Genesis 4:
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. 4 And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock.
Exactly why would Abel (and later Jabal) be raising flocks and butchering the animals - which God is said to have looked on favourably - if not for eating meat?
!!! That did occur to me decades ago I recall. They weren’t his pets.
Interesting, thanks for answering. I asked partly because I grew up YEC and this is one of those issues I don’t know how I would have answered back then. I never really thought about it.
From your answer, you don’t seem to be tied to a literal reading of Genesis and seem to have a nuanced view of “death” in mind. Obviously there is death of plants, bacteria and yeast (if we add bread and wine to the list of foods), but no death of bigger animals like us.
I’m curious which side of the line you’d place the death of fish on. Jesus killed and served fish after his resurrection, so it’s hard to say he was out of step with what God considers good food. And, the flood account doesn’t consider fish to be among the creatures that have the breath of life. On the other hand, eating fish involves violence, killing and blood – especially with large fish like tuna – making it the kind of “red in tooth and claw” feeding you wanted to distance the original creation from. Do you think eating fish would have been okay in the beginning?
As @Roy mentioned, Abel raised flocks, and not just for wool. He sacrificed “the fat portions,” implying he and his family ate the rest of the meat. Surely he wouldn’t let good meat go to waste?
Sacrifice was based on offering God something good, whether or not it required death. Later laws allowed grain offerings as well as meat offerings, but prohibited meat from unclean animals. “Unclean” meant it wasn’t to be eaten. What valid sacrifices had in common was being good food, not requiring death.
References? Who is doing this research? How does it support the TOBD?
That would be surprising if true. True blind cave fish would take many , many generations to mutate enough to recover function, and of course survival in a natural environment would be unlikely to allow that. I see that there is some research showing how some examples of blindness in cave fish is due to developmental cues rather than genetic mutations, and thus progeny are genetically able to regain sight. The key phrase in that assertion is “same species”. Once the fish have diverged enough to be a different species, which is our usual understanding of what blind cave fish are, that’s not happening.
That idea cannot be found in the text – it is an invention that arose from holding a MSWV (modern scientific worldview) above scripture.
That also is not found in the text.
Paul does not use the word “physical”.
I disagree – you can only get a YEC position if you ignore the fact that the Hebrew bible is ancient literature.
It’s because they start from a MSWV even though they can’t see that they do. By trying to use science to “prove” the Bible, they have set up science as an idol with authority over the Bible.
There’s an example: the fossil record is utterly incompatible with a global flood, yet the need to have science validate scripture drives them to asserting otherwise.
Yes – because scripture does not teach a young earth. I will note once again that ancient biblical scholars concluded from scripture that the earth is millions, billions, and even a trillion years old.
Superb point.
Good observation – it’s kind of obvious once you think about it, but not many see it until it’s pointed out.
I don’t think it is idolatry. It is more fear. They are afraid of science disproving them so they try and harmonise, but t is smashing a square pin int a round hole. However they are not alone. There seem to be many people here doing the same thing with the Garden and the Fall, trying to smash evolution to fit into it with equally foolish results.
Either Scripture is correct or it isn’t There is no point in trying to defend it with secular thoughts. either you believe something or you do not. If science disapproves then tough!
Richard
I am the opposite: raised in the scientific worldview and with criticism of the Christian establishment. But found a big inconsistency… atheists and creationists were leveling the same criticisms at each other: one saying the Bible was too harsh and the other saying evolution was too harsh. Frankly the obvious conclusion was that these are more compatible than opposing. IOW life is necessarily harsh. It has to be, because the resistance to death and suffering is the essence of life itself. And if there was a creator, then rather than God designing some magical idyllic dreamworld of pure imagination, God created LIFE itself, to learn, grow, and make choices.
Frankly the greatest criticism of theism is very very old from Epicurus 300BC called the problem of evil. How can the existence of evil be compatible with the Christian idea of God? The nature of life and evolution is the answer I found to that criticism and thus the reality is that I can only believe in Christianity BECAUSE of evolution.
My answer is that humanity is not about biology or species. When we talk about some people being inhuman, it has nothing to do with their genetics. It is about their thinking and behavior. Thus I believe our humanity comes from peculiar ideas which have no material reality such as personhood, love, and justice. Thus my reading of Genesis 2:7 is that God formed us of the stuff of the earth (by the laws of nature) and then taught us these peculiar ideas (inspiration, which is literally the divine breath). Though a big part of our criterion of humanity is also potential rather than ability and thus children and all homo sapiens gained that potential immediately when God taught these things to Adam and Eve.
I don’t believe “souls” comes from the Bible but from pagan philosophy. There is spirit and the spiritual body of 1 Corinthians 15 instead. The difference is that this pagan idea of a “soul” is something put into the body to give it life and make it a person – I don’t believe in that. In 1 Cor 15, Paul says the physical body comes first and the spiritual grows from this like a plant from a seed. But I don’t think spirit is unique to human beings either, I think it is something all living things have.
So I don’t think our humanity is about species or magical souls, but about an inheritance of ideas from God Himself – an inheritance which makes us the children of God.
I certainly think all social animals have some type of morality as well as emotions. That is not the unique difference of human beings. The biggest differences are sweat cooling, cooking, and language. And I think the last of these, language, with a mastery of abstractions, makes it capable of the self-organization and the process of life which we call the human mind. And the point is being capable of understanding these ideas from God. Thus it can be pointed out there is even something different about human morality, not because animals don’t have morality, but because language enables us to give morality a conceptual dimension which animals do not have. It is not that this difference is necessary for Christianity. It is not. Again the point is understanding these non-material ideas from God and if one day other animals, plants, or AI master these ideas also then I think our humanity extends to them as well.
