tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post8916782669985079293..comments2024-03-16T21:32:23.088-04:00Comments on A Sure Word: Answering the 10 Theological Questions That No Young-earth Creationist Can Answer!RKBentleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566375018731000081noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-6367816571581101502015-07-13T00:46:46.312-04:002015-07-13T00:46:46.312-04:00A follow-up to my reply: I assume that you'll ...A follow-up to my reply: I assume that you'll get to question 4 in due time, but the author notes but doesn't follow up on all the implications of Genesis 3:20 referring to Eve as the mother of <i>all</i> the living. I assume that as a creationist, you insist that she is certainly not the mother of such <i>nephesh</i> organisms as chimpanzees, elk, rabbits, etc. This in turn supports the view that the creation account is concerned primarily with <i>human</i> life and its travails and does not purport to explain why nonhuman animals die (and this also suggests the possibility that Paul's "all creation" is similarly limited). Likewise, Isaiah 11:6 does not, so far as I can discern, promise that the lamb or calf shall never die any more than it promises that they shall never grow into adult animals (indeed, the very idea of animal babies has rather awkward ecological implications if we add the idea of animal physical immortality).<br /><br />Young-earth creationists may be giving themselves more problems than are absolutely necessary by insisting on the immortality of non-human <i>nephesh</i> life before the Fall.Steven J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15638850493907393069noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-23302662620698105232015-07-08T23:50:47.040-04:002015-07-08T23:50:47.040-04:00I assume that the tree of life, in Revelation 22, ...I assume that the tree of life, in Revelation 22, is doing what gates made by giant pearls, or giant gemstone foundations, or indeed the throne of a nonmaterial God with no literal bottom to seat in it, is doing: symbolizing some property of the Church (either the church generally or the Church Triumphant at the end of the age). I suspect that it isn't really a literal tree, with wooden branches and seed-bearing fruit. Therefore, I doubt that its mention casts much light on what the tree of life in the Garden of Eden was doing (unless of course that tree, and presumably the entire Garden of Eden narrative, was equally symbolic). <br /><br />It may be that many modern creationists are looking at this story the wrong way round: that Adam and Eve were not inherently immortal, but that the tree conferred this property upon anyone who ate it (which raises the question of whether the author meant for the reader to infer that the nonhuman animals were immortal, rather than merely not dying by one another's teeth and claws). Note that <i>nephesh</i> means, more or less, "organism," not "immortal" (the adjective <i>hayyah</i> means "living," but I don't see that <i>nephesh hayyah</i> implies "immortal organism" anymore than calling a contemporary squirrel a "living organism" means that it is expected never to die).<br /><br />Note that where the ground is cursed by God, it is cursed for Adam's sake. I think that means not merely because of Adam's sin (rather than any sin of the dirt itself or the plants growing in it), but from Adam's point of view. From the point of view of velvetweed or ragweed (assuming that plants have a point of view), their ability to proliferate where we'd rather something else grew is not a curse but a blessing (from an evolutionary point of view, of course, the ability is an expected result of the contrast between plants with features selected naturally for their ability to help the plant proliferate, and plants with features artificially selected by humans for their benefit to humans rather than to the plant). So it's not clear that the curse in Genesis 3 is supposed to make things worse for any organisms except humans and snakes (although this raises the question of where exactly carnivory entered the world, which presumably made the world worse for, e.g. rabbits). So while I might be wrong, I think you are too quick to reject the view that references to "the whole creation" being cursed refers to more than a curse on humanity's interactions with the creation (and with the Creator, presumably).Steven J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15638850493907393069noreply@blogger.com