The Old Testament Law and the Christian

What follows is a slightly longer post than normal.  This is due to ample quotations from Scripture.  Most of these quotations can be skipped without losing the argument.

The Old Testament Law and the Christian

            What should we Christians do with the Old Testament Laws?  Do we keep them all?  Do we say they do not apply to us at all?  Or do we figure out a way to understand which of these laws still apply to us?  If you try to keep all the Laws of the Old Testament, then throw away your cotton polyester blended clothing and stop eating pork, and the list goes on.  These are all part of the Law, but throwing the whole Old Testament Law out does not make much sense because Jesus and the Apostles did not throw the Law out even when they say that keeping the Law does not make one justified.  Jesus himself says that he did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill the Law in Matthew 5:17.  If Jesus has not abolished the Law, then there must be something yet in the Law that remains for us as followers of Jesus.

            One way to understand the Law is to divide the Law into Moral Law, Ceremonial Law, and Civil Law.  This works conceptually until we read passages Like Leviticus 21 where the reason for the ceremonial laws rest upon the statement “For I am the Lord”.  Likewise civil laws regarding leaving some of your fields unharvested for the poor to come and harvest from them are supported by “For I am the Lord”.  This then makes the reasons for Ceremonial, Moral, and Civil the same.  Therefore this makes all of the laws in one sense moral because they all rest upon the nature and person of God.  However, if we carefully read through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, we will see a pattern to some laws and not with other laws. 

            There is a key phrase/term that we need to pay attention to and that is the stranger/alien/sojourner.  This is a non-Israelite who would have come to live with the Israelites.  And very important for us is the fact that not all the laws were intended for the stranger who chooses to sojourn among Israel to keep.  All the laws in the Pentateuch/Torah are clearly (if subtly) aimed at two different groups.  There are the Laws that are addressed to the Israelites as being “for you and for your children.”  This type of phrasing demonstrates that these laws were intended to be kept by all Jewish people as part of their covenant with God.  By number, the majority of laws fall into this first category.  There are fewer laws that are given as regarding both the ethnic Jews and those Gentiles who choose to live among the children of Israel.

            This second group of laws that are for the Gentiles and the Jews is limited to a few categories.  I have listed them out with a few Scriptural references for the sake of clarity.

The first command that is for the Jew and the Gentile, who lives among the Jews, is to keep the Sabbath day.

Exodus 20:10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.

Leviticus 16:29 And it shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you.

Deuteronomy 5:14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.

The second command is not to eat blood.

Leviticus 17:10 "If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people.

Leviticus 17:12 Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, No person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood.

The third command is tacked on at the end of a long (but not comprehensive list) of whom and what you should not engage in sexual intercourse along with not having child sacrifice in Leviticus 18.

 Leviticus 18:26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you. 

Child sacrifice to other gods is also prohibited for both the Jew and the Gentile who sojourns among them. 

Leviticus 20:2 "Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death.  The people of the land shall stone him with stones.

Blasphemy is also prohibited to both groups.

Leviticus 24:16 Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death.  All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.

Everyone is expected to worship God at the place that God chooses.

Deuteronomy 16:11 And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell there.

Those Gentiles who keep the Passover must first be circumcised.

Exodus 12:48   If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it.

The Gentile and the Jews are to be treated the same as regards bringing sacrifices.

Numbers 15:14-15 And if a stranger is sojourning with you, or anyone is living permanently among you, and he wishes to offer a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the LORD, he shall do as you do.  For the assembly, there shall be one statute for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you, a statute forever throughout your generations. You and the sojourner shall be alike before the LORD.

A New Testament Vision for the Law

            In chapter 15 of the Acts of the Apostles, there was a council called in Jerusalem to address the issue of whether or not Gentiles ought to be circumcised to become Christians.  James offered this judgement upon the topic stating, “Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood” (Acts 15:19-20).  This view carried the day, and this first recorded Church Council composed a letter and sent it out to the churches.  The most important portion of the letter for our topic is as follows:

            

“For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell” (Acts 15:28-29).[1]

This is a summary and application of several of the Old Testament passages previously listed. 

