creation science OR fellowshipping with Christians who disagree with you

[Jereth]

Hello Tim

Tim Patrick wrote:

Not knowing your friends and so not wanting to pre-judge their position in particular, I feel it's common for many people who hold a six-day view to be coming from camp 2. Somehow, for many Christians the literal reading of Gen 1 seems to have become as central to the Christian faith as the person and work of Jesus.

May I insert something which might be helpful. Having read loads of Answers in Genesis literature over the years, I have identified the reasoning which for them makes Young Earth creationism inseparable from the person and work of Jesus...

- Jesus came to redeem the world from death
- theistic evolution and old earth creation say that death  (animal death) has always been in the world, even before before Adam sinned
- therefore, the whole purpose of Jesus' coming, as explained in Rom 5:12ff. is nullified

Based on this reasoning, AiG literature repeatedly says that theistic evolution/old earth undermine the gospel. Thus, creationism is a gospel issue!!!  I think that us non-YECs need to have some sympathy for this -- if something is a gospel issue, people will defend it to their dying breath. We would do the same would we not? So let's not jump to the conclusion that YECs are small-minded people who are getting hot and bothered about a non-primary issue.

(The question is: is the reasoning correct in the first place?)

Jereth

[Stephen Brown]

Jereth, you are nit-picking aren't you!

Fair enough.  No, Gen 1&2 aren't any more special than any other part of Scripture, because it all has proceeded from the mouth of God.  But, I'm very concerned by some comments on this thread about the nature of scripture.  It's funny isn't it, whenever we get into 'controversial' issues where most are so willing to agree to disagree as a first reaction, that at the bottom of it all is divergent views of the nature and character of Holy Scripture.  

Maybe we need to start that sufficiency of Scripture thread again?!

[Phil Weickhardt (Phool)]

In addition to

Jereth wrote:

- Jesus came to redeem the world from death
- theistic evolution and old earth creation say that death  (animal death) has always been in the world, even before before Adam sinned
- therefore, the whole purpose of Jesus' coming, as explained in Rom 5:12ff. is nullified

Some further information:

The reading of "Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed" until they ate the fruit of the tree. They clothed themselves in fig leaves but God clothed them in animal skins.

This is interpreted by many (including New Tribes Mission) to be the first death. Animals were killed (for their skins) as a substitution for Adam and Eve being killed. This then gives a powerful link into the sacrifices of the Old Testament and ultimately Christ's sacrificial death and atonement.

Answers in Genesis is a bit militant and the Creation movement has had schisms as well. Another interesting perspective is from John McKay who engages Richard Dawkins and others in apologetics dialogue:

http://www.creationresearch.net/

[Jereth]

Stephen Brown wrote:

Fair enough.  No, Gen 1&2 aren't any more special than any other part of Scripture, because it all has proceeded from the mouth of God.  

Hi Steve, thanks for clarifying. I have thought about this at some length, and I wonder if this is the crux of the issue: if Gen 1 was *supernaturally* inspired, in dictation style, like the 10 commandments, that would push us towards the literal 6-day view. Because then it would be God telling Moses exactly what happened.

If, OTOH, Gen 1 was *providentially* inspired, like Paul's letters, would that not push us towards less literalistic interpretation? It would be more likely that Moses constructed the account in his own style using literary devices and so on. (But it would still be fully God's word, inerrant, etc. just as Paul's letters are)

Phil W wrote:

The reading of "Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed" until they ate the fruit of the tree. They clothed themselves in fig leaves but God clothed them in animal skins.

This is interpreted by many (including New Tribes Mission) to be the first death. Animals were killed (for their skins) as a substitution for Adam and Eve being killed. This then gives a powerful link into the sacrifices of the Old Testament and ultimately Christ's sacrificial death and atonement.

That's a fair interpretation, but does it prove that no animals died before that? First sacrifice maybe, but not first death? What if Adam stepped on an ant sometime on day 7?  whoops :-)

Jereth

[Darrell]

Greetings everyone,

It's been somewhat refreshing and nostalgic reading this thread; a long time has passed since I last visited this subject in depth. I haven't been following the issues on MASG, and it's been close to a year since I lasted visited. Well done with the revamp btw - the site is much easier to navigate (not to mention more aesthetically pleasing). ;)

A couple of pennies for the wishing well:

Since Jereth has summarized the Genesis issues quite well, I thought I'd start with my framework of science.

