I’ve come to the final installment of this series on Genesis 1-2. In the previous posts I’ve highlighted the YEC bias. I have shown from the Bible how they have distorted the text to support their global flood indoctrination. Then, I shown from the Bible how they have misinterpreted the creation days in Genesis and how YEC embarrass themselves but distorting science to support their errors. Because of their pride and arrogance, they are unable to accept their distortion of the Bible and science earning unbeliever’s ridicule. Finally, I have come to my last critique of the YEC delusion on their addition to the Bible of no death of any kind before the fall of Adam and Eve.
In my post Dissecting YEC (Part 2) I’ve compared the difference between the YEC and OEC on Genesis creation days. I want to reference back to that table. YEC argument goes like this. There can’t be death of any kind before the fall of Adam and Eve because death is a result of sin. Therefore, before there was sin how can you have death. In a stunning and rare admission by Ken Ham.
And this,
Wow, I don’t think I have ever agreed so much with Ken Ham before on this subject. But alas it is short lived.
“Problem: For those Christians who believe in millions of years, the fossil record that is claimed by secularists to be millions of years old has in its numerous examples of animals having eaten other animals—supposedly millions of years before man! This is contrary to the Bible’s Ken Ham’s clear teaching that animals were vegetarian originally (before sin).”
Yes, I played with the strikeout to make a point. I don’t think this is what the Bible teaches. It is what Ken Ham teaches.
What Ken Ham and YEC teach is this. When God finished His creation and saw that it was “very good”. Based on that Ken Ham said there cannot be any death before Adam’s sin. Because if the fossils recorded a history before Adam with diseases in the bones of animals, cancer, arthritis, abscesses etc., animals eating each other, animals dying and going extinct, these things does not describe “very good,”.
Do you see the problem? YEC insist what they say is what the Bible clearly teaches. But what Ken Ham is saying is that he thinks these things about animal death is not good therefore God could not have done this. He is making the judgement of what is good and bad. He thinks this is bad therefore God must also think is bad. He admitted God never said anything about animal death before sin but he made this judgement solely on the fact that he thinks animal death before sin is not very good.
Before I deal with this issue further, I want to deal with God’s other creations. What did God think about His other creations? When God created the light, God said it is good. The land and seas, good. The plants, fruits and seeds, good. The Sun and Moon, good. So after the first four lights(what God call day) God created fish and birds, God said it is good. On the sixth light(day) God created land animals, livestock and creeping things, beasts Adam and Eve.
Consider this, God said the plants and fruits and seeds are good. Yet God said it is fine to eat them even if that means they die. Ken Ham will say plants don’t count they don’t have life as animals and man do. OK, maybe but they are alive, that is life and God said they are good. But plant death doesn’t bother Ken Ham so it is fine.
“However, this objection fails to note carefully what the Bible says about life and death. Biblically speaking, plants do not have a life, as animals and man do. At the end of Genesis 1:30 we see that humans and animals have “life,” but plants do not. The word “life” is a translation of two Hebrew words there: nephesh chayyah”
Please stop hiding behind some word definition. Life is Life. Even if I give him that. What about bacteria, insects, protozoa and invertebrates. Well YEC have an answer for that too.
“Aside from the possibility that ants, and other insects, are not even alive in the biblical sense,1 the question to ask first is why the idea of death before sin is so important that the accidental death of an ant would be an objection. … It is not clear from Scripture whether insects receive the designation nephesh that people and most animals receive in Genesis. The Hebrew word nephesh basically means “breathing creature,” but Leviticus 17:11 states that “the life [nephesh] is in the blood,” so it is possible that nephesh life must have blood. Scripture never uses “blood” in reference to invertebrates, and in an everyday sense, invertebrates don’t actually have blood. It might be implied from this that insects may have died before the Fall. However, this is unlikely as God only gave “every green herb for food” to all animals, including “everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life” (Genesis 1:29–30). So, it would appear that nothing ate insects in the pre-Fall world.”
The YEC are really reaching here Leviticus 17:11 (NASB95) “11‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.’ “ Leviticus said life of the flesh is in the blood. Of course, if you have flesh and no blood, yeah you are dead. But that doesn’t mean that insects and invertebrates don’t have life. Spiders have blood. Earthworms have blood and 5 hearts. Spiders are not known to eat plants but maybe they did back then. So, there was no accidental death of an elephant stepping on an ant. Or a galloping horse stomping on an earthworm. Make no mistake about it these creatures have life, the breathe of life. Genesis 1:30 (ESV) “30And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.” Beast, birds and insects are in the list of animals that has the breathe of life.
Maybe in the YEC mind it didn’t take long before Adam and Eve sinned. Creation done on sixth day and sinned on the seventh. Easy Peasy. So hopefully in between that time nothing died otherwise death before sin and the entire Bible gets unraveled. Oh no!
When God finished His creation and saw that it was “very good”. Based on what Ken Ham said there cannot be any death before Adam’s sin. Because if the fossils recorded a history before Adam with diseases in the bones of animals, cancer, arthritis, abscesses etc, animals eating each other, animals dying and going extinct, these things does not describe “very good,”.
After the all the death before sin carve out the YEC wants a hall pass for. It is time to get to the main event of animal death before sin. The T. rex, theropods, Panthera, behemoths and the 2,500 or so species that Adam name in 3.5 hours with coffee break. Did these animals eat and kill each other, live and died before sin?
