On Mon, 22 Jul 1996 23:34:49 -0500, Robert Joel Duff wrote:
RD>...Terry Gray...threw out a question regarding parasitic
>associations involving animal situations...It didn't seem to pick
>up much response but it is a topic that I have found particularly
>stimulating and has aroused some interest among some of my YEC
>friends. In fact, it is a question posed to me by a YEC that
>revitalized my interest in the whole C/E controversy. Essentially
>the question put to me (without even realizing my own thoughts on
>evolution) was: "What did parasitic plants do before the fall!?"
The effects of the Fall are set out in Genesis 3:14-19:
"So the LORD God said to the serpent, `Because you have done this,
Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of
your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and
between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you
will strike his heel.' 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."
As can be seen, nothing is said above about "parasitic plants" coming
about as a result of the Fall of man. The only "plants" mentioned in
connection with the Fall are "thorns and thistles" and, if anything,
these did well out of it!
RD>The question clearly implied that the holoparasitic plants that I
>study (plants that are totally incapable of photosynthesizing and
>rely totally on a host plant from which they derive both water,
>minerals, and metabolites) could not have existed with the
>life-history characteristics they now possess before the fall when
>all of creation was "good."
The Bible does not say that "all of creation was `good'" but that
"God *saw* that it was good" (Gn 1:12. My emphasis). IOW the
standard of goodness is how God sees it, not some abstract human
standard of goodness that is inevitably relative and culture-bound.
Indeed, this "good" creation included "wild animals" (Gn 1:24); and
needed to be subdued (Gn 1:28). As Spanner points out, the Hebrew
here is very strong:
"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", Paternoster, 1987,
p53)
[...]
RD>Parasitic plants reveal a very interesting molecular evolutionary
>trend difficult to account for in both the YEC camp and I believe
>even for most PCs (I confess to having a limited ability of defining
>the latter term and so may not be justified in this claim).
This "PC" trembles in his boots (actually slippers)! :-)
[...]
RD>The evolutionary explanation for this trend in cpDNA genomes is
>that hemiparasites (partially parasitic plants that still
>photosynthesize be get water and nutrients from the host) still place
>high selectional pressure on maintaining the genome organization and
>genes of the chloroplast because they still need to do photosynthesis
>for survival. The holoparasites on the other hand do not need the
>photosynthetic apparatus and so are discarding the unneeded parts
>over time (differently in each lineage). It is important to point
>out that many of these parasitic plants maintain many photosynthetic
>genes that based on sequence analysis would work perfectly in a
>normal green plant.
I'm sorry, but I really cannot see what is so earth-shattering about
all that. But I find it interesting that *loss* of function is
called "The evolutionary explanation"! :-)
RD>The question I posed down the line in conversation as a response
>to the question "what did parasitic plants do before the fall?"
>(because they weren't parasitic then) was "What are plants doing
>with so many genes they don't use?
This particular PC would have no problem with their being "parasitic
plants...before the fall". If the Bible regards animals feeding off
plants as "good" (Gn 1:30-31), then I fail to see why plants feeding
off other plants is bad.
RD>Several hypotheses present themselves from several
>perspectives:
>1: YEC perspective:
>A: Parasitic plants were not around before the fall They were
>green plants at the time which were affected by sin and parasitism
>was the result (either an instantaneous "creation" or they diverged
>from regular green plants but are still "of the same kind") and thus
>had a normal cpDNA genome and has since then (6000- 10000 years)
>been losing parts of the genome (The gradual loss idea was the
>response that was given to me at the time and it sounds reasonable
>to the untrained but would go against all knowledge of the rates of
>mutation in cpDNA)
>
>An added complication to both the "special creation" or "gradual
>divergence" theories is that many holoparasitic plants require very
>specific (species) hosts and so had to get through the flood
>together somehow.
YECs have a general problem of explaining how plants could survive a
worldwide Flood where: 1. the water rose above the highest
"mountains" (Gn 7:20) on the globe (ie. the Himalayas over 5 miles =
8 kms high), and 2. salt sea water mixed with freshwater.
[...]
RD>B: There were parasitic plants in the Garden of Eden.
>Death only referred to animals and not to plants and therefore
>plants death and even use of one plant by another is not prohibited.
>Surely plants were "dying" as Adam and Eve were chomping away.
>
>1. In this case why did God create "from nothing" parasitic plants
>with genes they never used and presumably never will. Responses
>I've gotten here are "maybe we just don't know what those genes do,
>we haven't studied them enough, they might do something else in
>these parasitic plants."
I am not sure which view you think believes that "parasitic plants"
were "created `from nothing'"? I am a PC and I do not believe that.
RD>2. A second problem is that many of the same observations with
>respect to divergence rates among parasitic and non-parasitic
>animals show similar pattern to those of plant parasites. The same
>questions about animals could be asked as I am raising with plants
>with the added complication to the YEC that they certainly couldn't
>be parasitic before the fall.
>
>What is raised in my mind is a question that I should think would
>trouble the YEC: that no easy distinction can be made between the
>plant and animal world that would allow one to say that death is all
>right in one situation but not alright in another.