I hold firmly in the view that science is ever-changing. This does not mean that we cannot trust science or that tomorrow the whole (scientific) world will fall apart because XX theory about science has been 'proven' wrong. If we take a look at our history, it is clear that the progression of the history and philosophy of science and its major advances (history back to the day of Aristotle) is not linear. I'm unsure as to why some have this view. Perhaps it's the subtle indoctrination of pop-evolution (compared to scientific-evolution), or perhaps our current framework is far superior to anything we've had in the past (maybe) which gives us this impression. For those familiar with the issues on this topic, you would've heard of Thomas Kuhn and his discourse, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (articles on Wikipedia for reference).

The second point (not totally unrelated to the paragraph above) is that science, while it may shift 'paradigms', is not something soft and malleable which fits in to the current, most advanced leading research team or teams. Science, from the reading I've done, is resilient. It's resilient to a point where even when theories have been for the most part 'disproved', the science still holds on, if only by a single thread and a handful of followers. As consolation, the way science 'holds on' is not totally a bad thing, a big change takes time to settle and those born within this new framework do not yet know the extent of the new framework's rules and regulations, much less its predictive powers (which, ideologically speaking is(?) science's main thrust and reason for existence).

In this respect, I really do feel for the Christians who hold on to a young earth creation perspective, whether that be from conviction from Genesis 1-11, or from observing the world around them. Work in a secular-scientific old-earth paradigm as a Geologist or Astronomer is probably hardest, at least in the present time.

However, I do firmly believe that old-earth scientific paradigms are starting to break apart, and evidence is in favour of being interpreted in a young-earth creation model; I do not want to hi-jack this thread, so I won't go into the pros and cons of either side's scientific problems, which I might had - that both sides (old earth vs. young earth) of science has huge problems that they need to solve - the only big difference is just that at the moment old-earth gets government funding, and young earth does not. ;)

Back to the Word:

Where 'yom' is concerned, I'm sorry but I have to rebut the common myth that yom is not a 24 hour day in Genesis. Checks and balances (to put it simply) are in the text to shield 'yom' from being interpreted as 'length of time':

The two words, ‘evening’ (‘ereb ערב) and ‘morning’ (boqer בקר), are combined with יום (yôm) 19 times each outside of Genesis 1 (three times these words share the same reference―Numbers 9:15, Deuteronomy 16:4 and Daniel 8:26). Every time, they clearly mean that particular literal part of a 24-hour day, regardless of the literary genre or context. Also, even when ‘morning’ and ‘evening’ occur together without yôm (38 times outside of Genesis 1, including 25 in historical narrative), it always, without exception, designates a 24-hour day. All the instances of yôm in the Genesis 1 account are qualified by the statement ויהי ערב ויהי בקר (wayehî ‘ereb wayehi boqer)—‘and there was evening, and there was morning’, which by comparing with other Scripture, must denote a 24-hour day.

I totally just plagiarized that from this website (link below) where the article is much longer and addresses a reader's (common) concerns - I cannot read Hebrew :)

http://creation.com/why-is-cmi-so-dogmatic-on-24-hour-creation-days

Hebrew aside - from just the plain English reading (whether that be NIV, ESV, GNB, NKJV or all of them), of Genesis 1 & 2, I find nowhere in the text that suggests 'day' is not 'morning and evening', one day - the context and language just doesn't support it (in an English translation).

A book I cannot recommend highly enough is: https://store.creation.com/intl/product_info.php?sku=10-2-164

re: Jane (I have to make this somewhat relevant to the first post!) - others here have suggest some good ways to move forward, however, if you feel like you know where they're coming from, and you know where the issues lie with you, it might be as easy and simple to just sit down with them one afternoon/evening and talking to them about all the nitty gritty 'science' stuff that is problematic for both sides - I would even suggest something practical for both parties to prepare beforehand with something like: "what are the 5 strongest arguments you have for old-earth / young-earth" and taking it to the meeting. This prevents straying off topic and talking into the next day! If it's the text of Genesis that's problematic a Bible study would then be in order - which is (IMO) even easier practically to solve (but not necessarily less work!)

