On Wed, 20 Sep 1995 17:15:55 GMT you wrote:
>ABSTRACT: Romans 8: 19-22 requires that we recognise a real
>transformation of the "very good" original creation into the
>creation which is in bondage to decay and groaning for cosmic
>deliverance. (A response to Steven Jones (14th September) and
>Loren Haarsma (18th September).
[...]
>Steven goes into more detail in his response:
SJ>The "bondage to decay" of Rom 8:20, should not be
>overstated. It is stated clearly in Gn 3:16-19 what this
>involved: "To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your
>pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.
>Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."
>To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from
>the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
>"Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you
>will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns
>and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
>By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return
>to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and
>to dust you will return."
SJ>The above seems to be summed up by a partial withdrawal of
>grace. It could be seen as letting nature take its normal course,
>ie. as outside the Garden. It implies that Eve would have
>experienced some pain in childbirth, but now it would be "greatly
>increase(d)". There already were "thorns and thistles" (otherwise
>Adam wouldn't have known what they were), but now they would be
>not restrained. Adam would have to "subdue" the earth (Gn 1:28),
>but without the fullness of God's grace.
SJ>I see nothing in this that rules out "mutations and natural
>selection" nor can I see how these would "darken his (God's)
>character" if He used these natural mechanisms. They have
>unquestionably, through micro-evolution, enhanced the beauty and
>variety of this fallen world.
DT>Thank you for this feedback. I will argue that the
>perspective Steven places on Paul's teaching does not do justice
>to the cosmic dimensions of Christ's redemption.
Nevertheless, it is what Gn 3:16-19 actually says. Rom 8:19-22 is a
very difficult passage to interpret, and it is made more difficult by
the fact that nowhere else AFAIK is the theme of creation's bondage
expounded in the Bible (apart from Gn 3:14ff).
I accept that creation is in in some sense in "bondage to decay", but
I do not see that we can interpret it to mean all that YEC try to hang
on it (eg. no Second Law of Thermodynamics before the Fall, etc). I
aplologise if I am misinterpreting your words to imply the YEC
doctrine of no death before the Fall.
DT>Paul did not make his Romans 8 statement in a vacuum. The
>context is the Old Testament, which does point us to Adam, the
>entrance of sin and the Edenic Curse.
Agreed. But creation was not ideally perfect even before the Fall.
See my original comments above.
DT>What is the "creation" referred to in Romans 8? We might
>answer: the product of the creative act referred to in Romans
>1:20. But other answers have been suggested: mankind, the sub-
>human animals, man's experience of the Garden of Eden - bit I
>think these are misidentifications. In vs 19, 21 and 23,
>believers are distinguished from the "creation" - so the
>"mankind" interpretation should be rejected. For the purposes
>of my argument, I can live with "sub-human animals" - but on the
>basis of Genesis 3:17 conclude that "creation" must refer to more
>than these.
Paul says "the whole creation" in v22. I do not at this stage agree
with commentators who see believers exempt from this on the basis of
vv23. However, the limits of this "whole creation" must be governed
by Gn 3:14ff.
DT>The cosmic scope of Romans 8 suggests that a focus
>on the Garden of Eden is astray.
If by "cosmic" you mean in the sense of the whole universe, I
disagree. The Garden of Eden judgment in Gn 3:14ff is the extent of
"the bondage to decay", ie. the earth.
DT>Theologically, man was given
>dominion over the non-rational creation (animate and inanimate),
>not just over the Garden of Eden. When Adam fell, the Curse came
>upon everything over which he had been given dominion.
Where does it actually say that, David? The curse is a difficult
thing to interpret. The "ground" is "cursed" (Gn 3:17) but only
vis-a-vis its effect on man. The "thorns and thistles" (Gn 3:18)
were not "cursed", because they were to do better than ever!
It is really *man* (and woman and Satan) who are the cursed
ones in Gn 3:14ff. The *relationship* between man and nature
was cursed.
DT>In Romans 5, Paul emphasises the consequences of Adam's sin for
>mankind; in Romans 8, he links nature as a whole with the plight of
>Adam's race. This leads us to a picture of "creation in three
>states": (a) the original "very good" creation, free from futility
>and decay;
This last cannot be sustained. Creation was "very good" but not
perfect - Adam had to "subdue" it (Gn 1:28). The word "subdue" here
is very strong:
"...the primal creation. We shall hardly expect the latter to be a
state of perfect bliss, an idyllic paradise. We shall rather be ready
to understand the `good' and 'very good' of Genesis in terms of the
stern (but loving) programme the Creator had in mind for his new
creature, man. At this programme we must now look. It is expressed
in the mandate given to man in Genesis 1:28 which reads, 'Be fruitful
and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion . .
. over every living thing . . .' This mandate thus charged man with
`subduing' the earth. The Hebrew word for 'subdue' is kabas, and in
all its other occurrences in Scripture (about twelve in all) it is
used as a term indicating strong action in the face of opposition,
enmity or evil. Thus, the land of Canaan was 'subdued' before Israel,
though the Canaanites had chariots of iron; (Josh 17:8; 18:1) weapons
of war are 'subdued', so are iniquities. (Zech. 9:15 RV; Mic.
7:19). The word is never used in a mild sense. It indicates, I
believe, that Adam was sent into a world where all was not sweetness
and light for in such a world what would tbere be to subdue?"
(Spanner D.C., "Biblical Creation and the Theory of Evolution", 1987,
Paternoster, p53)
Decay is an essential element of the physical universe. Adam and
Eve's need to eat was an indication of decay, in terms of the Second
Law of Thermodynamics:
"Moreover, it can be shown from Genesis that the Second Law must have
been in operation before Adam sinned. We need to eat as a consequence
of the Second Law, because the available energy in our bodies
decreases and must be replenished from an external source. And both
man and the animals needed food before man fell, according to Genesis
1.29,30. This implies that they we subject to the Second Law of
Thermodynamics from the moment of their creation." (Hayward A.,
"Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from Science and the
Bible", 1995, Bethany House Publishers, p184)
It may be that the Fall has accentuated the decay that was already
present, but it cannot be maintained that there was no decay before
the Fall.
>(b) the present creation bearing the marks of the Curse,
>characterised by futility, bondage to decay and groaning;
Agreed, but this must be controlled by Gn 3:14ff. Paul's language is
metaphorical, eg. "creation...groaning as in the pains of
childbirth"-Rom 8:22; "creation waits in eager expectation" ("on
tiptoe"-Phillips)-Rom 8:19. Vincent says:
"The whole passage, with the expressions waiting, sighing, hoping,
bondage, is poetical and prophetic" (Vincent M.R., "Word Studies in
the New Testament", Vol II, 1969 reprint, Eerdmans, p93)
>(c) the future participation in Christ's cosmic redemption:
>deliverance from futility and decay and participating in the
>freedom of God's children.
Agreed, but it is difficult to know exactly what Paul means here.
Normal natural processes that operated before the Fall, cannot
be referred to.
DT>"Decay" is contrasted with "glory" in verse 21. A similar
>contrast is in 1 Corinthians 15:42f where Paul discusses the
>resurrection of the dead. Our decaying bodies are perishable,
>mortal, subject to death. I do not see how we can exclude the
>sense of death from the meaning of "decay". The inference, then,
>is that this characteristic (bondage to decay) was absent from
>the world as originally created.
Paul discusses *Human* death. There is no warrant to extend this to
mean no death before the fall. Ramm says:
"Ideal conditions existed only in the Garden. There was disease and
death and bloodshed in Nature long before man sinned. As we have
shown in the chapters on geology, we cannot attribute all this death,
disease, and bloodshed to the fall of Satan. Certainly the Scriptures
do not teach that death entered the world through Satan. There is not
one clear, unequivocal, unambiguous line in the entire Bible which
would enable us to point to the vast array of fossil life and state
that all the death here involved is by reason of the sin and fall of
Satan.
Life can live only on life. All diet must be protoplasm. Are we to
believe that the lion and tiger, the ant-eater and the shark, were all
vegetarians till Adam fell, and that the sharp claws of the big cats
and the magnificent array of teeth in a lion's mouth were for
vegetarian purposes only? One might affirm that such a creation could
hardly be called good, but that is pre-judging what good means. The
cycle of Nature is an amazing thing, and the relationship of life to
life sets up a magnificent balance of Nature. Unless a very large
number of certain forms of life are consumed, e.g. insects and fish,
the earth would be shortly overpopulated with them. Some fish lay
eggs into the millions and if all such eggs hatched the ocean would
shortly be all fish. Carnivorous animals and fish keep the balance of
Nature.
Outside of the Garden of Eden were death, disease, weeds, thistles,
thorns, carnivores, deadly serpents, and intemperate weather. To
think otherwise is to run counter to an immense avalanche of fact.
