[spirited irish]

If life emerged from otherwise nonlife-bearing chemicals because God started the process this way, then we have an inverted exegis which makes most of the Bible rather useless if not absurd. For example, man did not fall from perfection but is rather evolving upward, away from his primordial beginning to something more and more perfect.

So there was no fall and nothing is wrong with man that the evolutionary process + time won’t make right, hence man does not need a Savior.

According to this inverted exegis, vast numbers of lifeforms arose and died perhaps millions of years before man finally emerged. So who is responsible for death and suffering but God Himself?

God is a God of death not life. He is not a God we run to but run away from. Here the inverted exegis reveals its’ Gnostic pedigree.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for sharing your insights, dear spirited irish!

I do appreciate Young Earth Creationism when one views Genesis 1 and 2 describing primarily the physical creation.

However, your point that God would not have created evil is neither here-nor-there with me:

The LORD hath made all [things] for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. – Proverbs 16:4

God made the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2) and I’m confident He did so for His own purpose.

Indeed, it seems to me that a person cannot truly appreciate light if he had never seen darkness, good if he had never seen evil, courage/fear, joy/sorrow and so on. And I truly believe our time here on earth is like a base camp for eternity – that we learn more and better through these contrasts.

I am both a Young Earth Creationist and also an Old Earth Creationist. And I certainly do not expect anyone else to agree with me – but, for the record, here is what I see and why:

At our present space/time coordinates, the universe is observed to be about 15 billion years old. However, when we consider the inflationary model and general relativity (warping of space/time) - we can also see that the universe is about a week old (equivalent earth time) at the inception space/time coordinates (Schroeder et al.)

Note: space/time does not pre-exist, it is created as the universe expands. Areas of high gravity such as black holes, centers of spiral galaxies, stars, planets are like indentations in the fabric of space/time. The deeper the indentation, the slower time elapses. For instance, while one week elapses near a space/time indentation such as a black hole, forty years may elapse on earth. The equivalency principle applies, i.e. the faster a thing moves, the slower time elapses.

For more: Time Warps an Everyday Occurrence and Equivalence Principle

I also perceive a relativistic change of "observer" perspective in Scripture.

More specifically, Genesis chapters 1 to 3 are from the inception perspective. The Creator is the only observer of Creation ex nihilo and He speaks to both the physical and the spiritual as the Creation, the earthly and the heavenly. To presuppose an earthly space/time perspective would result in needless contradiction such as plants on Day 3 before the sun and solar system on Day 4 (emphasis mine:)

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. – Genesis 1:1

These [are] the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and [there was] not a man to till the ground. – Genesis 2:4-5

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. - Hebrews 11:3

Indeed, I perceive the creation of Adam and the Garden of Eden in the spiritual realm and thus see no contradiction at all in Genesis 1 to 3. The tree of life is in the middle of the Garden of Eden and Paradise (see below) and therefore not strictly physical.

And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. – Genesis 2:9

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. – Revelation 2:7

I perceive Adam was created in the spiritual realm before he was banished to mortality, the physical realm, and his mortal calendar/clock began. Or to put it another way, I do not perceive Adam as strictly physical.

At the top of Genesis 4, after Adam is banished to mortality, the perspective changes to Adamic man, to our space/time coordinates. Adam's clock starts ticking.

The first indication of the change in observer perspective is in the curse itself (emphasis mine)

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die [literally, muwth muwth or “death death”]. – Genesis 2:17

And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. – Genesis 5:5

That is not some vague reference but is explicitly revealed here:

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day [is] with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. – 2 Peter 3:8

That is also the Jewish interpretation (Sanhedrin 97a; Avodah Zarah Sa) of Psalms 90:4:

For a thousand years in thy sight [are but] as yesterday when it is past, and [as] a watch in the night.

Adam was not made for a mere physical existence like a bacteria, daffodil, fish or cow. He doesn’t “belong” in the physical realm and he knows it. But because he was banished to mortality, this peculiar creature made for Paradise/Eden, having immortality at his finger tips, now is grounded in the physical universe whose life forms were his to name.

