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Thank you so very much for joining in this discussion! I treasure all of your insights, dearest sister in Christ!

And thank you so much for bringing Leibniz in! Jeepers, he is so important to any discussion of permanence and flux. Sorry I forgot him.

To me, to speak of "corruption" is to touch on spiritual matters, which seemingly affect only living beings, and possibly only human beings. So I wonder to what extent we can speak of galaxies as having been subject to corruption in former times; I just don't see that galaxies could be spiritual entities -- unless the entire creation is in some fashion a living being, as Plato suggested.

Indeed, I do not perceive a culpable persona being associated with inanimate things. OTOH, Scriptures do indicate in at least two places that all of Creation is "alive" - i.e. the fecundity principle:

For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected [the same] in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. - Romans 8:19-22

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. [There is] no speech nor language, [where] their voice is not heard. - Psalms 19:1-3

I took kosta50's concern to mean that evil existed in the physical realm before Adam's "birth" (banishment in my view) - Rosh Hashanah (5767 years ago by the Jewish calendar, 6000 years ago by the Christian calendar.)

Please correct me if I am wrong, kosta50.

Any hoot, that is why I went into the little sidebar on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - and the metaphor of the stage play.

BTW, the difference between the Jewish and Christian calendars is a dispute of some 240 years over the amount of time the Jews spent in exile in Babylon.

BB: “To me, to speak of “corruption” is to touch on spiritual matters, which seemingly affect only living beings, and possibly only human beings. So I wonder to what extent we can speak of galaxies as having been subject to corruption in former times; I just don’t see that galaxies could be spiritual entities — unless the entire creation is in some fashion a living being, as Plato suggested.”

AG: “Indeed, I do not perceive a culpable persona being associated with inanimate things.”

I will take the risk and opine that Kosta was not speaking of decay in Creation as being the result of some culpability on the part of inanimate objects. Rather, in accord with The Fathers and the OT, what he is saying is that our sins burden all of Creation and distort it. Some have said that the natural disasters we observe in our lives are the result, generally, not of God’s “wrath” (though sometimes it may well be in a pedagogic sense)but rather distortions in the created order of the universe brought about by our sins. Through us, all creation is a slave of death. Were we to fully respond to God, however, the true created order of things would be restored and the lion would indeed lie down with the lamb.

“Creation is a slave; the Spirit sets free. Creation stands in need of life; the Spirit is the Life-Giver. Creation needs instruction; the Spirit is the Teacher. Creation is sanctified; the Spirit is the Sanctifier.” +Basil the Great

[ that is why I went into the little sidebar on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - and the metaphor of the stage play. ]

The entire bible and judeo christian theology rests on the base of that metaphor.. The metaphor is much more powerful than the literal vision of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.. The metaphor of it is a spiritual engine..

Any that miss a degree/part the spiritual content of this metaphorical vision WILL miss some parts of the entire rest of scripture..