The command to abstain from eating blood is included (Leviticus 17:10, Leviticus 17:12) and the prohibition of sexual immorality is a nice summary of Leviticus 18.

            The command to “abstain from things offered to idols” is not explicitly stated in the Old Testament laws.  I suspect this is an application of the interpretive practice of greater to lesser.  Jesus did this in 6:25-26 of Matthew’s Gospel when He argued that we should be anxious about our lives because God takes care of the sparrows and we are of more value than them.  This same method of interpretation could be behind the command to abstain from things offered to idols.  If the worship of idols is prohibited in the prohibition against child sacrifice (Leviticus 20:2),[2] then the argument would be just as one cannot offer children to idols so one ought not to receive things from idols.

            There are a couple of commands that simply do not appear to have been necessary to mention to those gentiles who were becoming Christians.  The commands against blasphemy (Leviticus 24:16) and worshipping God in his chosen place (Deuteronomy 16:11) would naturally not be an issue for those who were seeking to become Christians.

            There are also some commands that the Apostles understood and ostensibly applied in non-literal fashion.  The command for the Jew and the Gentile, who lives among the Jews, to keep the Sabbath day (Exodus 20:10, Leviticus 16:29, Deuteronomy 5:14) is altered in the New Testament.  The books of Hebrews argues that the commands and promises of Sabbath were intended to be understood as referring to a spiritual reality, which we enter through obedience (Hebrews 4).

            In much a similar way circumcision, which was the heart of the matter before the council in Jerusalem, is not applied literally.  Indeed, Saint Paul states that those who have been baptized have received circumcision.

            “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, ¹² having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Colossians 2:11-12).

This is an important point because it connects directly to the sacramental life of the Church.  In the Old Testament law, those Gentiles who wished to take part of Passover first had to be circumcised (Exodus 12:48 and Numbers 15:14-15).  Jesus’ passion is intimately connected with Passover and indeed, the Eucharist stands squarely atop Passover as its fulfillment.  Again, to quote from Paul,

            “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:7-8).

Thus, the need for Baptism to proceed partaking of the Eucharist is rooted in the Old Testament types (prefigurements) of these present realities.  In this way, Christians keep some of the Old Testament laws they were intended to keep perhaps without even being aware of it.

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[1] The Jerusalem Council spoke with the authority of the Holy Spirit and gave this letter as a command and not a suggestion.

[2] Some patristic commentators viewed this command not as a reference to human sacrifice, but as a dedication of a child to the service of an idol (for an example, see Theodoret of Cyrus Quaestiones in Octateuchem, 25).

The Ambiguity of Scripture

The Ambiguity of Scripture

            A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away… or, sometime during my studies at Western Seminary, in Portland Oregon, I had a rather engaging and slightly subversive conversation.  The gist of the conversation with a fellow seminarian was that we need to have a doctrine of the ambiguity of Scripture.  This was a rather subversive thought because if Scripture is the final authority on all faith and practice, then any ambiguity would undermine the certainty of how Christians ought to live and what they ought to believe. 

            We agreed that there are passages and verses that appeared to us to be intentionally ambiguous.  One of the things we discussed was the use of terms by the Apostle John in his Gospel.  An example of this is in John 1:5, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  The word here translated as “overcome” could also be translated as “comphrehended/ understood.”  The interesting thing is that both of these possible meanings work in this context.  It seems to me that John chose a term that both meanings were intended to be present.  This is a rather mild example, but it does demonstrate the fact that the authors of Scripture at time used terms and images that could have more than one referent ( possibly by intent).  This is the definition of ambiguity.

            Of course being aware of the implications of such conclusions we concluded that it was best to keep this quiet.  A doctrine of ambiguity of Scripture would cause a strong reaction in the circles which we were running in, along with casting great doubt upon the foundation of all our doctrines and practices.  Altogether a bad life choice for people looking at entering into Church ministry.

