Evolution and the fall
Friend Barnesie reviews a recent book, "Darwin, Creation and the Fall" here.
It seems to me that the issue of physical death is vital to our understanding of Christianity.
If creation is true then death is the catastrophic consequence of our rebellion against God and is, in a very real way, an intruder.
If evolution is true then death is God's wonderful way of bringing about the rich diversity that we see in the world around us and is, in a very real sense, the essential motor of all the beauty we see.
And grief and mourning should give way to rejoicing: Another weakling bites the dust ! Onward and upward, eh !
It seems to me that the issue of physical death is vital to our understanding of Christianity.
If creation is true then death is the catastrophic consequence of our rebellion against God and is, in a very real way, an intruder.
If evolution is true then death is God's wonderful way of bringing about the rich diversity that we see in the world around us and is, in a very real sense, the essential motor of all the beauty we see.
And grief and mourning should give way to rejoicing: Another weakling bites the dust ! Onward and upward, eh !
Comments
The world around us depends on natural death and decay to sustain itself, in various natural cycles and the like. We'd have needed completely different ecosystems and physics and stuff if there was no death of any kind before the Fall, to include animals, plants, bacteria etc.
So while some change in the natural order is implied by the curses in Genesis 3, I think the effect of the Fall is more a partial withdrawal of God's sustaining power and providence, particularly to humanity, than a wholesale rewriting from scratch of the created order.