Young Earth Creationists frequently make the claim that before the fall there was no death, not in humans or in animals. For this reason alone evolution must be rejected out of hand, it simply cannot be true. Granted, they then go on to try their best to disprove Darwinian evolution on "scientific" grounds but I do not find their reasoning on this subject to be very convincing. Still, it seems the death question is their biggest objection.
Today I was pondering Genesis 3:22-24:
Genesis 3:22-24 (ESV)
22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
Several thoughts occur to me in light of this particular passage, one is if that man was initially made immortal what was the purpose of the tree of life? The other thing that came to me was how would Adam even understand what death was if there had been no death around him to observe?
Here is my take on it. There was animal death for the billions of years before the creation of Adam and Eve. That is how Adam could be expected to know just what the consequences of his sin would be. God used evolution (the details of this are unknown to me at this time) in some form, divinely guided evolution or maybe special creation of kinds followed by speciation via natural selection or whatever, to bring about the world as we know it today and eventually created Adam and Eve in a special creation event. The tree of life was to be used later on to give eternal life to Adam and Eve, but they were created like the other animals, from the dust of the ground and so mortal without the tree of life.
OK, so I haven't really thought this all out, it just seems to make a certain amount of sense that there would be a reason for the tree of life to be there! That reason would be to give life. It makes sense to me and fits with what we know of both the bible and the natural world.
Today I was pondering Genesis 3:22-24:
Genesis 3:22-24 (ESV)
22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
Several thoughts occur to me in light of this particular passage, one is if that man was initially made immortal what was the purpose of the tree of life? The other thing that came to me was how would Adam even understand what death was if there had been no death around him to observe?
Here is my take on it. There was animal death for the billions of years before the creation of Adam and Eve. That is how Adam could be expected to know just what the consequences of his sin would be. God used evolution (the details of this are unknown to me at this time) in some form, divinely guided evolution or maybe special creation of kinds followed by speciation via natural selection or whatever, to bring about the world as we know it today and eventually created Adam and Eve in a special creation event. The tree of life was to be used later on to give eternal life to Adam and Eve, but they were created like the other animals, from the dust of the ground and so mortal without the tree of life.
OK, so I haven't really thought this all out, it just seems to make a certain amount of sense that there would be a reason for the tree of life to be there! That reason would be to give life. It makes sense to me and fits with what we know of both the bible and the natural world.
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