On Wed, 27 Mar 1996 01:22:38 -0500 you wrote:
SJ>It is useless to complain that nature is made according to such
>and such a pattern unless we can suggest some better way which it
>might have been made. Suppose, then, that animals never ate one
>another but always died naturally. Would their suffering be less
>than it is? It certainly would not. The wounded and the infirm
>would linger on indefinitely in joyless existence, only to die of
>starvation when physically incapable of finding their food. But
>suppose animals were immortal -what then? The answer comes that
>over-multiplication would soon bring universal death from starvation.
>Alternatively, if they were immortal but had no progeny, accidents,
>frost or drought night cause the species to die out.
MM>The problems I see with your argument are:
>
>1) Genesis is very specific about the fact that man was not originally
>designed by God for death. Therefore, if man was to have escaped death,
>then certainly there was no reason the same miraculous existence could not
>have existed for all the animal kingdom as well. All the
>over-multiplication problems and such you discuss would also have applied
>to an immortal humankind.
I did not say that "man was...originally designed by God for death." I
was first addressing the question of whether there was *animal* death
before the Fall.
But Genesis clearly teaches that man had to eat of the tree of life
before he could "live forever" (Gn 3:22).
MM>In other words, it is no more difficult to believe in an immortal
>animal kingdom than it is to believe in an immortal humankind.
Disagree. These are two separate issues. There is no evidence that
animals did not dies before the Fall. Bacteria are in the "animal
kingdom". They die within hours. If they didn't, they would overrun
the Earth in a very short space of time.
Besides, the Bible clearly says that "God...alone is immortal" (1Tim
6:15-16).
MM>2) Revelations hints strongly of a new heaven and new earth where
>animal death no longer occurs -- or at the very least predation no
>longer occurs.
So you admit that in the "new heaven and new earth" animal death will
occur, even though "predation no longer occurs"? It is noteworthy that
in
Isaiah's vision of "new heavens and a new earth" in Isa 65:17-20
that he still envisaged human death:
"Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things
will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and
rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to
be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and
take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be
heard in it no more. "Never again will there be in it an infant who
lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years;
HE WHO DIES AT A HUNDRED WILL BE THOUGHT A MERE YOUTH;
he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed."
(emphasis mine)
MM>Why believe in a vegetarion lion (with all those sharp teeth and
>claws) existing in the future if it is so hard to believe as existing
>in the past?
I don't believe in "a vegetarian lion". A lion was obviously
*designed* to eat meat, or else the teleological argument means
nothing.
MM>The apparent reality of eons of death and violence remains
>difficult to justify with the Genesis account IMHO.
I don't find it "difficult" at all. Genesis says nothing about there
not being "death and violence" in the animal kingdom. Psalm 104 says
that the death of an animal to feed another is part of the "wisdom" of
God. The alternative would be *much* worse.
God bless.
Steve
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