Death in Relation to the Creation and Fall

What a demeaning view of me. Where would I GET my point of view for them to agree with if not from reading them in the first place, along with a lot of others who didn't convince me of their thinking? I am not one of those who got my theology from growing up in church, I came by it all, including my belief in Christ, through reading all kinds of books in my forties, including a lot of Eastern religion as well as cultic writings and Catholic writings and liberal Christian writings. I arrived, I think quite honestly, at Protestant Reformation Christianity as a result of sorting through all the options out there. You can of course conclude that I'm stupid and chose the wrong authorities in the end, but you can't conclude that I started out with a theology to which everything I read must conform. I do not see that "a plain literal reading of the scriptures" demands [abe] a heliocentric view [/abe] an earth-centered view at all. That came from Aristotle, to which the RCC was dedicated far more than it ever was to the Bible.And why are you going back to Galileo? The Protestant Reformation overthrew all that, thank God, and it is to them that I trace my own understanding of scripture. Well for me it is clearly NO, as I've shown here already. And yes what you are doing IS a matter of manipulating scripture to fit modern beliefs. The way DA made the Greek, which of course he doesn't know at all, mean that only human beings suffered from the Fall, as I just pointed out in my previous post (which should raise questions about the evolution of humanity anyway, and I can hardly wait to see where you all go with that one.) I'm sorry but I find this very sad. I'm very attracted to the writings of the Holiness people but I'm also aware that churches founded on Wesley have a strong tilt to liberalism, and I've often wondered if that's because he insisted on Arminianism over Calvinism. He himself was a powerful preacher of Christ as were most of the Holiness people, but once you've got a false theology in the sheepfold it tends to take over. I don't take myself for the standard of anything, but I do of course believe I'm right about the things I defend here or I wouldn't defend them. Shall I accuse YOU of thinking you have a monopoly on the truth because you are strongly committed to a different point of view? It is horribly sad to me that people think they need to seek some kind of new reading of scripture after two millennia of the work of, yes, the greatest spiritual and intellectual minds who all agree on the inerrancy and basic readings of scripture. AND PLEASE DO NOT DENY THAT THIS IS ONLY BECAUSE OF THE PULL OF EVOLUTIONARY "SCIENCE." You ARE trying to deny this, as if this new "seeking of the truth" would have occurred without its influence. No, evolution has an iron grip on today's minds and that is the ONLY reason for such a conference as the one you describe. The nonChristians here think Christianity is outmoded and silly and our pride in our own intellects is naturally wounded by this and by what seems like their consistent reasoning (I emphasize "seems," because it's all an illusion). You don't get the brunt of this here because you've already conceded, but I get it all the time because I refuse to concede, and now I'm getting it on this thread from you and DA who consider yourselves to be Christians. I don't have to insist on what I glean of the scriptural standard for life and death, I can stick with the simple scripture that says "ALL CREATION" is waiting for redemption from corruption without having to figure out how.And I'll just ignore your speculations about what would have happened in the Flood because it doesn't belong on this thread, and anyway you imagine it from the point of view that denies that it ever happened. I have set myself the task of imagining it from the opposite point of view. You don't know what happened and neither do I, because we're talking about the unwitnessed past, but I think I've made some good arguments based on knowing that God's word IS God's word and not open to the kind of debunkery you've allowed yourself to fall into. So the bugs found refuge in the ark, I have no trouble with that idea. There are a lot of creationist arguments that don't cut it, so what? They're no sillier than the evolutionist arguments that have slabs of different kinds of rock representing millions of years of time and dead creatures within them representing evolution up the strata, although they are simply dead creatures that obviously died en masse in conditions peculiarly conducive to fossilization. Odd then that you haven't said one thing that demonstrates such supposed inconsistency. Why, because I looked for scripture to explain why plants don't die when they're eaten, or live or die in the same sense meant in scripture about the effects of the Fall? I think I came up with a reasonable scripture-based explanation for that.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : to correct "heliocentric" to earth-centered