Agreed. Plants are alive and if it is bad that non-human animals
died before the Fall, then it should be bad if plants died before the
Fall. Ross points out:
"...the mere ingestion of food by animals requires death of at least
plants or plant parts...The differences in daily activity between
creatures that consume low-calorie leaves and those that consume
high-calorie seeds, and between those that consume seeds and those
that consume animals are dramatic. Elephants, for example, are
vegetarians and, even though they are large (thus experiencing less
loss of heat), must spend more than half their waking hours
harvesting and eating, and they cannot do any hopping or jumping.
The destruction they wreak on their environment in attempting to
devour sufficient calories results in the death of many plants and
smaller animals, arguably more death than is caused by large
carnivores....There's an obvious emotional side to this matter of
killing and eating animals. We tend to anthropomorphize and thus
distort the suffering of animals. But even plants suffer when they
are eaten. They experience bleeding, bruising, scarring, and death.
Why is the suffering of plants acceptable and not that of animals?"
(Ross H., "Creation and Time", NavPress: Colorado Springs Col.,
1994, pp61,63).
RD>2: EC Perspective
>Parasitic plants are the result of evolution. This would seem to
>the most obvious choice and is certainly attractive to me but does
>raise one hairy point regarding this theme of "death" with me I
>would appreciate enlightenment on. With respect to mans mortality
>there would be two options:
PC would also assume that "Parasitic plants are the result of
evolution", ie. micro-evolution.
>RD>A: Man created immortal
>Reading archived material with respect to the origins of man it
>seems that some are willing to allow for the immortality of man upon
>his creation (by whatever means) and at the same time say animals
>could die and that then sin brought "death" to Adam.
There is a third view that I hold, namely that Adam and Eve had a
conditional immortality, since only God has unconditional immortality
(1Tim 6:16). This is what Erickson believes:
"I would suggest the concept of conditional immortality as the state
of Adam before the fall. He was not inherently able to live forever,
but he need not have died. Given the right conditions, he could have
lived on forever. This may be the meaning of God's words when he
decided to expel Adam and Eve from Eden and from the presence of the
tree of life: "and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of
the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever" (3:22). The impression
is given that Adam, even after the fall, could have lived forever if
he had eaten the fruit of the tree of life. What happened at the
time of his expulsion from Eden was that man, who formerly could have
either lived forever or died, was now separated from those conditions
which made eternal life possible, and thus it became inevitable that
he die. Previously he could die; now he would die. This also means
that Jesus was born with a body that was subject to death. He had to
eat to live; had he failed to eat he would have starved to death."
(Erickson M.J., "Christian Theology", Baker: Grand Rapids MI, 1985,
p613)
Also
"1 Tim 6:16 unequivocally asserts that God alone has immortality (cf.
Rom. 1:23; 1 Tim. 1:17). Because he has within himself
inexhaustible springs of life and energy (Ps. 36:9; Jn. 5:26; 1
Tim. 6:13), decay and death are foreign to his experience. He is
never- dying because he is ever-living (Je. 10:10). But God's
immortality implies his inviolable holiness as well as his perpetual
life. Just as man is mortal as a sinner (Rom. 5:12), God is
immortal as the holy One (1 Tim. 6:16). When Jesus rose from the
dead (Rom. 6:9; Rev. 1:18), his immortality was being regained, not
first attained. From the Genesis account it seems that man was not
created either immortal or mortal (see Gn. 2:17; 3:22), but with the
possibility of becoming either, depending on his responsiveness to
God. He was created for immortality rather than with immortality.
Such a view coheres with 1 Tim. 6:16. God is inherently immortal,
but man is derivatively immortal, receiving immortality as a gracious
divine gift (Rom. 2:7). Potentially immortal by nature, man becomes
immortal through grace. Thus Paul describes immortality as a future
acquisition (1 Cor. 15:52-54), not a present possession, and as a
privilege reserved for the righteous (Rom. 2:6-7, 10; 1 Cor. 15:23,
42, 52-54), not the inalienable right of all mankind or a property of
the human soul." (Harris M. J., in Ferguson S.B., ed., "New
Dictionary of Theology", Inter-Varsity Press: Leicester, England,
1988, pp333-334)
RD>I think that to be consistent one would have to say that going
>from a state of immortality, while at the same time having a fleshly
>body and then entering into a condition allowing death constitutes a
>fundamental biological change which is so profound it must be one of
>the real "mysteries" that we cannot understand...
The difference between pre-Fall man and post-Fall man was not
"biological" but *relational*, ie. his relationship to God.
>RD>B: Man created mortal
>If man was created mortal (either uniquely or by evolution or
>variations thereof) then there doesn't seem to be the problem
>presented in A except of course possible theological problems which
>I would like to have some discussion of because it is here that I
>think some real analysis it still needed for progress to be made in
>my mind. I would be interested in anyone who could point me to
>passages that are significant to this question. Much of the
>discussion of late would place many under this catagory but I am
>interested in what the potential pitfalls may be that I have not
>thought of and what needs further discussion.
See above. I believe man was created mortal. Otherwise, what is the
point of a Tree of Life (Gn 2:9; 3:22, 24).
>RD>3: Other scenarios that would fit under the umbrella of Gap
>theories, Day-age theories etc could also be expounded upon and I
>would like to here about.
>
>discussion welcome,
For "Day-age theories", I suggest you read Hugh Ross' "Creation and
Time" (NavPress, Colorado Springs CO, 1994).
God bless.
Steve
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