On Sat, 20 Jul 1996 21:44:12, Glenn Morton wrote:
PD>If creationists are wrong, then I believe that TE must answer
>several questions ... i.e. how to account for regular, destructive
>"natural" processes in Christ's good creation and what natural
>processes are in fact sufficient to provide the "holding together"
>required?
GM>Usually this type of question is aimed at the predation and death
>of animals before the Fall. We assume that a world without
>predators is better than our world. This is not true. I would like
>to point out that predation is good. And God uses it to increase
>the number of species which can live on the earth.
>
>"More recent studies of natural communiteis have largely confirmed
>the hypothesis that predators may actually increase the number of
>different species that can live in a habitat....The removal of
>predators thus resulted in the halving of the number of species...A
>general conclusion then is that the presence of predators in a well-
>balanced community is likely to increase rahter than reduce the
>numbers of species present, so that overall, predators broaden the
>distribution of speacies....herbivores, which act on plants as
>predators do on their prey, may similarly increase the number of
>plant species that can live in a habitat. In the last century,
>Charles Darwin noticed that in southern England, meadowland grazed
>by sheep often contained as many as 20 species of plants, while
>neglected ungrazed land contained only about 11 species. he
>suggested that fast- growing, tall grasses were controlled by sheep
>grazing in the meadow, but that in ungrazed land these species grew
>tall so that they shaded the small slow-growing plants from the sun
>and eliminated them....many of these areas are much less rich in
>species than they were under heavy 'predation'....The total number of
>species present was in the end greatly reduced after the removal of
>the herbivores...where there was no grazing at all, the algal
>diversity was higher than when there was intense grazing, but the
>highest diversity was found in sites where grazing was controlled to
>an extent by the predation of the damselfish upon the grazers."~C.
>Barry Cox and Peter D. Moore, Biogeography, (Boston: Blackwell
>Scientific Publications, 1985), p. 93.
>
>Predators play a crucial, God-given role in holding the creation
>together. They keep overpopulation from occurring.
I agree here with Glenn. (I'll have to stop this peace breaking out!
<g>). Whatever our naive "natural theology" ideas that predation is
evil, the Bible clearly says it is good. In Psalm 104, the Psalmist
reflects on the balance of nature maintained by predation as
expressing the wisgom of God. For example, God makes the
cycle of darkness and light (and implicitly the advantage
that darkness gives predators over prey):
"You bring darkness, it becomes night, and all the beasts of the
forest prowl...The sun rises, and they steal away; they return
and lie down in their dens" (Ps 104:20,22)
The lion's roar is depicted as it were a `prayer request' for food
from God:
"The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from
God" (Ps 104:21).
(BTW, this has transformed the way I look at my cat's meow for its
food! <g>)
When the lion catches and kills its prey it is God answering the
lion's `prayer':
"When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your
hand, they are satisfied with good things" (Ps 104:28)
The whole cycle of nature (including predator and prey) is seen
by the Psalmist as demonstrating God's wisdom:
"How many are your works, O LORD! In wisdom you made them
all..." (Ps 104:24)
As a result of (not despite) predation:
"...the earth is full of your creatures" (Ps 104:24)
Interestingly, Gish (a biochemist) notes that the biochemical
similarities in all living things is designed that way so that
animals can eat plants and presumably animals eat animals that
eat plants:
"A creationist would also expect many biochemical similarities in all
living organisms. We all drink the same water, breathe the same air,
and eat the same food. Supposing, on the other hand, God had made
plants with a certain type of amino acids, sugars, purines,
pyrimidines, etc.; then made animals with a different type of amino
acids, sugars, purines, pyrimidines, etc.; and, finally, made man
with a third type of amino acids, sugars, etc. What could we eat?
We couldn't eat plants; we couldn't eat animals; all we could eat
would be each other! Obviously, that wouldn't work. All of the key
molecules in plants, animals, and man had to be the same. The
metabolism of plants, animals, and man, based on the same biochemical
principles, had to be similar, and therefore key metabolic pathways
would employ similar macromolecules, modified to fit the particular
internal environment of the organism or cell in which it must
function." (Gish D.T., "Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics",
Institute for Creation Research: El Cajon CA, 1993, p277)
Lest it be said that Gish does not actually say that animals were
deigned to eat animals, the Bible says it:
"Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats" (1Cor 6:13)
Clark asks those who don't like the idea of animals eating animals
to come up with a better alternative:
"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. Alternatively, if the
were immortal but had no progeny, accidents, frost or drought night
cause the species to die out. However we regard the matter, the
conviction grows that the actual state of affairs that we find in
nature is the only possible one -short of one in which, by special
miracle, God healed every broken wing or brought a special dish of
food to every animal unable to fend for itself-a possible state of
affairs, no doubt, but hardly one conducive to character-making in
man or beast." (Clark R.E.D. "The Universe: Plan or Accident?",
Paternoster: London, Third edition, 1961, pp214-215)
Ratzsch asks:
"Would God as we know him from Scripture be expected to choose such a
hit-or-miss method and call the resultant suffering, death, failure
and extinctions good?....we have to be extremely careful here not to
put undue weight on our own constructions of what good means.
Creationists understand good as automatically implying lack of animal
death, animal suffering or animal predation and as implying
efficiency, economy and so forth. But it was God who saw the
creation as good, and just as his thoughts are not ours and his ways
are not ours, his judgments of good might be a bit beyond ours as
well. (Is 55:8-9) In fact, when God speaks of providing prey for
young lions, the tone is not one of regret. It is part of God's
glory-not some distasteful task-that he provides the young lions with
their prey." (Ps 104:21; 145:15; Job 38:39)" (Ratzsch D.L., "The
Battle of Beginnings: Why Neither Side is Winning the Creation-
Evolution Debate", InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, Ill.,
p189)
Interestingly Ratzsch notes in passing that:
"Oddly enough, on one occasion Morris, Boardman and Koontz claim that
the balance of nature is part of the divine plan for creation-and
their example involves wolves and deer. See Living World [1971]
18-20" (Ratzsch, 1996, p224)
God bless.
Steve
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