I see I didn't address DA's quote from the NASB but looking at it now I see nothing to object to. It also says that it was through Adam that sin entered into the world, and that's the main point I want emphasized, sin and its consequence, death. That point along with Romans 8:19 that shows that all the creatures have been subjected to the "bondage of corruption" which means death, from which they hope for release at the time of the redemption of all things, add up to my proof that death entered the world, including all the other creatures, at the Fall. It is? Do you have any notion of my arguments about these things? I am NOT "KJV-only" by the way and I try very hard to make that clear. KJV-onlies think the KJV was inspired by God, I do not, I think it is simply the best translation we have, and this is because all the others are based on the bogus Greek texts that Westcott and Hort used in their revision of 1881. This is a long argument and I have a whole blog about it, "The Great Bible Hoax of 1881."But this does not mean that the newer translations are necessarily inaccurate otherwise and I've never said anything remotely like that. Spoken like a good liberal revisionist, which is the presumptuous thing here. Death is the definition of imperfection. Death is pain is decay is corruption is disease. There is nothing GOOD about any of those things. Right, without some artificial notion of good and evil we would just LOVE pain and disease and decay and corruption, we'd just love the stink of dead things, we just revel in deformity and the witherings of age. Yes, we know these things are bad without the help of any special knowledge. No, and I'm sure if one ate one of your arms or legs you'd just revel in the experience as "good," right? BECAUSE IT HURTS! What more do we need than our fear of death, and the pain often involved in it, and our natural recoiling from the smell of death and disease and our grief when someone we're close to dies to tell us that death is bad??? What a bunch of sophistry, HBD. You really need to rethink all this. We do? Seems to me we're far more likely to UNDERestimate the suffering of not only other creatures but other human beings because of our own self-centeredness. You are treating our inevitable EXPERIENCE of the pain of disease and death as some kind of mental aberration? Have you never experienced any of the things I've been describing here? You think it's all an illusion, a mental fabrication? Uh, WHAT? That's pure gobbledygook it seems to me. If you go back through my posts I'm sure you'll see that I never said they weren't. But the sea creatures had to stay in the sea and could not get onto the ark, which was for the land animals. And the whole point of my searching out the scriptural distinctions between life and death in relation to the Fall was to explain why PLANTS were not treated as living things in the same sense, nor their being eaten as death, and why Noah was not commanded to take them onto the ark. Which doesn't mean there weren't lots of plants on the ark! But the passage speaks of sin ENTERING THE WORLD, not the universe or the heavenlies, where Satan had already fallen. And it's not mere "tradition" that says the serpent was really Satan, scripture itself says so. And I don't think we know what is meant by "the knowledge of good and evil" really, but because it is presented as bad for us I can't accept the liberal idea that it was a good thing in any sense. Eve was simply seduced by the idea that she'd become like God, which is the perennial temptation to all of us since then. Do keep your eyes open for the gradual decline in genetic diversity that might show you differently. See my previous comment, things are deteriorating with our without our help, but otherwise yes, we ARE fallen and we don't always do right by the Creation. Well carry on then. I can get off this thread if you all stop addressing me. You can enjoy your shared liberal revisionist view of the Bible without my interference.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

A basic understanding of Greek is not enough to translate the Bible. What an absurd thing to say. Many of the KJV translators had been taught Greek from early childhood, but a year or two of basic Greek compares to that in your mind?And so what that the Greek was taken from the Textus Receptus, those translators who USED the TR did not read it as you insinuated it should be read by presenting it as you did.I guess I'm not being properly Christian because I'm not a liberal? Otherwise I fail to see how I deserve your accusation.

Wow. Snide? Where? Calling you "liberal" perhaps? But that's the simple truth. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I disagree, it seems clear to me that the scriptures I've quoted make the case.

I confess that I don't know who all argued as I'm arguing, it is merely an impression I've had that the history of theology supports the idea that all creatures were made to die as a result of the Fall, but possibly I'm wrong about that.I looked up Gill and Spurgeon and found Gill interpreting the "creatures" as the "Gentiles," and Spurgeon thinking only in terms of the physical appearance of the earth, and they are both theologians I much respect. But in these particular views I can't agree with them. I also looked up the Westminster Confession but it doesn't comment on the passages in question.So I don't know now where I got my very strong impression that there is such strong agreement that scripture is talking about the death of all living things being the result of humanity's Fall.Perhaps I will yet find the sources that led me in that direction. But meanwhile I can't read those scriptures any other way and I don't find any of the arguments against the idea to be at all convincing."The wages of sin is death" seems conclusive all by itself. Death has no other reason for existing than human sin. All creatures that experience death are therefore the victims of human sin. The idea that all creatures are waiting for release from "the bondage of corruption" also seems conclusive all by itself. The idea that "death by sin" ENTERED the world at one time is also sufficient to me, but with the other statements absolutely conclusive.To say that all this only applies to human beings is to imply that the death of animals could be part of a good Creation. The idea of death before the Fall to any creature capable of suffering utterly contradicts a good Creation. There is nothing good about death, or all the forms of death in disease and decay and other evil effects of bodily corruption, it is all pain and suffering and misery and fear and loss and grief, for human beings and animals alike. Have you ever seen a pet die? Anyone who has can't possibly speak of death as a good thing.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I find this really laughable that I'm the one on this thread putting people down. Have you read your own posts or HBD's lately? I'm the stupid fundamentalist, remember? Your eruption about how "vacuous" I am and all the rest of it simply makes a bit more explicit your demeaning attitude all along. I'm the one who trusts in those who agree with me since I'm too stupid to have the ability to make rational judgments of my own; I'm the one who doesn't have the sense to grow with knowledge.I'm sorry if I've hurt your feelings but I have to suspect you must be rather thin-skinned if so, and certainly out of touch with the context of this debate and with the things you've said about me.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Your snarky attitude, which apparently you are wholly unaware of, is absolutely out of line here. I had gone in search of some teachers I thought might share my point of view and found they didn't and posted that information quite honestly. You seem to have little understanding of the meaning of Christian charity, speaking of a failure of Christian behavior. Of course you only see your opponent's failures, never your own, that log in your own eye. Go back in this discussion to eh earlier thread too, you've been calling me names all along as if it's right when you do it.If I lose credibility for calling you a liberal but you don't when you call me a Pharisee and everything else you've called me, that has nothing to do with me but with your status at EvC as pro evolution. Period.
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In any case, the fact that I didn't find support for what I thought doesn't mean I can't find others of equal importance who do agree with me if I look more.And your own chart has eight out of twelve agreeing with me among the early church fathers.

