Re: I didn't think Adam had the capacity for error until Eve was created...

From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Fri Jan 24 2003 - 13:18:28 EST

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    William T. Yates wrote:
    >
    > George--
    >
    > I think I must disagree with your comment that "If everything had been
    > perfect in the beginning there would have been no command to be fruitful
    > & multiply." This is an unwarranted conclusion. Being "perfect" or even
    > "good" in God's eyes does not restrict reproduction. God created
    > (whether "zap" creation or evolution) living beings with the inherent
    > capability to reproduce. Given the command to "be fruitful and multiply"
    > is just commanding living beings to exercise their designed purpose.
    > (Design used in the general sense, not Behe, etc.)

            This depends to some extent on what one means by "perfect." If perfect = as
    good as it can be at a given time then I might agree with you. If perfect = as good as
    it can get then not.
            But there's a more fundamental issue which my brief comment just scratches the
    surface of. The fact that time is part of creation (cf. Augustine, "God did not create
    the world in time but with time") indicates that change & history are part of God's
    original intention for creation & not the result of sin. (Though of course the
    particular course that history has taken has a lot to do with sin.) Creation has a goal
    - the Kingdom of God, the uniting of all things with Christ - which is pointed to
    already in the first creation story of Genesis with its inclusion of the Sabbath.
            Which is to say that the overall biblical view seems more consistent with
    evolution toward a consummation than with an originally perfect state. (By "evolution"
    there I mean a general idea of temporal development & not _necessarily_ biological
    evolution in the modern scientific sense - though the two can & I think do fit together
    well.)

                                                            Shalom,
                                                            George

    George L. Murphy
    gmurphy@raex.com
    http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

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