              Against our speculation there is the doctrine of the perspicuity (clarity) of Scripture.  Classically (at least from a Protestant perspective), Westminster defined the perspicuity of Scripture to refer to those things which are necessary for salvation.  I have encountered some who have taken perspicuity of Scripture to refer to the whole of Scripture, but such opinions should be treated more as outliers than a serious tradition.  This broader view is even more problematic than the more limited scope of the perspicuity in the Westminster Confession.  However both the limited and broad scope of perspicuity of Scripture are untenable.

            The failure of perspicuity of Scripture is evident in the plainly observable fact that biblical interpreters rarely arrive at the same conclusion.  This even occurs with those who share very similar exegetical methods.  Indeed, this even occurs regarding those things which are necessary for salvation.  This can be seen in the difference between various soteriologies among Protestants.  There are a multitude of views even among evangelical Protestants: Once Saved Always Saved, the Calvinist TULIP, the Arminian view, Lordship Salvation, etc…  If one were to include Roman Catholics and Orthodox perspectives (both of which would rely upon Scripture) then there is an even greater range of understandings upon something as central as what is necessary for salvation.

            Therefore, I think that it is more appropriate to speak of the ambiguity of Scripture than the perspicuity of Scripture.  In affirming this, I would offer that the ambiguity of Scripture is not a problem if one is guided by the Tradition of the Church. Saint Vincent of Lerins aptly noted

“But here someone perhaps will ask, ‘Since the canon of Scripture is complete,[1] and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join with it the authority of the Church’s interpretation?’ For this reason, because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters.” (Commonitorium 2.5) 

If one has ever read multiple commentaries, then the truth of this statement resonates.  There are as many interpretations as there are interpreters.  Now, the point that Saint Vincent was making in this passage was that heretics interpret Scripture unguided by the Tradition of the Church.  There is no hint of the clarity of Scripture here, but rather of the need to be guided by Tradition because apart from the Church’s Tradition, one can easily fall into error through their interpretation of Scripture.  Underlying this is the idea not that Scripture is clear and understandable, but that for one to rightly interpret Scripture it must be read in light of Holy Tradition.

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[1] At the time of St. Vincent (he died around 450), the canon of Scripture was still not universally agreed upon nor fixed in the number or the book included therein.

Questions in Genesis: On Theistic Evolution and the Genesis Accounts

Questions in Genesis:

On Theistic Evolution and the Genesis Accounts

            There is no room in the Genesis creation narratives for the coming into being of the earth and all the creatures in it through an evolutionistic process devoid of God.  “In the beginning God,” simply precludes the notion that Genesis could present the world coming into being apart from the activity of God.  Yet, the text certainly could be read in a manner that supports a theistic evolutionary model.  The wording used in the creation account of Genesis 1 could be read from a theistic evolutionist perspective without engaging in exegesis anymore fanciful than that of the Young Earth position. 

            This reading works with the plants, the animals, and humans.  In Genesis 1:11, God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth."  After God says this, we read in verse 12 that the “earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”  In this account God speaks and the earth then brings forth the plants.  The activity of God is seen in his saying that these plants and trees should come into being and then seeing that the finished product was good.  The means by which this plant life came into being from the text is a work of the earth.  Therefore, one could read this as god speaking the divine plan for plant life and then evolution producing the result at which point God looks at this product and declares it to be good.

            This method of creation is repeated in 1:24-25, “And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds - livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so.  And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”  Again, God called for an inanimate object (the earth) to produce animate creatures.  This is how God created the land animals.  The creation of the sea creatures and flying birds appears to be different.  Although the waters are told to swarm with living creatures, the birds lack such a starting point and are simply made.  Yet, such could be taken as an outlier and that the reader should assume that God used similar methods. 

THE PROBLEM OF HUMANITY

            The Genesis 1 creation account lacks any specificity regarding the origin of humanity.  However, the creation account in Genesis 2 could give some difficulty to the evolutionist position on the origin of humanity.  The creation of humanity is given in some detail that, at face value, appears to preclude the idea that humanity came from another creature.  Genesis 2:7 states, “then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”  This statement presents the origin of humanity as dirt. 

