants) and say that the context of these passages are always talking about human death. In opposition to allowing the message from the Romans 8 passage (where ALL of creation is groaning) to inform our view of these other sin-death passages, there doesn’t seem to be any good scriptural reasons to limit the implication of these passages to only be referring to human death. Certainly human death is the main focus because the Bible is a message primarily to humans about the salvation of humans but there is a sense about these instances where sin and death are tied together in a general/absolute sense. If they were not linked in an overall sense (animals included in the death result of sin) then I think God would have clarified that much better for us elsewhere by saying explicitly that “only human death resulted from sin” or “animal death is unrelated or uncaused by man’s sin”…and He didn’t ever make this exception/clarification in God’s commentary on the sin-death connection.
PARADISE REGAINED. The entire book of the Bible is pointing towards heaven, where our paradise, which was lost, will be regained. The last Adam Jesus has fixed the mess of the first Adam (who’s sin we all duplicate, Rom 5:12 “because all sinned”) which resulted in death. If it’s true that “there shall no longer be any death” (Revelation 21:4) in heaven where sin is done away with, then the natural systematic theology mirror to this would be that death (in a general sense, even in animals) did also not exist before sin as well. Paradise regained description passages in Isaiah 65:25 and 11:6-8 that point to the wolf laying down with the lamb do not explicitly say that peaceful cohabitation of animals existed before sin, in the garden of Eden. But what scriptural basis do we have to say that it was NOT like this? We know that animals became afraid of man, and man was going to start eating animals, in Genesis 9:2-3 so isn’t it possible that animals were also not afraid of each other and maybe not even eating each other prior to this time as well? We don’t know for sure but why not conclude this? The only reason we would even try so hard to find an interpretation where animals were not peacefully cohabitating in the garden of Eden before the fall of man into sin is due to an old earth viewpoint which is ultimately driven by trying to import conclusions based on man’s fallible dating methods (with fallible assumptions).
REASONS FROM SCRIPTURE. All the above reasons are taken FROM scripture and applied to the age of the earth and how we view man’s dating methods. The reasons to adopt an old earth view are reversed. We first take man’s dating methods and assume they are correct and then find a way to FIT an old earth view into scripture. We then stretch the meanings of words, we redefine or recategorize systematic theology principles that cut across all the bible (sin-death link), we create “gaps” to add things which aren’t even mentioned, etc. The list of reasons to take a young earth view is largely FROM scripture whereas the reasons why one adopts an old earth view are largely NOT from scripture (but are sourced from secular man’s dating methods) and, even worse, are also used to distort the plain meaning/reading of scripture.
YOUNG EARTH DATING METHODS. The funny thing is it’s not like all of man’s dating methods point to an old earth anyways! There are also lots of dating methods that imply a much younger earth than those who adopt the “old earth” view of scripture. Table I in the appendices of the book “What is Creation Science?” lists 68 different dating methods which have a wide range of estimated ages of the earth that result. The website of Answers In Genesis (www.answersingenesis.org) and many other books/websites have videos/articles/sections talking about the unreliability and assumptions built into various man-made dating methods as well as additional possibilities for dating methods that corroborate a young earth (Carbon-14 in diamonds, molecular clock genetic dating for original Adam/Eve/man, etc.). Dealing with the secular world/culture they would make it seem like all dating methods point to an old earth and that young earth creationists clinging to a young earth view are essentially naïve fools believing in fairy tales. But this is not the case. There are probably just as many dating methods supporting a young earth as there are supporting an old earth. Which dating methods you choose/like derives more to your philosophical assumptions rather than anything even remotely resembling “facts” or “proof”. And nothing can be proven as known “fact” anyways, since ALL dating methods must depend upon un-provable assumptions anyways! If it’s mainly the dating methods pointing to an old earth which is driving us to adopt/consider an old earth view of scripture/Genesis then there’s really no reason to take an old earth view of scripture because there are also plenty of dating methods pointing to a young earth.
APPEARANCE OF AGE. Many old earth proponents say that if the universe or earth are young that God is deceptive because He then created the universe with the appearance of age. But this a combination of circular reasoning and a minimizing of God’s power. Why is this deceptive if God told us the earth is young in the Bible? If God tells us the earth is young through the scriptures in His Word then He’s not deceiving us, is He? The assumption of God’s deceptiveness with a young earth assumes God has only communicated through the material world. But we’re limiting God by saying He can’t create with the appearance of age? What basis do we have to limit Him in this way? By “our rules” God can’t create Adam & Eve as adults. God must create them as newborn babies by “our rules”, otherwise He is a deceptive God because they appear older than they actually are. If God wants to create the starlight from the stars in space en route when He created the stars, why can’t He do that if He wants to? By saying God can’t do things by our standards/definitions then we’re making ourselves God instead of Him. God is true/truth and is the basis for our definition of truth, and therefore the opposite being what deception is, and if He creates things with the appearance of age (Adam & Eve were not created as infants) then it must be allowed to be done without a label of deception.