Part of the blessedness of man was that he was spared all of these
things in his Paradise, and part of the judgment of man was that he
had to forsake such a Paradise and enter the world as it was outside
of the Garden, where thistles grew and weeds were abundant and where
wild animals roamed and where life was possible only by the sweat of
man's brow."
(Ramm B. "The Christian View of Science and Scripture", 1955,
Paternoster, London, p233).
Indeed, a world where there was no death would quickly become a hell!
Clark:
"It is useless to complain that nature is made according to such and
such a pattern unless we can suggest some better way which it might
have been made. Suppose, then, that animals never ate one another but
always died naturally. Would their suffering be less than it is? It
certainly would not. The wounded and the infirm would linger on
indefinitely in joyless existence, only to die of starvation when
physically incapable of finding their food. But suppose animals were
immortal -what then? The answer comes that over-multiplication would
soon bring universal death from starvation." (Clark R.E.D. "The
Universe: Plan or Accident?", Third edition, 1961, Paternoster,
London, p214).
Your interpretation, that "decay" includes "death", taken to its
logical conclusion, there could not even be plant decay and death
before the Fall. See below.
DT>I think we are free to consider whether some forms of death
>are not the result of God's Curse, but part of his created order.
>There is no controversy, for example, over the death of plants.
>For the purposes of this post, I am not proposing answers to this
>issue - but I am suggesting that death in the animal kingdom that
>is painful and untimely (predation, disease, physical
>catastrophe) is rightly described as "bondage to decay" from
>which the creation groans and waits in anticipation of release
>by Christ (its Creator).
If you include "death" in "decay", then it is arbitrary to exclude
plant death. For starters plants (Gn 3:18 "thorns and thistles" )are
specifically mentioned as part of the curse. They are part of "the
whole creation" (Rom 8:22). If you interpret "bondage to decay" as
"death" then logically you cannot exclude the death of plants. You
must hold that there was no death even of plants before the Fall.
But there is no Biblical warrant for the view that there was no death
of animals before the Fall. Adam and Eve couldn't take a walk in the
Garden without inadvertently killing ants and beetles!
DT>Consequently, for biblical reasons (as well as scientific -
>as already mentioned), I cannot take seriously an explanation
>of origins involving concepts like the survival of the fittest
>and natural selection. These concepts are fine for studies of
>ecology in the present creation, but are not relevant to origins.
I must disagree. Natural selection is a necessary of a world where
more living things are produced than can possibly survive, and some
individucals reproduce more than others. There is no evidence that
this did not apply before the Fall. There ius nothing inherently
bad about natural selection or even "survival of the fittest". Indeed,
if it did not apply, the Earth would be a living hell!
IMHO YEC's read more into the the Biblical statements about the
goodness of the original creation than the Bible indicates. It is
important to read the Bible on its own terms, not through idealistic
images of what a "very good" creation might be to us. In a YEC-style
"very good" = perfect creation there would be no need to "subdue" the
earth, yet that is what the text plainly says. It is also important
to subject our interpretations to reality checks - if God is the
author of both Nature and Sceipture, we must re-check our
interpretation of the latter in the light of the former. You already
do this in excluding plants from your "decay' = "death"
interpretation.
DT>And I must conclude with an apology: I have not covered
>everything that I ought to, and there are many other issues
>waiting a response - but I'm under pressure of time. I hope this
>does not show too much in what I have written!
Same here! :-)
In conclusion, I agree that in some sense creation is "out of whack",
due to man's fractured relationship with nature. Man was not able to
fulfill his appointed role of subduing nature with the help of God's
grace. What would have been posible is perhaps seen by Jesus' comtrol
over nature. Nature did not respond as co-operatively to man's
subduing as before -it produced "thorns and thistles" and man needed
to work hard just to survive (Gn 3:18-19). In a sense creation is
"waiting on tiptoe" for that previous relationship with man to be
restored in the "new heavens and a new earth " (Isa 65:17 Isa 66:22
2Pet 3:13 Rev 21:1). I do not agree that this being "out of whack"
implies that it was perfectly "in whack" before the Fall. In a sense
creation, while "very good" (Gn 1:31) was unfinished in that it
needed man to "subdue" it (Gn 1:28). Scripture says nothing about
there being no death before the Fall and indeed Ps 104:24 indicates
that the death of animals to feed other animals is part of God's
"wisdom".
God bless.
Stephen
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