            It could be possible to interpret this “dirt” that God formed humanity out of to involve the creatures that God commands the earth to bring forth.  But that would require reading one creation account into the other creation account.  This may well be a valid practice, but requires one to hold to a unity of these accounts that supercedes the minor difference between these accounts.  This reading would also run afoul of a strong Patristic consensus that viewed the creation of humanity as a unique event in creation that explains the very nature of what is means to be human and sets the theological foundation from salvation is viewed.  I am not saying that it is impossible to account for the text of Scripture and the consensus of the Fathers while explaining how humanity evolved from creatures.  I am saying that it is exceptionally problematic.  All this to say that I can see how a theistic evolutionary reading of the Genesis accounts could easily correspond with text and tradition until one arrives at humanity.

Questions in Genesis: Death Part: 3 Patristic Consensus, Eschatology, and the Goal of Creation

Death Part 3: Patristic Consensus, Eschatology, and the Goal of Creation

            As far as I can tell, there is no patristic consensus on the subject of death prior to Adam’s sin.[1]  The lack of consensus does not mean that the Fathers did not make substantial arguments for or against the existence of death before the fall.  Basil the Great presented the idea that animals were originally created mortal and belonged to a different realm than humans.  Therefore, death among animals was divinely intended in creation prior to Adam’s sin.

            Irenaeus took the position that animals were originally created to all be vegetarians and that the new heavens and the new earth will simply be a return to this original creation.[2]  Irenaeus’ argument is supported by the eschatological passages, particularly in Isaiah, which present a world in which prey and predator live peacefully and consume plants (Isaiah 11:26 and 65:25).  Augustine hinted that the clearly carnivorous creature would have been content to eat fruit fed them by mankind if mankind had not sinned.  It should be noted that both Augustine and Irenaeus make mention of other Christian interpreters who understood these passages to have allegorical meanings as the intended meanings.  They did not refute the allegorical interpretations while asserting that simultaneously the literal reading of the text should be understood as factual.

            With important Fathers[3] in disagreement on this point, I view this as a point that we can fairly disagree about.  Therefore, despite my deepest respect for Irenaeus and Augustine, I think that Basil’s understanding on this topic is a better view.  Basil’s position makes more sense because of the points I made in the first two posts on this topic and because I find the eschatological position behind Irenaeus’ position to be lacking.  Implicitly behind Irenaeus’ view of animal death and predation before the fall is that the eschatological expectation is a return to the pre-fall Edenic state.  I am convinced that the eschatological expectation is a state greater than Eden.  I find the view of St. Symeon the New Theologian quite helpful on the eschatological goal of creation.

           

            St. Symeon the New Theologian understood that humanity was created for the purpose of becoming spiritual beings.  He even commented that had Adam and Eve not sinned, that there would have been no death (understood as physical death) and mankind would have been immortal.  There would then have been a great multitude of people who would have become transformed into spiritual beings and through their virtues would have also transformed the world.[4]  However, the sin of Adam brought both physical and spiritual death to humanity.  Yet, despite the sin of Adam, Symeon understood that the example of Enoch and Elijah demonstrate that God would spare righteous men the pain of death if they chose to follow Him.  This reveals that death (both spiritual and physical) is a choice that every human makes in their own life.

            Symeon viewed the eschatological goal of humanity to be the same as God’s original goal- the transformation of the human into a spiritual being in communion with the Creator.  The new creation of the entire world is more than simply a return to the original state of creation, but the consummation of the goal that God had in mind for the original creation.

           

            With this eschatological goal in mind, there is no pressing need to posit that the vegetarianism of predators in the eschaton (if such passages are meant to be interpreted literally) requires that such was the case in Eden.  Rather, it could point us to the goal of peace and order God ordained that his creation should become.  This goal is of course even better than that which was originally created.  Besides, I am quite convinced that the New Heavens and the New Earth will have many other things which will be quite distinctly different from those encountered in this present age and earth!

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[1] I have not made a thorough study of this topic. If you want a thorough study of this topic, feel free to write the dissertation on this issue.  I promise that I will read it when you send me the pdf.

[2] Adversus Haereses 5.33.

[3] This is especially the case when there are very estimable Fathers such as Irenaeus and Basil in disagreement on a minor point.