Greg Koukl is fond of saying something to the effect of "whoever has the best list of reasons for their argument wins". I find the list of reasons for adopting (not allowing but actually choosing to take up) the old earth view very few and weak. Why be old earth? Because the world is telling us the earth is old based on fallible dating methods filled with assumptions. With all the reasons listed above, many derived from very significant theological themes in scripture, I don't see why anyone would choose to even attempt trying to fit the old earth interpretation upon scripture.
The Bible doesn't give any indication of how old the Earth is. Man is inferring age by incorrectly tracing back genealogies.
+rebelliousbynature99 Jesus said Adam was created in the BEGINNING. If there were millions of years between the days of Genesis, Adam, as well as the rest of us would be relatively situated at the end
+rebelliousbynature99 mark 10:6
1) You are confusing the English translation with the actual Greek meaning. This is a common problem, particularly with English translations. While the root words are the same, the grammar and context is quite different. Where "En arche" from John 1:1 and Genesis 1:1 (Septuagint) refers to a timeless beginning; "arches" from Matthew 19:4 and Mark 10:6 refers to specific point of origin in time. In other words, Matthew 19:4 and Mark 10:6 are saying, 'from the point in history when mankind was created, there were male and female'. 2) There is no way of determining how long the "days" are. They could be millions of years long; or they could be billions of years. Some might even argue thousands of years. There's simply no way to make that determination.
Martin Riegler
Checking a strong's concordance, "arche" literally means BEGINNING in a non vague manner. It comes from the word archo, which means BEGINNING in the same sense.
Also, If you read Genesis, God made the Sun and Moon on day 4. Genesis 1:16 - "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night..." So the Sun and Moon rule over a time period which is already established. The same day and and night from before were to be ruled over by the Sun and Moon. The time length of day and night were established BEFORE the Sun and Moon.
Genesis is referring to REGULAR DAYS.
Also, when ever a number is used in conjunction with the word YOM (day) in Hebrew, it is referring to an actual day or amount of regular days.
Jesus Christ, the creator of all things, put the creation of Adam within the BEGINNING of His CREATION. Seeing as how, just a few thousand years later, He said the end is near, a million or billion year time scale would b\put Adam at the relative END of creation with us.
I don't think Jesus is a liar, so I'll take His word for it, and accept that God created the universe in six regular days.
To claim millions and billions of years, you'd have to change the meaning of so many verses of scripture, it would be easy to slip into heresy.
Jesus said the creation of Adam was in the BEGINNING!
@Tomas Krukas made the same day as the land animals
@Tomas Krukas a normal day. Genesis 1 does not speak of the days in a relative sense. The creation week is also referenced in exodus and Deuteronomy when discussing how many days the people are to work. It’s just a day.
@Tomas Krukas an approximately 24 hour rotation of the earth consisting of day and night
@Tomas Krukas I agree. I think the world for sure and perhaps the universe, as we know it, was different in the beginning. Peter said that old world is gone in the New Testament. However I would theorize that the days were slightly shorter, making a 360 day year. But again, the whole week was referenced in scripture later as if it were a normal week.
And I understand what you’re saying about the sun and moon on the 4th day. The thing is, “light” was created in the first day and “separated” from the darkness. Day and night are literally invented during the first day. I’m not saying I know where the light was coming from. I’m saying that, that is what the text says. God himself could have been the light source for all we know. But this is why I say the universe could have been different. This is all before sin entered into the world, which was apparently a major event that had some physical consequences with God cursing the ground and all.
So, animals tearing each other apart with enormous pain and suffering was call "good?" Also, there is cancer in the fossil record. So, God called cancer good too?
If we trust all the assumptions of science we need to explain things like the idea of old earth and how that fits into the biblical accounts. But why put faith in these assumptions over what the bible says?
For example: The assumptions that are passed off as fact as scientist radiometrically date rocks. To just assume there has been a constant rate of decay with radio metric isotopes used to date old rocks is a huge leap of faith.
Fact is we have never even drilled through the crust of the Earth where these rocks form. We really know very little about geology but scientist teach it as fact today.
Seems like we are looking for a ways to make science fit the bible but this is only necessary once we put our faith in scientific assumptions rather than the Bible.
I don't believe that animals died before the fall. In fact, I believe the very first animal death happened when GOD killed the animal so the skin could be used to cover Adam and Eves sin. I think this was a prophetic picture of the future coming of Christ. The animal was innocent. It's blood was shed through no fault of it's own to cover the sins of man. Just like Jesus was innocent and his blood was shed to cover our sin.
Amen to that
The bible says that DEATH came by one man - Adam. God did not create death. There was no animal death prior to the fall.
Weird how an omnipotent being can't give us a tidy message. Just my opinion, but I think this stuff is man made.
I think the scriptures are inspired, but not written by God.
And God didn't think it a good idea to make sure they were written accurately ?
He seems mad.
Be wary of any group of people with the words reason, logical, rational or free thinker in their name. Such groups are devoid of all such virtues claimed by their titles, almost without exception; atheists and so-called christians alike. As for this video. Shameful.
This discussion is essential. Sorry. Apparently Jesus is a liar in your view of scripture. Very sad.