This is something I need to spew and see what response it gets.
I'm wrestling though this big-time.
(I suppose this ultimately stems from questions about the origin of evil - for background).
My thought: pre-fall creation wasn't static but dynamic, with potential to grow & reproduce. In other words, God didn't create a final product; he created the "first batch."
My question, then: did creation (animals, plants, the ecosystem, as it were) ever exist without death? Because that cycle and decomposition - fertilization - new life - is an integral part of the system as we know it empirically and scientifically (and experientially, for that matter).
(The concept of death -> life and that cycle is rife through creation... it's the very essence that allows the ecosystem to perpetuate itself and thrive.)
Unfortunately, it seems that most people's definition of pre-fall creation excludes any allowance for dynamism (especially anti-evolution thinking). Man couldn't die yet... but if man's decomposition is part of the "circle of life" - how is that possible? Can creation exist independently of human death?
If creation never existed without this death then spiritism, animism & the eternality of anything other than human beings is philosophically & logically impossible. (T or F?)
Implications: 1. spiritism ("mother nature" etc) and eternal spirits existing in plant and animal life is discredited. 2. we, as caretakers over our dominion of the earth, are responsible first and foremost (on a social level probably) to preserve and defend the *systems* and maybe not the *specifics* of nature. So, it's not so much this species or that region... it's the entire motion of creation, of which we and all living things are a part, and in which death plays an integral part.
We live in a society that is hell-bent (haha) on preventing death... but death is natural and necessary.
So where did death come from?
How did death work in the garden?
And is physical death really part of the curse?
I know this was all over the place. I'm crazy.
I'm wrestling though this big-time.
(I suppose this ultimately stems from questions about the origin of evil - for background).
My thought: pre-fall creation wasn't static but dynamic, with potential to grow & reproduce. In other words, God didn't create a final product; he created the "first batch."
My question, then: did creation (animals, plants, the ecosystem, as it were) ever exist without death? Because that cycle and decomposition - fertilization - new life - is an integral part of the system as we know it empirically and scientifically (and experientially, for that matter).
(The concept of death -> life and that cycle is rife through creation... it's the very essence that allows the ecosystem to perpetuate itself and thrive.)
Unfortunately, it seems that most people's definition of pre-fall creation excludes any allowance for dynamism (especially anti-evolution thinking). Man couldn't die yet... but if man's decomposition is part of the "circle of life" - how is that possible? Can creation exist independently of human death?
If creation never existed without this death then spiritism, animism & the eternality of anything other than human beings is philosophically & logically impossible. (T or F?)
Implications: 1. spiritism ("mother nature" etc) and eternal spirits existing in plant and animal life is discredited. 2. we, as caretakers over our dominion of the earth, are responsible first and foremost (on a social level probably) to preserve and defend the *systems* and maybe not the *specifics* of nature. So, it's not so much this species or that region... it's the entire motion of creation, of which we and all living things are a part, and in which death plays an integral part.
We live in a society that is hell-bent (haha) on preventing death... but death is natural and necessary.
So where did death come from?
How did death work in the garden?
And is physical death really part of the curse?
I know this was all over the place. I'm crazy.
2 comments:
I suppose Jimmy is right, in that, there is just not enough information - Rather, enough for what we ought know - but - perhaps not for what we fancy we ought.
However, I think one can wonder over the role of the 'tree of life' without bickering about hermeneutical differences too much.
How did death work in the garden? - We never really got far enough to find out! -
All as it should be.
in the book of genesis, it tells of how they would surely die after eating the bad fruit. i believe this is spiritual death and that it is possible that man would die physically, but that it would not matter because they were eternally yoked with god. youll notice then that man was initially made in gods image. but then when adam had children his children were made in ADAMS image, check it out in genesis. So people were made in gods image, but now not so, now people are decended from adams image, the reason for this is man is not born with god in him, gods image is not bound by physics or makeup physically, but by his character and who he is. dont know if that helps. Might. as for animism and all that jazz, dont know enuff bout it.
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