Apologies for the Wall of Text. I've been in many forums before, and for those who engage daily, something this long is annoying, especially when your time-sinks are already full of other stuff ;)

Darrell

[Darrell]

Jereth wrote:

That's a fair interpretation, but does it prove that no animals died before that? First sacrifice maybe, but not first death? What if Adam stepped on an ant sometime on day 7? whoops :-)

I stole this (unashamedly) :)

What is the difference? Answer: the creatures affected by death were those the Bible calls נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה (nephesh chayyāh). When it refers to man, it is often translated ‘living soul’, but, of other creatures, including fish, it is often translated ‘living creature’. However, it is never applied to plants or invertebrates. Therefore, there is a qualitative difference between the deaths of the (vertebrate) animals called nephesh chayyāh and plant death. This is further supported by the account of the Flood and Ark. The living creatures (nephesh chayyāh) rescued on the Ark did not include plants (or invertebrates)—see How did the animals fit on Noah’s Ark?

Link: http://creation.com/the-fall-a-cosmic-catastrophe-journal-of-creation-tj

[Jereth]

Darrell wrote:

What is the difference? Answer: the creatures affected by death were those the Bible calls נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה (nephesh chayyāh). When it refers to man, it is often translated ‘living soul’, but, of other creatures, including fish, it is often translated ‘living creature’. However, it is never applied to plants or invertebrates. Therefore, there is a qualitative difference between the deaths of the (vertebrate) animals called nephesh chayyāh and plant death. This is further supported by the account of the Flood and Ark. The living creatures (nephesh chayyāh) rescued on the Ark did not include plants (or invertebrates)—see  How did the animals fit on Noah’s Ark?

Hi Daz,

I don't want to get into a big debate with you here (been there, done that, many times :-)), but for the benefit of other masgers (and also because this seems to be an important point):
- where do you see it explained in Scripture that only the "nephesh chayyah" (and not the rest) attained morality via the curse? Is there a text to make this clear?
- vertebrate vs. invertebrate is a post-scientific era distinction is it not? Would such a distinction be made in a text that was originally given to ancient people? Are these categories made clear to us in SCripture? (the same way as, for instance, clean and unclean animals; or "birds of the air" vs. "fish of the sea" vs. "beasts of the earth" vs. "creeping things" ?)
- does the Noah account actually make it clear that there were no invertebrates on the ark? Wouldn't "creeping things" (Gen 6:20, 7:14) include spiders, ants, snails -- in other words invertebrates?

I'm willing to be persuaded on good Bible grounds that the animals (or at least some animals) were originally created immortal -- and yes, this would certainly strengthen the YEC case that the Gospel is incompatible with old earth. But I don't think the case has been made yet.

Jereth

[Darrell]

Hey J,
(We should really start a new thread..)

Before I start:

Nephesh (נפש) is the Hebrew word commonly translated as soul in English. It literally means the "complete life of a being" though it is usually used in the sense of "living being" (breathing creature)

Chayyah (in Jewish belief): The part of the soul that allows one to have an awareness of the divine life force itself.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul
 

Jereth wrote:

    - where do you see it explained in Scripture that only the "nephesh chayyah" (and not the rest) attained morality via the curse? Is there a text to make this clear?

 
Morality? Or Mortality?
A little bit confused as to the question...

In general, I think the onus is on the OECs (old earth creationists) to prove that death predated Adam and existed in Eden. Sure, Genesis does not say explicitly: "and there was just (eternal?) life, there was no death at all (man + animals)", but the simple reading of the English text lends itself to a true paradise, without death and decay - Genesis does not conjure (at least in my mind), that from days 1-7, there were 'very good' things that God created, but in the "background", a couple of lions (which have existed/evolved for millions of years) were mangling an elephant and then one another to death (either for fun or food)... I can't reconcile that in my own mind, nor do I read it in the text...
On the food point, every living thing pre-Fall were vegetarians!