[4] Saint Symeon the New Theologian, First Ethical Discourse.

Questions in Genesis: On Death Before The Fall, Part 2

On Death Before the Fall, Part 2

            I prefer the answer that this design of predation and the cessation of life was part of the original plan as it makes more sense of how the Bible speaks about death and how we see the world actually functioning.  Indeed, if death did not exist before the fall, it would seem rather inappropriate for God to warn Adam that on the day he ate of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil that he would die.  This statement by God assumes that Adam knew what death was and that it was something he knew that should be avoided.  Further, the idea that the “death” Adam and Eve experienced was a physical event not only ran into the problems previously mentioned in Genesis, but these same problems are compounded by St. Paul in his letter to the church in Rome.  Below is a rather long quote so that the context of his statements can be slightly more evident.

           

 “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- ¹³ for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.  ¹⁴ Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.  ¹⁵ But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.  ¹⁶ And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.  ¹⁷ If, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.  ¹⁸ Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.” (Romans 5:12-18, English Standard Version)

            For our purposes, the contrast in verses 17 and 18 are terribly important.  The trespass of Adam brought death, but the free gift through Jesus brings life.  What is the life that Jesus brings to all humanity?  It is certainly not a physical immortality.  Or else, the followers of Jesus would be clearly evident by the fact that they just do not die as every other human being.  Therefore, the life which Jesus brings is not a matter of physical life (at least at this time).  If this life which Jesus brings to solve the problem of death started by Adam, it would appear that St. Paul certainly understood the death of Adam speaks primarily to the spiritual state of humanity before God. 

            From a larger biblical perspective there is also a clear connection made between spiritual death and physical death.  Once Adam and Eve were expunged from the Garden, God separated them from the Tree of life lest they eat of it and live forever (Genesis 3:22-24).  And so the genealogies in Genesis repeat the theme of death as nearly everyone in the list died.  So also St. Paul picks up on the same theme by noting that death reigned from Adam to Moses.  Yet, we also see in this statement that St. Paul is not speaking of physical death alone, or else he could have extended death until Jesus not stopping at Moses.  By stopping at Moses we have a clear hint that spiritual death is what Paul means when he speaks of death here.

            This lengthy excursus into Romans does help to clarify the idea that the death which appeared in the sin of Adam is primarily a spiritual death.    Since this death is primarily a spiritual death, then it frees one from the difficulty of postulating how creatures who appear to be highly efficient killers came to be highly efficient killers instead of vegetarians trying to adapt to a world in which meat/carrion is now a food source.  Indeed, it allows one to wonder at the creative work of God who designed the (now) largest mammals to swim through the water and filter living creatures out of the water.  

Questions in Genesis: Death before the Fall

On Death before the Fall

            One of the theological reasons Young Earth Creationists hold to a young earth is because of death.  The logic of this position goes as follows: before Adam and Eve sinned, there was no death; therefore, any position that holds to ages and death occurring prior to the sin of Adam fails to understand the consequence of sin as presented in the biblical text.  This is an erroneous position for several reasons the foremost of which is that there is an implicit understanding that when God created the world and called it very good what God meant was that the world was created perfect.  The world could not have been created perfect, or else perfect means capable of breaking itself.  However very good implies that things were made the way that they were supposed to turn out and that things are operating as they should.  This is not perfection.  This is very good.

            The assertion that there could not be death and suffering before Adam and Eve ate from the tree is awkward on several different levels.  First, it operates as though the death God spoke of was physical death.  This either a) makes God a liar because on the day they ate of it they did not physically die or b) means that “day” refers to all the years that Adam and Eve lived after they ate of the fruit.  Neither one of these are good options for a Young Earth Creationist perspective.  Second, it makes God seem absurd since He threaten Adam with a punishment that Adam could not understand.  However, if Adam had seen other creatures die, the threat of death would be a real and comprehensible threat.