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought [them] unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that [was] the name thereof. – Genesis 2:19

Death entered the world because of Adam, not just physical death but muwth muwth – death death (Gen 2:17) - not just the death of his physical body, but the death of his living soul.

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: - Romans 5:12

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. – Matthew 10:28

Adam, by Jewish and early Christian beliefs, was appointed a week (corresponding to Creation week) - or seven thousand years, the last of which is Christ's thousand year reign on earth, the Lord's Sabbath (Revelation.) The Sabbath is also prophecy:

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath [days]: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body [is] of Christ. - Colossians 2:16-17

To illustrate that it was an early Christian belief, I offer the first excerpt below from the Epistle of Barnabas 15:3-5 which is not part of the canon and is not to be confused with the late sixteenth century Islamic fraud, “The Gospel of Barnabas.”

The Epistle of Barnabas dates back to the first few centuries after Christ’s resurrection. It is quoted by Clement of Alexandria and also mentioned by Origen. It was part of the Codex Sinaiticus but is not part of the Catholic canon today. Nevertheless, it reveals the discernment of these early Christians.

He speaks of the Sabbath at the beginning of the Creation, "And God made in six days the works of His hands and on the seventh day He made an end, and He rested on the seventh day, and He sanctified it. Consider, my children what this signifies: That He made an end in six days. The meaning of it is this: that in six thousand years the Creator will bring all things to an end, for with Him one day is a thousand years. He Himself testifies, saying, Behold the day of the Lord shall be as a thousand years. Therefore children, in six days, that is in six thousand years, all things shall be accomplished. And He rested on the seventh day: He means this, that when His Son shall come He will destroy the season of the wicked one, and will judge the godless, and will change the sun and the moon and the stars, and then He will truly rest on the seventh day.

It is also recorded in the first verse, chapter 33 of 2 Enoch which is the Slavic version of that book (also not part of the canon) but nevertheless showing the beliefs of early Christians:

And I appointed the eighth day also, that the eighth day should be the first-created after my work, and that (the first seven) revolve in the form of the seventh thousand, and that at the beginning of the eighth thousand there should be a time of not-counting, endless, with neither years nor months nor weeks nor days nor hours.

In sum, the Jewish mystics and these early Christians (and I) perceive that Adamic man, upon being banished to mortality, was appointed a total of 7 days or 7,000 years. The last day of the week, the Sabbath, in the Christian view is Christ’s millennial reign on earth.

And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and [I saw] the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received [his] mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This [is] the first resurrection. Blessed and holy [is] he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. – Revelation 20:4-6

And again,

Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?

But I say unto you, That in this place is [one] greater than the temple. But if ye had known what [this] meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day. – Matt 12:5-8

My understanding of the matter does not at all conflict with Adam’s role in the Fall and it is not at odds with physics or physical cosmology.

Then again, I do not expect anyone else to agree with me. LOLOL!

God’s Name is I AM.

[TXnMA]

Your "inverted exegis" [sic] position is typical of the sort of "either/or" fallacy to which man -- with his his simplistic mind -- is vulnerable.

God is "I AM". He is not binary.

"God is a God of death not life." and "God is a God of life not death." are equally absurd positions -- and, certainly positions which no creature of His is worthy to espouse.

"Pigeonholing" God (and his motives) thusly is as absurd as calling gravity, "evil" or "good". The same gravity that powers the graceful slalom skier down the course, also splattered jumpers from the WTC across the pavement in Manhattan.

Your initial statement,

"If life emerged from otherwise nonlife-bearing chemicals because God started the process this way, then we have an inverted exegis which makes most of the Bible rather useless if not absurd."

Is precisely as preposterous and invalid as is the "God is a God of death not life." to which you extended it.

It is particularly unworthy of a believer to demean God Himself as an attempt at refuting a particular position on how God's Creation proceeded.

His Name is "I AM"!

In the love and full respect of Christ and our Creator, I rebuke your attempted argument.