Did Fido (K9) Die B4 the Fall (G3)?

You may have caught the debate between Marek Kizer and Scarlett Clay on Animal death before the Fall (Gen. 3) on The Gospel Truth show. 

Kizer is a Southern Baptist teenager interested in theology, apologetics and philosophy of religion.  Props to Marek for mentioning Aquinas.  Clay is an educator, artist, and Christian apologist (Ratio Christi).  She knows  English, Art History and enjoys public speaking.  Clay has a Master’s Degree in Christian Apologetics from Biola (formerly Bible Institute Of Los Angeles) and is  currently working on an M.Div. from The Southern Baptist Seminary (Louisville).  Consider Gen. 1:28,

 

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.  Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

 

Kizer takes this as implying animal death.  Did King David kill all his subjects?  Conservation, invention, exploration, technology and stewardship are implied by this passage - not assassinating Fido.  Calvin's comment on Gen. 1:28 is thought provoking:

 

Some infer, from this passage that men were content with herbs and fruits until the deluge, and that it was even unlawful for them to eat flesh.  And this seems the more probable, because God confines, in some way, the food of mankind within certain limits.  Then after the deluge, he expressly grants them the use of flesh.  These reasons, however are not sufficiently strong: for it may be adduced on the opposite side, that the first men offered sacrifices from their flocks.  This, moreover, is the law of sacrificing rightly, not to offer unto God anything except what he has granted to our use.  Lastly men were clothed in skins; therefore it was lawful for them to kill animals.

When God clothed Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:21) that was after the Fall, so was Abel's animal sacrifice (Gen. 4:4).  The permission to eat wagyu steaks was not given until after Noah landed atop Mt. Ararat:

 

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.  The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands.  Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything." (Gen. 9:1-3)

 

So, before the Flood, you and the animals may eat plants and after the Deluge  you can eat frogs per God's command (Gen. 1:29,30).  Did everyone follow this?  No.  Kizer seems unaware of historic Christian views on the fossil record that I summarized in a prior post (see 13:25 mark of the debate):

 

Tertullian pointed to fossils found on mountains as evidence of the Flood.   Augustine saw fossils as the remains of creatures living before the Flood.  Martin Luther referred to fossils as being the result of the Deluge in his commentary on Genesis.  Agostino Scilla published a work in 1670 on fossils which he illustrated himself which pointed to the Flood as their cause.  Colin Stearn and Robert Carroll, authors of a mainstream paleontology text, freely admit that by the middle of the eighteenth century, “Most [naturalists] attributed them [the fossils] to animals destroyed in the Biblical flood…”

 

Can you point to a single published work that holds to Creation In Six Days (#CISD, 6 real days, roughly 24 hours), a devastating Global Flood and animal death before Adam?  Founders Ministries (aka Southern Baptist Founders Conference) favors the 1689 confession which states:

 

In the beginning God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was pleased to create or make the world and all things in it, both visible and invisible, in a six-day period, and all very good.  He did this to manifest the glory of his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness.

 

Kizer discounts Clay's excellent argument from an article on the Answers in Genesis site:

 

Many believe the earth is millions of years old, holding to a secular geological timescale, which necessarily includes millions of years of animals suffering, dying, and rotting prior to the fall in the Garden of Eden. ... God had declared his creation to be “very good” (Genesis 1:31) before the fall.  A putrefying animal carcass covered in flies and exuding an abhorrent odor reminds us of the consequences of sin and the horror of rebellion against our Creator.  There’s nothing good about death.

 

Jesus said this in his rebuke against the Pharisees ("woe to you"), "Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. ..." (Lk. 11:50,51).  If the beginning of Earth (not just mankind) and Abel are connected, then our home is young.  How can Death-before-Adam fit with a young earth?

 

Our latest book Is a Young Earth Possible? argues for a youthful world from history and science.  Please check out our website: TotalYouth.us >> "for Total truth, support earth's Youth."

 

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;

    from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him -

    the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding ...

The wolf will live with the lamb,

    the leopard will lie down with the goat,

the calf and the lion and the yearling together;

    and a little child will lead them.

The cow will feed with the bear,

    their young will lie down together,

    and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

The infant will play near the cobra’s den,

    and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.

They will neither harm nor destroy

    on all my holy mountain,

for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord

    as the waters cover the sea. (Is. 11:1,2,6-9)

 

Does that sound like animal death was "very good" as stated at the end of Creation Week (Gen. 1:31)?

 

#AnimalDeath #Adam #Fall #Wagyu #MarekKizer #ScarlettClay #TrueTruth  #Genesis #Calvin #1689 #NDB4A #YoungEarthPossible #ChurchHistory #fossils #Abel #Noah #Flood #CISD