Diserner
Well-known member
It is rather shocking to me that I meet the claim from several corners, that before Adam and Eve transgressed, death and suffering were a vital part of the ecosystem and considered "very good." People seem to posit this when they struggle to harmonize the fall in their reasoning, seeing that many very ancient animals ate each other and were diseased, and seeing that the fabric of physical laws seems to demand there be imperfections in biological function and competitive destructive behavior.
A book I have read on this, Death Before the Fall, espouses this very view, and a Protestant defender of the faith Gavin Ortlund has also spoken positively of this view, just to name two brief examples. Are we really to consider that "very good" includes imperfections, and even more—things we feel and consider intuitively seem reflective of moral evil—animals ripping each other apart, insects burrowing into victims, all of creation "groaning" with painful sufferings?
Now it can be pointed out that plants were described as food, and if you consider a plant as living—which the Bible and logic might be used to defend—then to eat these plants necessitates a form of death before the fall. Under the world we see today, endless replications would meet with terrible consequences, over crowding and depletion of resources—and many do not seem to think about how the command to "be fruitful and multiply" was actually pre-fall.
Some go so far as to have humans riding around peacefully on giant dinosaurs with hundreds of razor sharp teeth the size of large spears and daggers. The T-Rex is said to likely have the strongest crushing bite force of any animal ever, able to kill other large dinosaurs with a single chomp. Are we to think these teeth could really efficiently cut and process plant materials and the entire digestive system designed for meat could live off of grass and leaves?
Modern day cats, who require the majority of their diet be meat or they simply die, and are completely designed around efficiently detecting and chasing down prey, with incredible whiskers and phenomenal agility; somehow could they have the ability to peaceful chew and digest the grass they now constantly throw up? We see grass-eating animals do not have pursuit and agility skills in the same way, since the only abilities they need are anti-predator, mainly running fast or long distances.
I personally cannot justify such a view. There is a reason death, simply as a principle and idea all of itself, is only and always connected with judgment in sin in the Bible—it is not "very good." Death and suffering before the fall reflects on God's character in a powerfully negative way—it makes the evils and imperfections of creation, not a consequence of rebelling against God, that God hates, that God never desired, that makes God weep—but in fact God's primary description of "very good," making horrible suffering something God likes, a factor of God's blessing and goodness itself.
The whole point of the Garden of Eden story, is to show that God's initial and direct intentions were only for good, and not for evil, just as he constantly says all throughout Scripture! The idyllic states described in the Bible do not glorify or approve of scenarios with constant victimization, suffering, opppresion and mutual competitive destruction—but in fact deliberately contradict that with perfect peace and "none shall harm in all my holy mountain" and "no more crying and sorrow and pain."
We intuitively feel when we see a spider sucking the guts out of a helpless moth, when we see a dog chasing down and mauling a little kitten, when we see a group of lions ripping the limbs off of zebras, as they keep them alive in agony, when we see a group of sucking flies overwhelm a cow with bites drawing all its blood, that all these things are in no way whatsoever "very good" and do not reflect the intent and desire of God—this is not what heaven is going to be like.
And so to protect the character of God, to properly describe the evilness of sin, to ascribe to God the glory and honor due his judgments, we simply must acknowledge this creation, although mercifully containing elements of God's redemptive goodness because of Christ's great sacrifice, is still completely cursed and twisted and marred, and does reflect the pure goodness of God's intentions. "Do I rejoice in death" saith the Lord?!
A book I have read on this, Death Before the Fall, espouses this very view, and a Protestant defender of the faith Gavin Ortlund has also spoken positively of this view, just to name two brief examples. Are we really to consider that "very good" includes imperfections, and even more—things we feel and consider intuitively seem reflective of moral evil—animals ripping each other apart, insects burrowing into victims, all of creation "groaning" with painful sufferings?
Now it can be pointed out that plants were described as food, and if you consider a plant as living—which the Bible and logic might be used to defend—then to eat these plants necessitates a form of death before the fall. Under the world we see today, endless replications would meet with terrible consequences, over crowding and depletion of resources—and many do not seem to think about how the command to "be fruitful and multiply" was actually pre-fall.
Some go so far as to have humans riding around peacefully on giant dinosaurs with hundreds of razor sharp teeth the size of large spears and daggers. The T-Rex is said to likely have the strongest crushing bite force of any animal ever, able to kill other large dinosaurs with a single chomp. Are we to think these teeth could really efficiently cut and process plant materials and the entire digestive system designed for meat could live off of grass and leaves?
Modern day cats, who require the majority of their diet be meat or they simply die, and are completely designed around efficiently detecting and chasing down prey, with incredible whiskers and phenomenal agility; somehow could they have the ability to peaceful chew and digest the grass they now constantly throw up? We see grass-eating animals do not have pursuit and agility skills in the same way, since the only abilities they need are anti-predator, mainly running fast or long distances.
I personally cannot justify such a view. There is a reason death, simply as a principle and idea all of itself, is only and always connected with judgment in sin in the Bible—it is not "very good." Death and suffering before the fall reflects on God's character in a powerfully negative way—it makes the evils and imperfections of creation, not a consequence of rebelling against God, that God hates, that God never desired, that makes God weep—but in fact God's primary description of "very good," making horrible suffering something God likes, a factor of God's blessing and goodness itself.
The whole point of the Garden of Eden story, is to show that God's initial and direct intentions were only for good, and not for evil, just as he constantly says all throughout Scripture! The idyllic states described in the Bible do not glorify or approve of scenarios with constant victimization, suffering, opppresion and mutual competitive destruction—but in fact deliberately contradict that with perfect peace and "none shall harm in all my holy mountain" and "no more crying and sorrow and pain."
We intuitively feel when we see a spider sucking the guts out of a helpless moth, when we see a dog chasing down and mauling a little kitten, when we see a group of lions ripping the limbs off of zebras, as they keep them alive in agony, when we see a group of sucking flies overwhelm a cow with bites drawing all its blood, that all these things are in no way whatsoever "very good" and do not reflect the intent and desire of God—this is not what heaven is going to be like.
And so to protect the character of God, to properly describe the evilness of sin, to ascribe to God the glory and honor due his judgments, we simply must acknowledge this creation, although mercifully containing elements of God's redemptive goodness because of Christ's great sacrifice, is still completely cursed and twisted and marred, and does reflect the pure goodness of God's intentions. "Do I rejoice in death" saith the Lord?!