God speaks to us in our weakness and finiteness and does not lie. I find the scriptures I've quoted completely convincing, as I keep saying, that death entered the world with the Fall. I drew my conclusion that "All creatures that experience death are therefore the victims of human sin" from "the wages of sin is death." While one could make this seem to mean that sin is just ONE cause of death I read it as definitive of death. There is no other reason why there should be death in this world.All the "other factors" you are talking about come from present experience of this present world. You have NO idea what the situation was like before the Fall, but there is every reason to believe that things were VERY different for all creatures. You make the mistake of taking this fallen world for the one God originally created. I thought I was pretty clear. They suffer, that's enough for me. Suffering HURTS. The fact that an ultimate good can be produced through it under some circumstances does not make it GOOD. Christ sweat blood in the Garden anticipating the suffering He was going to be put through (yes, the loss of communion with God, or spiritual suffering, was no doubt what He feared). His suffering is not to be dismissed as trivial just because it led to a supreme good. And what is the good brought about by the suffering of animals? It's a necessity in the fallen world so it must serve some good, but in itself it's just a horrible misery for the poor creatures. And we know that, don't we? Don't we shoot horses we can't heal? And we put others out of their misery as fast as possible because we DO know that suffering hurts. Then you are going to be really disappointed with the new heavens and new earth where there will no longer be any kind of suffering.Oh I don't deny that God does bring joy out of suffering in this present fallen world, but that does not make the suffering in itself good. I've made the standard clear. Yes. The only creatures I've agreed with YOU ALL that might have died before the Fall were microbes and insects and that sort of thing. Otherwise I have NOT said any such thing. I am not even sure ANY creatures died before the Fall at all, but if any did it would no doubt have been the microbes and insects.And no, I do not believe that plants experience pain. Insects and worms etc. I don't know but I also don't care. Microbes, no.All I ever said about sea creatures was that they couldn't have been saved on the ark, I certainly never said they died before the Fall. And obviously some of them survived the Flood in the water.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : substitute "and" for "but."

Perhaps you are right and I should try to tone it down if I can catch myself at it. But I DO despise the liberal Christian point of view and you may be taking personally what is aimed against that point of view. By the liberal point of view I mean the attempt to make the Bible conform to modern science, often by subtly changing the meaning of the text while keeping the literal words intact (not that I remember you doing this). That's basically what J Gresham Machen was saying in his "Christianity and Liberalism" which I linked on the other thread.By the way, here is the post on the other thread where I linked and quoted Machen. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : remove wrong punctuationEdited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : add Machen post link

I thought I said that I don't know why the tree of life was put in the Garden except for the reasons given by various commentators. I don't know why you keep making an issue of this. As far as I can see it doesn't relate to the topic under discussion. But if you have a theory of your own I'd be interested in what it is.

This discussion started back on the thread about the Arizona law which I'd conjectured might have been designed to allow Christians freedom of conscience not to do anything to support gay marriage, and I'd been called a bigot already, and then you chimed in with the same theme because of your hatred of my brand of Christianity, which is the attitude of "liberal Christianity" in general.That basic attitude simply spilled over into this other topic about death as the result of or pre-existing the Fall, where you continue your attitude of self righteous disdain for the traditional position. Some Christian yourself, DA, but you accuse ME of what YOU are doing.You side against another Christian on the board, with some pretty excoriating accusations, accumulating all kinds of cheers from the antiChristians here, and then you get all upset if I let you know how much I hate YOUR point of view.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : punctuation,

I was only talking about where this started on the previous thread. I'm supposed to be polite to you after the things you said to and about me there. And nevertheless I don't think I WASN'T polite.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But I'm not wrong that scripture clearly says, in the quotes I've already given multiple times, that death did not enter into Creation, for people or animals, until the Fall.Amazing how easy the debunkers find it to dismiss something like the existence of the Tree of Life in the Garden on the basis of their own sophomoric reasoning, as if nobody else ever thought of such an objection, so that there couldn't possibly be a good reason for it. I consider the Tree of Life to be a wonderful mystery that some day I'll understand and I don't care if I do or don't understand it now. I also assume it had functions in Eden we can't know about from our position. But the sophists of EvC always know everything, don't you?

No, I am not imposing it on the scripture. When scripture says that the whole Creation is looking forward to release from the BONDAGE OF CORRUPTION, which means death, that is not just about human beings. That is CLEARLY in the scripture. And when you combine it with "the wages of sin is death" which defines the CAUSE OF DEATH as sin, that has to apply to all things that die even if the immediate context is human beings, and with Romans 5:12 emphasizing the same cause and effect, that death ENTERED into the world because of sin, again also in the immediate context about humanity, it has to apply to animals because they die too.Sorry, all the arguments against have NOT been "clearly shown."And in any case, as I've said before, to claim that death came only to human beings totally undoes the whole idea of evolution anyway.