Genesis 1:

29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

An excerpt from our popular (sorry, slight sarcasm) friends, AiG:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n2/do-leaves-die

    What is the difference between plants and animals or man? For the answer we need to look at the phrase nephesh chayyah.2 Nephesh chayyah is used in the Bible to describe sea creatures (Genesis 1:20–21), land animals (Genesis 1:24), birds (Genesis 1:30), and man (Genesis 2:7).3 Nephesh is never used to refer to plants. Man specifically is denoted as nephesh chayyah, a living soul, after God breathed into him the breath of life. This contrasts with God telling the earth on Day 3 to bring forth plants (Genesis 1:11). The science of taxonomy, the study of scientific classification, makes the same distinction between plants and animals.

So when we read in the Bible of death to "living things" (IE: nephesh chayyah), we read it as death to:
1. sea creatures
2. land animals
3. birds
4. man

For death to come to those things, it would imply immortality to those things as well (before Original Sin, and thus before original death, IE: the "first death(s)" of those 4 creatures listed above).

Of course reading of death in the Bible isn't always in reference to everything in that list above, it is, as always, governed by context (so usually the Bible is talking about Man/humanity).


 

Jereth wrote:

    - vertebrate vs. invertebrate is a post-scientific era distinction is it not? Would such a distinction be made in a text that was originally given to ancient people? Are these categories made clear to us in SCripture? (the same way as, for instance, clean and unclean animals; or "birds of the air" vs. "fish of the sea" vs. "beasts of the earth" vs. "creeping things" ?)

    - does the Noah account actually make it clear that there were no invertebrates on the ark? Wouldn't "creeping things" (Gen 6:20, 7:14) include spiders, ants, snails -- in other words invertebrates?

 
No, Noah's account doesn't make it crystal clear, but on an ark that size, I'm sure some of those small critters would've have climbed aboard unhindered and possibly survived upon the ark that way; either that or surfed on the trunks of floating trees and other debris. So even if Noah wasn't commanded to bring them on board, they could have survived a global flood.

Not quite sure about where your question is coming from. Are you asking about the 'nitty gritty' of all of the animals in our observable world today? And how they could've survived because there are so many?Let me have another go :)

Genesis 7:

22Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.

From my knowledge of zoology, I don't think spiders, ants and snails breathe through their nostrils, but rather by diffusion (some have simple pumps). Generally speaking, their respiratory system is open. There is no distinction between blood and interstitial fluid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstitial_fluid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemolymph

Genesis 6:

19And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. 20Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground, according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive.

God specifies specifically "every living thing of all flesh". To me that does not include insects of sorts (no flesh).

Something out of my league (so I cannot paraphrase):

    In the original Hebrew, the word for ‘beast’ and ‘cattle’ in these passages is the same: behemah, and it refers to land vertebrate animals in general. The word for ‘creeping things’ is remes, which has a number of different meanings in Scripture, but here it probably refers to reptiles. Noah did not need to take sea creatures because they would not necessarily be threatened with extinction by a flood. However, turbulent water would cause massive carnage, as seen in the fossil record, and many oceanic species probably did become extinct because of the Flood.

http://creation.com/how-did-all-the-animals-fit-on-noah-s-ark-creation-magazine

That's all for now... ^.^
 

 

Jereth wrote:

    I'm willing to be persuaded on good Bible grounds that the animals (or at least some animals) were originally created immortal -- and yes, this would certainly strengthen the YEC case that the Gospel is incompatible with old earth. But I don't think the case has been made yet.

 
I think it is "shooting yourself in the foot" to look at it from that angle. Simply because the Genesis text does not lend itself in any way towards an interpretation that remotely suggests: "death of <insert animal here>, but Adam and Eve were immortal". That is purely a new (~200 years ago) secular-scientific idea with just as much (if not more) dogma as creation-science ideas...

You might find this interesting,
Cosmic and universal death from Adam’s fall: an exegesis of Romans 8:19–23a
I've been at it all morning and still going. You've been warned (before clicking it and getting stuck)!