An even bigger one is warfare and this is something we likely inherited from our common ancestor with chimpanzees. It may even be an important part of our evolution of intelligence. It is a dark fact about capability and power that these can always be misused. So rather than this misuse of capability beginning with A&E, there perhaps was only God’s hope that what He taught them would not be misused and that He could remain a greater part of their lives.
Also I don’t believe sin is about disobedience. That frankly seems like a too convenient invention of religion in order to make it a good tool of power over other people. I think sin is really about self-destructive habits. I see nothing in the story of A&E supporting this nonsense that this was some kind of rebellion. Sure they failed to take the advice of someone they should have trusted and thus failed the challenge the serpent gave them. That is definitely on them, and we inherit the consequences. But I think the real sin was the failure to learn from their mistake and instead try to blame everyone and everything but themselves. And I think this is the origin of our separation from God because ever since, it is has been just too easy for us to blame God for everything and thus transforming God from help to hindrance in learning what we need to learn in life.
The question is in what way is it “correct”. That comes down to worldview, specifically how “truth” is defined. YEC uses a very modern definition of truth without even realizing that they have chosen a definition.
This brings to mind the thesis that Genesis 1 does not portray chaos as conquered but as controlled.
Theology is a result of evolution.
“Explains” conceals some equivocation. Science gives good physical descriptions. But the fact that relativity gives a good description of the behavior of two interacting masses does not mean that I should drop a large rock on your foot. Nor can it tell me I shouldn’t. (Don’t worry; I would not want to risk damaging the fossils in any of the large rocks I have handy.)
It’s possible to think of a way that practically any behavior might conceivably convey some sort of evolutionary advantage. Bot that does not mean that we have explained away morality as merely a way of seeking evolutionary advantage. After all, it’s easy to propose that sociobiology is merely a ploy to advance one’s evolutionary self-interest. By questioning others’ motives, you make them look bad while presenting yourself as discerning and forthright. God’s laws are not arbitrary hoops to jump through, but are good for us and others. So we should expect there to be potential advantages to following them. Humans and human societies have long memories, making strategies that try to get ahead by putting others down unlikely to do as well in the long term as cooperation. Rather than excusing selfish behavior, a better theological understanding is to see evolution as highlighting certain areas where humans particularly need to be on guard against temptations. For example, cohabitation is often an attempt to take advantage of someone while evading responsibility.
This sort of error lies behind Dawkins’ silly claim that evolution enables intellectually satisfied atheism. He is assuming that a physical explanation explains everything because he assumes that everything is physical, besides overlooking the need to explain physical origins of other things.
The Bible sees humans as having a unique spiritual status compared to animals. But passages such as Col. 1:20 suggest some sort of salvation for all things. And the New Testament emphasizes resurrection against Greek ideas of the body as prison of the soul. We simply don’t have biblical details about the spiritual status of animals. It is conceivable that God designed and guides a process of spiritual evolution somewhat analagous to the process of physical evolution. Or perhaps He desgned biological evolution such that having a spiritual nature would be an emergent property that appears when organisms reach a certain level of mental complexity. Or perhaps it’s more of a “zapped in” situation. There’s not any data to tell if any of those are correct. Scripture tells us that we need to be concerned for the wellbeing of our souls and those of other people, but doesn’t give much theoretical information about how souls work.
It is not helpful to make such a claim without explaining what you mean. So please help us understand what you mean by “a very modern definition of truth” that you think YEC is using. And in your view, what is the valid definition of truth?
It may be helpful to start with a standard definition. Since definitions of “truth” refer back to true, let me give the definition of true from the Merriam Webster Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, 1965, since we want to avoid “very modern definitions of truth:” In accordance with the actual state of affairs; conformable to an essential reality; being that which is the case rather that which is manifest or assumed.
Some more modern definitions of truth include “what most people believe to be true.”
Jesus called himself the Truth, and in John 18 we find Pilate’s question and Jesus answer:
“You are a king then?” Pilate asked.
“You say that I’m a king,” Jesus replied. “I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”
38 “What is truth?” said Pilate.
How do these claims of Jesus fit into your definition of truth?
Thank you
It is like saying science is the result of garden pea plants.
The truth of these statements is in the fact that most things have too many causes to count. Yes without evolution there would be no humans to create theology, and without garden pea plants Gregor Mendel may never have noticed the patterns of genetic inheritance.
It shows that what Jesus speaks of is not the 'truth" which the YEC speak of.
Craig, I want to make sure I understand how you are applying it to Scripture in practice, particularly to Old Testament narrative.
Do you understand texts such as Genesis (and, more broadly, Old Testament narrative books) to function as stenographic or dictational records—that is, as texts in which the human authors wrote down, in effect, what the Holy Spirit directly told them to write, with the result that the narratives correspond point-by-point to the physical “actual state of affairs” in the same way modern historical or scientific reporting aims to do?
To make the question concrete, consider the book of Jonah. On your view, are the following claims all intended to be straightforward historical assertions in the same sense as modern reportage?
If you would answer “yes” to all three, then it seems you are committed to reading Old Testament narrative as making literal, empirical claims about physical events in a modern correspondence sense.
If you would answer “no,” or “not necessarily,” then it appears that your definition of truth already relies on additional criteria—such as genre, authorial intent, literary form, or theological purpose—beyond simple correspondence to the “actual state of affairs.”
My question, then, is not whether Scripture is true, but how you think biblical texts truthfully communicate what they intend to assert, and whether “truth” for you always entails modern-style factual description.
Historically and scientifically accurate – that’s what they demand of scripture.
That is an enlightenment definition and is essentially what YEC uses.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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