> > I personally find this new (to me) "death theology" less than appealing.
>Yes, I agree that it is not immediately appealing. However, the idea that
>there was no animal death until AFTER the fall requires (at least) one of
>these three very unappealing corollaries:
>1) God created the world recently, but with the appearance of great age
>everywhere (including the appearance of death-before-the-fall in the
>fossil record).
>-or-
>2) The earth is old; animal death before humans existed was either due to
>the fall of Satan, or applied retroactively (atemporaly) due to humanity's
>fall. (This hypothesis is entirely extra-scriptural.)
>-or-
>3) The earth is young, there was no animal death before the fall, and
>humanity's collective God-given abilities to investigate and plainly
>interpret God's creation are pretty near worthless.
Some thoughts:
1) Your implied moral argument: That it is dishonest for God to create
something that so many people can potentially misinterpret. (Of all the people
living on the earth today, how many have misinterpreted the mission and work of
Jesus Christ?)
2) Entirely extra-scriptural explanations are not an option to theologically
conservative Christians. (I think you agree - - this is called "the wisdom of
this world.".)
3) Assumption: That because the majority of people agree on a certain
observational fact, their facilities for investigation are worthless if they are
wrong. (The majority of people in America believe that truth is relative, and
they are wrong. Yet I don't attribute their lack of understanding to
worthlessness.)
What about the relationship between presuppositions, data and
conclusions? For example, you could sic Henry Morris and Stephen J. Gould on
the same fossil dig for one hundred years. Henry Morris would find only evidence
for creation ex Nihilo and a global flood. Stephen J. Gould would find evidence
for long periods of time and creation via descent. So what are the differences
between the two men? The data that they are observing, recording, studying,
pondering and otherwise contemplating are the same (we're talking 100 years :-).
Their conclusions are radically different.
It must be the ideas that have been placed in their minds prior to their
observational excursions. They are biased differently. As Christians we know
that they are both men created in the image of God: with a mind, will, emotions
and an eternal soul. Their history grappling with the answers to the big four
questions in life: Why am I here? Where did I come from? How should I
behave/What should I do? Where am I going? color their every interpretation and
conclusion. I think we've got, among other things, the problem of the
relationship between General and Special Revelation. Steven J. Gould flatly
rejects knowledge of reality via Special Revelation. Henry Morris does not, but
I'm sure the TE's would argue he is blind to general revelation. (I don't
happen to believe that.) Somewhere in between is the rest of humanity.
It's interesting to note that Loren in his other post today noted:
> We're happy to wrestle with these questions, but remember that most of the
> TEs on this discussion group are profession scientists and engineers ---
> we're only amateur theologians. We study enough theology to satisfy
> ourselves with the answers, but that may not be detailed enough for
> someone more deeply into theology.
It may simply not be detailed enough.
Steven H. Larsen
____________________________________________________________________
Child of God for almost a decade, Christian Apologist & Philosopher,
Husband, Father of three, Deacon, Former Atheist (never fully bought
into Macro-Evolution or New Age Mysticism), Senior Consultant doing
Computer Applications Analysis & Programming at Nike, Inc. Residing
in Salem, Oregon; commuting to Beaverton listening to Ravi Zacharias
& J.P. Moreland tapes. Can be eMailed at 103500.1553@CompuServe.COM