First, were these animals created in God’s image and God’s likeness? Are they moral agents that know right from wrong? Would their eyes be opened from eating from the tree of good and evil? The answer would be no, no, and no. So, it is not a sin for them to kill as a form of survival. YEC would protest, still killing is bad, death is bad, not good. Well, we know that murder is bad. But let me come back to this in a bit. Let’s assume for a minute the YEC are right there was no death before sin. Sin came death comes to everything and everywhere. Wait, but these peace-loving vegetarian animals had nothing to do with Adam’s sin. Did they get curse and started their mind craze to eat each other? Well other than that talking serpent, but that’s another story for the YEC. Actually no, the animals were not cursed. Did God curse the ground? Yes. Genesis 3:17–19 (ESV) “17And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The ground is inanimate, no life, it is necessary for Adam and Eve to growth things in for their survival. The ground was not curse because the ground had done anything wrong it was curse as a punishment to Adam.
So far, I think everyone can agree, Adam sin, death came. God said the day you eat of this fruit you shall surely die. I probably would need to expand on this in another post, but I don’t want to digress. Animals didn’t get cursed but they start to die as well. So where did YEC get this idea of animal death after Adam sinned? Let me list out all the verse in Ken Ham’s article.
Ezekiel 33:11 (ESV)
11Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?Romans 3:23 (ESV)
23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,Genesis 2:17 (ESV)
17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”Genesis 3:19 (ESV)
19By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”Romans 8:19–23 (ESV)
19For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
20For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope
21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
22For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
23And 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.Romans 5:12 (ESV)
12Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—Revelation 20:14 (ESV)
14Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
I helped Ken Ham and the YEC by adding a few more verses. Look no one is arguing that the Bible isn’t crystal clear that the wages of sin is death. All the verses from YEC have to do with people and their sin. And death is a result of sin. But sin is a moral failing. Animals don’t have that capacity for morality. Inanimate objects don’t have the capacity for moral failures, only human beings. Why would they need to die because Adam sinned? The Bible never said animals have to die because of Adam’s sin and maybe it is because death was already part of their existence.
The passage I included in Romans 8:20 might be the clearest passage I know of in the Bible linking animals to the fall. “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it” People are excluded from this creation. Given that exclusion, I could take this in the broadest sense, to mean everything God created in the 6 lights (days) of creation in Genesis. The creation was subjected to death. Wait is that what it said? No, it was subjected to futility, meaning that it no longer has a purpose, empty, useless. That doesn’t seem to be true. We can still drink the water, farm the land, raise cattle, pump petroleum, build semiconductor chips, send spacecraft out beyond our solar system. It’s hard work but hardly useless or purposeless.
I believe creation is purposeless in the sense that it is no longer under our dominion. It is no longer here to help us. In the beginning God create Man to have dominion over all of His creation Genesis 1:26, 28. When Adam and Eve sinned, God was under no obligation and indeed took that dominion away from us. And because creation was created for Man and not Man for creation, it now is purposeless. It is futile.
Therefore, I don’t think animal death before Adam sinned is a problem. In fact, why wouldn’t there be death. Did God create animals immortal? Is immortality the requirement for perfection and good? Did even Adam have to be immortal before God can say “very good”? Specifically with Adam he could have been mortal and be extremely healthy throughout his entire natural life. No disease, no aches and pain, no bad vision or hearing. He lived 930 years after he sin when God said the day you each of this fruit you will surely die. Imagine how much longer he would have lived if he didn’t sin. In fact, I think he would have lived forever with immortality if he didn’t sin. That was the purpose of the tree of life. If he didn’t sin at some point, I think he would have eaten from the tree of life and live forever. Genesis 3:22 (HCSB) “22The Lord God said, “Since man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.” This is after Adam sinned and the day, he ate the forbidden fruit he surely will die that day. But if he reach out and eat from the tree of life, he can still live forever and be immortal. So, while the wages of sin is death, unless you eat from the tree of life then you get a “get out of jail free” card? No, I don’t think even Adam was created immortal.
Was Paul wrong when he said the wages of sin is death? Was God lying when He said the day you eat of this fruit you will surely die? Me Genoito. Let God be true and every one a liar. Could Paul have been talking about the spiritual death? Eph 2:1And you were dead in the trespasses and sins. Rom 6:8, 7:9
More importantly is what God said to Adam, the day you eat this fruit you will surely die. Could God have meant it as a double meaning? Maybe. It is possible God is telling Adam from that 24-hr day you will die 930 years later because you won’t be able to eat from the tree of life. Well, that is what happened. But what is more straight forward and explicitly true is that the day, that very instance within 24 hours of Adam eating the forbidden fruit. He died spiritually. His eyes were opened knowing good and evil. He was spiritually separated from God, instantaneously. The first thing they did was to hide themselves when they heard God’s footsteps.
One caveat to the animal death, it is possible that the animals that God brought into the Garden of Eden to be Adam’s helpers were not ferocious. It is possible that the lion does lie with the lamb. Outside of the Garden is a different story and after Adam sinned that is what God did removed Adam from the Garden of Eden. He was no longer under the protection of God and have dominion over creation.
As I wrap up this series, let me give this one piece of unsolicited advice to YEC. You are proud presuppositionists, putting your biblical worldview against the secular worldview. And the reason the secularists has gotten science all wrong even thought you both are looking at the same data, is because they start from the wrong worldview. I want to plead with you, do the rest of Christianity a favor and to stay out of science. Don’t talk about it. Don’t criticize it. Don’t act as if you know anything about it. And please, please don’t pretend you care what science is showing you. Because you don’t care. Your presupposition is that your Bible view is right. If you think the Bible is telling you the sky is green even though science tells you it is blue. You will find some twisted excuse to say it is green. Because you will not say the Bible is wrong when in fact it is your understanding of the Bible that is wrong.