Jun
27
Effects of the Fall on Creation and ‘Justifying’ Billions of Years
As happens occasionally, I came across a “blast from the past” and thought some of my readers might appreciate it. Several years ago, I posted about David Snoke’s book, A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, and a reader commented with some follow-up questions. His name was Jason, and his questions touched on several topics common in ‘origins’ discussions, particularly with those coming from a Young Earth Creationist perspective (which I think he was)….
He wrote:
“Just wondering what your thoughts were on the effects of the fall on creation as a whole, not just on the human race. What in the world is Paul referring to in Romans 8 when he refers to “creation groaning waiting for the revealing of the sons of God.” What of the significant life span change from prior to the flood vs. after the flood? I’m also curious as to why it is important to you to have death prior to the fall? Are you using it to justify millions or billions of years as the age of the earth? If so, why? If so, is it your opinion that just reading a Bible, without scientific commentary, you could come to the conclusion that animals were living and dying for millions or billions of years prior to the creation of and fall of Adam?”
Here was my response:
“Hi, Jason! Thanks for reading and leaving a thoughtful comment. As much as I would love to address all of your questions in full, they are each worthy of a post (or more) of their own, and I don’t have the time. (One of these days, I will get around to writing “How to Live to Be 1000”, though.) However, I’ll try to give relatively brief responses here:
“creation groaning waiting for the revealing of the sons of God”: You appear to have conflated verses 19 and 22, but I assume the main issue is the “groaning”, which you probably associate with pain, predation, natural evils, decay, etc. — all “nastiness” resulting from the Curse. But, I don’t think the text requires or even implies that. Let’s look at vv.19-22 a little closer…
The Greek word translated “creation” in this passage, ktisis, is found 20 times in the NT and means anything from the created world [Rom. 1:20] to humanity [Col. 1:23] to human institutions [I Peter 2:13]. The Greek word mataiotes, translated “futility/frustration/vanity” in v.20, only occurs two more times in the NT, where it describes the thoughts & actions of unbelievers and nothing to do with inanimate creation. (The word is equated with the Hebrew hebel, which often expresses the concept of transience.) The parallel phrase in v.21 is “bondage/slavery to decay/corruption”, the last word being phthora, i.e., destruction or a perishable quality, something that is wasting away. This word is used 9 times in the NT, always referring to people. (See II Peter 2:18-19.) All this to say that Paul may have been referring to humanity and the impact of Man’s sin on the world around him, rather than the direct effects of the Curse on the entire universe.
Otoh, it may very well be describing the creation as a whole, but that does not require it to be something that started with the Fall/Curse or even something entirely negative. (Unless you assume a Perfect Paradise Paradigm for pre-Fall/Curse reality, of course.) To quote Dr. Mark S. Whorton [Peril in Paradise], “Before the history of humanity began, God planned the creation, redemption, and consummation of His kingdom. Our world was originally designed with built-in obsolescence because it was only needed for a time. Both redemption and consummation were providentially planned stages of history, and the world was created to accomplish that plan. The whole creation was both futile and hopeful because it was a temporal means to an eternal end.” Thus, the “groaning” is somewhat figurative & anthropomorphic (considering all of the non-human parts of creation) but reflects the current creation “eagerly awaiting” the completion of God’s plan, when the New Creation will be able to fulfill its ultimate purpose.
Or, something like that…. 😉
“significant life span change”: I assume you aren’t asking if I think it happened or how it happened, but rather its relation to the Fall/Curse. I guess we might think of it as a delayed result, once mankind had reached a certain level of reprobation. Here is a brief quote from Dr. Hugh Ross: “Genesis 6:3 tells us that God acted purposefully to shorten human life spans. From what we observe of human behavior, shorter life spans serve to limit the destructive impact of human selfishness, greed, and lawlessness. Individuals bent on violence can harm or destroy a great many people in a 900-year lifetime, and their spiritual malignancy tends to spread like a cancer. The lengthy life span of preflood peoples may help explain why only one family among the entire human race was deemed salvageable by the time of Noah’s six-hundredth year.”
“important to you to have death prior to the fall”: Important to me? This seems an odd way of putting it. I look at both special and general revelation and expect them to harmonize. If Scripture clearly stated that no animals died before Adam’s Fall from grace, I would accept it and look for a way to reconcile that with the record of nature. I think Snoke presents a cogent case that Scripture doesn’t say that, so I am free to consider the best that scientific investigation has to offer. I believe it is clear that animals suffered and died for eons before Adam appeared on the scene.
“to justify millions or billions of years”: As with the previous, connected question, this betrays a misunderstanding of method and motive. Here is an excerpt from an earlier blogpost: “[W]hen I ‘converted’ from a young-earth view to an old-earth view, it was not because I had some deep-seated longing for there to be ‘millions and billions of years.’ And I certainly had no desire to ‘cover up the glory and majesty of God’s creation.’ On the contrary, I believed that ‘all Truth is God’s Truth’, the record of nature should be in harmony with the record of Scripture, and I wanted to know the best way to harmonize the interpretations of the two. I wasn’t looking to ‘justify’ Darwinian evolution, but the multiple evidences for many billions of years’ natural history seemed very strong. The explanations I read/heard by Young-Earth Creationist apologists (not just on the time issue) occasionally seemed feasible, but upon further investigation they often revealed unsound hermeneutic, incomplete sets of facts, and/or required ad hoc assumptions.”
“just reading a Bible, without scientific commentary…”: Unless one assumes that the genealogies contain few-to-no-gaps and are meant to be used for chronological purposes, there is nothing in Scripture that can be used to establish an age for the universe, earth, or mankind. Assumptions one might make while reading depend upon one’s knowledge (or lack thereof) in a number of areas (e.g., science, ANE cultures, ANE languages), the particular Bible version/translation they are reading, views they may have been taught or socialized to believe by friends/pastor/church, etc. Even with minimal knowledge or input from others, one can clearly see that Scripture teaches that God’s Creation is “ancient”. Creatures living and dying through much of that time is a reasonable assumption. (“Millions and billions of years” are not specifically mentioned, of course, but neither are lots of things we know to be true.) Certainly, without scientific commentary, there are enough clues in the text and context of the various creation accounts and creation-related passages to see that 24-hour Creation Days and a history of Creation limited to ~10K years is not demanded by Scripture. Some would go further to argue that it is clearly not the case. Indeed, long before George McCready Price started preaching Flood Geology and long before Darwin published his theories, many Jesus-loving, Gospel-preaching, orthodox Christians believed that His Creation was very old. Some (though not all) believed that the deaths of animals was also part of His plan.
For more info on my OEC position, you might check out more posts on the “Cre/Evol/ID” page linked at the top, as well as the resources discussed at the page linked in this post, especially http://reasons.org and the four “Core” books.”
Whew! Unfortunately, Jason never responded to my comment-posts, so maybe I answered his questions sufficiently? In any case, I hope you found the exchange helpful. (If you are now curious about the original post, you can check it out here.)