            Allow me to suggest that “death” is not speaking of a physical but a spiritual reality; a reality of being separated from God.  This happened when they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Physical death appears to be the consequence of being separated from the tree of life, which is why we are told that a cherubim with a flaming sword guards the entrance to keep Adam and Eve from eating of the Tree of Life.  This then should cause one to question “Why, if Adam and Eve were made perfect and there was no death, was there a tree of life in the middle of the garden?”  Perhaps it would be better to understand that Adam and Eve were not created immortal but that immortality was conditional on their continued access to the Tree of Life which is also then seen to be conditional on keeping God’s commands not to eat from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

            This then gets to the heart of a very important matter.  Since the death which Adam was warned about is a spiritual state, then it is right to affirm that there was no death anywhere in creation prior to Adam and Eve’s disobedience?  What of plants?  What of microbes?  What of viruses?  What of insects?  Imagine a world in which plants never died and bacteria never died.  You are now in a world that is very different from the world we are in now.  This then profoundly undermines the Intelligent Design argument for observing the order and function in the created order as proof of a divine/intelligent creator.  Because the world was not created in the way we can observe it.  Pause for a moment and consider how much of life requires at its most fundamental level the death of other creatures.

Example 1:

            Baleen Whales are perhaps one of the most destructive creatures on our planet.  In their lifetimes they kill untold millions/billions of living sea creatures which we collectively lump into the term “krill.”  Indeed, even a young earth creationist will argue that they were perfectly created to eat krill.  Yet, krill are living creatures.  And so, for the baleen whales, who from a human perspective are peaceful creatures, their life requires billions of living creatures to die.

Example 2:

            Imagine a world where the creatures upon which nearly all other creatures prey would breed without predation.  Grasshoppers would eat every plant upon the face of the earth given enough time.  That is unless the mice and rats got there first.  (And one can only shudder at the thought of immortal mosquitoes…)  If this were the case, then it is a very good thing that Adam and Eve disobeyed God and brought predation into the world or the plant life would not have sustained such continuous and exponentially growing predation.  This would certainly have destroyed life as we know it on the planet.

            From this order of life requiring the cessation of life in other entities, we can arrive at the conclusion that either: A) God created a world in which entities would cease to exist for the sake of other creatures to live and this by design, B) God recreated the natural order after the sin of Adam and Eve (and there is no textual support for this assertion beyond the function of thorns and thistles), or C) With the introduction of death, creature evolved in profound ways (from not requiring the cessation of life in another life form to exist to fully requiring the cessation of other life forms to exist at all) into the relationships we now see.

            From a creationist perspective, the concept that creatures would evolve in such ways so as to adapt new physiological features to consume new types of food that they were not created to consume is irreconcilable.  Likewise, from a biblical perspective, the idea that God reworked creatures to now consume other creatures is without any biblical support whatsoever (let alone fossil records).

             This leads us to an even bigger problem.  If animals did not die before the fall, then we cannot argue for intelligent design from our observation of the world around us.  If God did not order the world so that animals would die, then one cannot look at the world where the death of creatures is seen to be fundamental to the continuance of life and affirm that God designed it.  Rather, we would see death in creation and recoil in how utterly wrong these creature are in their very function and design that they live off of the death of other creatures.

Questions in Genesis: On Days and Ages

On Days and Ages

            The time in which this creation event took place is an incredibly difficult thing to figure out.  First, “day” does not always equal a 24 hour time period.  If this were the case then the Bible would contradict itself because in Genesis 2:4 we are told “in the day God created the heavens and the earth”.  Indeed, it is difficult to argue this point with many Young Earth Creationists, because they will often be dogmatic that “day” must mean a 24 hour period of time in Genesis 1:1-2:3 and yet in Genesis 2:4 “day” refers to a period of time equal to the seven day account of Genesis 1:1-2:3.  This of course undercuts the certainty with which the days in Genesis 1:1-2:3 must be 24 hour periods of time.  Although, the better argument is that “day” means a 24 hour period of time in Genesis 1:1-2:3 because in each occurrence it is joined with evening and morning which clearly sets these uses of “day” apart from making reference to an indeterminate period of time.