Darrell

[Jereth]

Hey Darrell,

Far out, buddy, you have done your homework :-)
I don't know Hebrew & Greek, sorry, so I can't engage you at that level.
I'll try to keep it brief...

Jereth wrote:

    - where do you see it explained in Scripture that only the "nephesh chayyah" (and not the rest) attained morality via the curse? Is there a text to make this clear?

 
Morality? Or Mortality?

Sorry I meant mortality.

In general, I think the onus is on the OECs (old earth creationists) to prove that death predated Adam and existed in Eden. Sure, Genesis does not say explicitly: "and there was just (eternal?) life, there was no death at all (man + animals)", but the simple reading of the English text lends itself to a true paradise, without death and decay

I understand what you are saying mate, but from my perspective it seems that this is firstly an argument from silence (i.e. Scripture doesn't tell us one way another whether animals were mortal prior to Sin -- so the onus is on both sides equally to prove their point); and secondly, one's idea of "paradise" is quite subjective. I personally can conceive of a paradise where there is animal death and carnivores, but no human death or disease, or sin, or war, or poverty, etc. I'd be quite happy living in a world like that.

"Decay". Interesting. If, for arguments sake, we take a purely evolutionary viewpoint of history (which I don't), there was no net decay in the world (or universe) prior to humanity. Certainly there were natural disasters and extinctions, but these were part of an overall cycle of nature in which there is no net loss / destruction. Only humans have brought in irreversible damage to creation, in the form of pollution and so forth. So this would fit with both Gen 3 and Romans 8:19, no?

On the food point, every living thing pre-Fall were vegetarians!
29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

Hmmm, to me these verses are just saying that plants are food for animals. They're not saying that the only food for animals are plants, that animals can't eat other things (eg. meat) too. I think YECs make these verses say more than they actually do. To illustrate: mushrooms do not have seed, tomatoes are not green, and cheese is neither. Does this mean that in God's original design mushrooms, tomatoes and cheese were not meant to be eaten?

Of course reading of death in the Bible isn't always in reference to everything in that list above, it is, as always, governed by context (so usually the Bible is talking about Man/humanity).

Is there actually a verse somewhere which says that death came to "living things" (nephesh chayah) as a result of Adam's Sin? I think Romans 5:12ff. can be read as just being about humanity.

Not quite sure about where your question is coming from. Are you asking about the 'nitty gritty' of all of the animals in our observable world today?

I aksed that question because you said (in your first post) that the Flood narrative makes a distinction between vertebrates and invertebrates -- vertebrates were saved on the ark, invertebrates were not -- in turn proving that the Bible makes this distinction between nephesh animals and non-nephesh animals. My point was that I don't see this distinction in the Bible, or in the Flood narrative. "Creeping things" (which includes invertebrates like spiders) were saved by Noah just like cows and horses.

I really do not think that the Bible makes distinctions such as vertebrate/invertebrate -- with some higher (ensouled?) animals having greater value than lower (non-souled) animals. I am uncertain why Answer in Genesis makes this distinction. Why not argue for the original immortality of ALL animals - including the spiders??

I think it is "shooting yourself in the foot" to look at it from that angle. Simply because the Genesis text does not lend itself in any way towards an interpretation that remotely suggests: "death of <insert animal here>, but Adam and Eve were immortal".

What about Ecclesiastes 3:19 and Psalm 49:12? These verses (in their broader context) suggest that it is abnormal for humans to die, but death is entirely natural for animals.

But anyway...

When all is said and done, is it really true that the Person and Work of Jesus is undermined if animal death existed in the world prior to Adam's sin? Wasn't Jesus' work still necessary to redeem humans from sin and death? I'm sure you would answer yes. So why must YECs (not you specifically, Darrell, but YECs in general especially of the AiG mould) continually accuse OECs of undermining Jesus and the gospel? This is key, because that accusation turns a secondary/non-gospel issue into a primary/gospel issue -- and causes Christians to fight bitterly over something which we could otherwise have a more courteous and respectful disagreement about. That's what grieves me about all this.

Cheers
Jereth