This is great David, I have thought this but have not seen it expressed so simply. Thanks.
matt | Homepage | 11.16.05 - 8:02 pm | #

While I agree with you that our personal suffering is not the result of our personal sin I would hope you would agree that suffering, in general, is a result of sin infecting humankind. Sin is marbled into our being like fat is marbled into muscle. It cannot be removed without destroying the muscle. So, while my flu isn't a result of my selfishness or envy or anger, it is a result of death entering us as a choice of humankind.
Paul | 11.18.05 - 4:05 pm | #

Paul,

I am not sure.

I do not agree that physical death is a result of the fall. I see nothing in the bible that indicates that Adam and Eve would have lived forever if they hadn't sinned.

God told Adam he would die on the day he ate the forbidden fruit. Since Adam did not die physically on that day, we must conclude that God meant he would die spiritually, and God kept His word. Without that verse (and referneces to it) supporting physical death, I conclude there is no teaching that Adam and Eve would have lived (on earth) forever.

As for suffering--there is ceratinly a whole class of needless suffering that entered with the fall, including, as you point out, sickness. But what if pre-fall Adam, well, fell (in the normal sense) and skinned a knee? Would it hurt? I don't know. The bible is silent on these matters.
David Heddle | Homepage | 11.18.05 - 4:37 pm | #

David,
To pursue your thought a bit further, if Adam skinned his knee the day before the fall, could his knee have become infected? Did human pathogens exist before the fall if there was no sin and hence no sickness? The Bible is also silent about this. Would you conclude that human pathogens existed before the fall, but only caused sickness afterward?
John | 11.20.05 - 1:33 pm | #

John,

I have no clue!
David Heddle | Homepage | 11.20.05 - 2:48 pm | #

Sickness and death are the same thing. It's a corruption, or flaw in our being that would not have been created by God. He would not have created us to have hearts that fail and bodies that decay. And without sickness there would be no death. Both sickness and death were created at the fall. This is what is meant when He says, 'you will surely die'. It was both an evental reality of physical death and seperation from Him. Of course, you could be correct that God did not intend us to stay on Earth forever. But, this would have had to happen in a way other than death.
Paul | 11.21.05 - 4:37 pm | #

Mr Heddle,

I thought everybody who wasn't a YEC accepted that there was death and suffering before the fall. Am I wrong? If I am, how does one reconcile a long history of the earth (and consequently, of life) with the absence of death? And surely, once we have accepted this, why would we rule out the existence of sickness prior to the fall?

In particular, why would anyone who is not a YEC believe that there were no human pathogens and no human sickness before the fall? After all, we know that there were humans (or, for the OECs, human-like creatures) that predated Adam, no?
AR | 11.21.05 - 6:37 pm | #

I do accept there was death before the fall. I have no opinion on whether human pathogens existed, nor have I given it any thought.
David Heddle | Homepage | 11.21.05 - 6:51 pm | #

You wrote above "there is certainly a whole class of needless suffering that entered with the fall, including, as you point out, sickness." Doesn't this imply that there were no pathogens prior to the fall?
AR | 11.21.05 - 7:59 pm | #

It does not imply that. There is fossil evidence of primordial microbes. What I don't know is what effect these would have on a pre-Fall Adam and Eve. On that, the bible is silent.
David Heddle | Homepage | 11.21.05 - 8:13 pm | #

The Bible is silent on rather a lot of things. Surely in such matters, we should defer to common sense? Why would we even suggest that the pathogens didn't affect Adam and Eve?

Also, do you believe in a single original couple from which all humanity is descended?
AR | 11.21.05 - 8:21 pm | #

Because there was a fall, a catastrophic fall, and we have no clue what Adam and Eve's immune system was like prior to the fall, or the nature of the microbes present.

Yes I believe Adam and Eve were the first humans. The New Testament refers to Adam, and Jesus' genealogy is traced back to Adam. The veracity of the bible depends on the existence of an historic Adam and Eve.
David Heddle | Homepage | 11.21.05 - 8:32 pm | #

I see. Is it fair to say that your position is not compatible with the standard scientific view that humans and apes have a common ancestor?
AR | 11.21.05 - 9:55 pm | #

Wow!

I have trouble believing that anyone still thinks that the whole human race and all of its diversity was the result of a single coupling of DNA, or that inbreeding was not necessary to continue the species. (according to the Bible) It does not end with Adam and Eve either but happens again when God commits genocide killing everyone but Noah and his family, and they (Noah’s family) were somehow responsible for the widespread human colonization of the entire planet in less than 6,000 years.

Seems far fetched to me.

Later
Frank | 11.22.05 - 1:08 am | #