            However, once one arrives at the position that the use of evening and morning require the “days” in Genesis 1:1-2:3 to be 24 hour periods of time, then one has to account for how there was morning and evening before there was a sun.  This is not a new observation.  Indeed, saint Augustine asked this same question some 1600 years ago.           The creation accounts in Genesis greatly puzzled Augustine and he wrestled with these accounts on and off throughout much of his life.  Augustine rightly noted that there is a problem thinking about the six days of creation as being six days as we would know them because it is not until the fourth day that the sun and the moon and the stars even existed.  You cannot have an evening and morning apart from the Sun.  This is quite clearly an important issue.  There cannot be a time know as evening or morning as we know them to be apart from the sun.  Indeed, Genesis 1:14 the sun, moon, and stars were given as signs to mark days and times.  This means that the creation account tells us that the sun, moon, and stars function is to mark days, times, and seasons.  Which means, that for the first three days the markers for days were not yet in existence and so could not mark the days as such. 

            The rejoinder to this that God made morning and evening with light and darkness apart from the Sun and the moon, is an argument that has no clear Scriptural evidence.  Quite simply, we are not told how anything like that happened only that light and darkness were separated and existed.  What we do have is an account that presents a rather strange way of marking the day; Evening and Morning.  The Jewish day is from sundown to sundown, that is evening to evening.  When we read through the Old Testament and the New Testament, we encounter the order of morning and evening to note the length of a day.  Yet, the system presented in Genesis for marking the day is evening and morning.  This is simply an odd way to count a day by any standards!  The only time we encounter evening and morning occurring together is when we read the accounts of burning the lamps in the tent of meeting during the night, and then the phrase is, “from evening until morning” (Exodus 27:21, Leviticus 24:3, etc…).  This means that in Genesis 1:1-2:3 we have a counting of days that we find nowhere else in the Bible.  Thus this anomalous use of “evening and morning” should give one pause when considering whether the event described was meant to be understood in the sense of a typical “day” as we would count it.

            Despite the problematic nature of describing “day” in Genesis 1:1-2:3 as a 24 hour period of time, there are two views which interpret “day” in this manner.  There are Old Earth Creationists who hold to the Gap Theory, and Young Earth Creationists.  The Gap Theory postulates that there is a gap of time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.  This view can be dated back to the 1600’s.  This is important, because it places this view prior to Darwin.  Thus the Gap Theory cannot properly be called a reaction to Darwinian Evolution.  The Gap Theory holds that indeterminable amount of time passed between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.  The textual argument for this views is often obscured in the English translations which say, “the earth was formless” whereas it is perfectly possible to translate the same phrase as “the world became formless”.  This is an argument for a recreation.  That there was a world that became “formless” and God remade the earth in six 24 hour periods of time.  This then accounts for the random fossils and the (even pre Darwin) lingering suspicion that the world was older than 8,000-9,000 years that a literalistic reading of the biblical narratives would present.

            Young Earth Creationism holds to the entirety of creation being made in six 24 hour periods of time.  There are no gaps.  There are no missing ages.  Each “day” is a 24 hour period of time in which all the things described in Genesis 1:1-2:3 were created in the order recorded there.  As this work is a critique of Young Earth Creationism the details of this view are discussed throughout this work and need not be repeated here.

            There are two primary views that hold to creation taking place within more than six 24 hour periods of time.  There is the Day Age view that holds that the word “day” does not refer to a 24 hour period of time and that entire ages (equating to untold millions of years) passed in the account of the 6 days in the Genesis 1:1-2:3 account.  This view finds no problem reconciling the different uses of “day” in the two creation narratives in Genesis as in both places “day” refers to an indefinite period of time in which an event took place.  Within the day age view there are two distinct groups.  There are Old Earth Creationists and Theistic Evolutionists.  The difference between these two groups is simple and profound.  The Old Earth Creationists hold to the means by which all things came into existence was through creation.  The Theistic Evolutions would hold that God used evolution as a tool to arrive at the finished product.  These are clearly divergent positions, yet both positions view the six “days” as indefinite periods of time.

            I am without a firm answer on this topic.  I do know that “day” as used in Genesis 1 does not require the interpretation of a 24 hour period of time.  In Genesis 1 the six days of creation were used to teach humanity about how to order their lives and that the Sabbath is a divine institution which God established by example at the beginning.