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Over the past few years it has amazed me how often
we theologically conservative Christians, believe things that are
not actually stated in the Bible. For instance it is not ever stated that
'animals give birth to
animals after their kind,' yet Christians often
believe that is what the Bible teaches. Another misperception of what the
Bible actually says is that the the world was created perfect.
God specifically did not inspire
the writer to use 'tawmiym' which is Hebrew for
'perfect'. Instead, God used the word 'good', 'towb' to describe his creation
in every case. The Bible does not say that Eden was perfect, yet
many YECs act like it was a perfect place. Whitcomb and Morris misquote God
when they state,
"The Bible teaches a perfect
Creation followed by a Fall and subsequent deterioration, requiring the intervention
of God Himself, in Christ, to bring about redemption and salvation.
Evolution postulates a
gradual progress from crude beginnings through
innate forces, to higher and higher levels of achievement and complexity. "
~ John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Flood, (Grand Rapids: Baker
Book House, 1961), p. 447
The Bible (in the Hebrew word choice) teaches a
'good' creation not a perfect one. The misunderstanding this note will
address is the one that claims there was no death before the Fall. Nowhere
does the Scripture state
"animals were immortal" or "no living being
could die". These beliefs are inferences from one's manmade theology but are
not found in the Bible.
Let us start with an assumption that all can agree
with. God created the living life forms. If God created the living life
forms then it follows that God created all the marvelously complex biochemical
systems, as well
as the complex developmental process which takes
a fertilized egg and turns it into a human being. Let us look at this with
the view of elucidating God's role in death.
Developmental processes.
We have seen that God designed the developmental
pathways as part of His grand design of life on our planet. Yet
what is little know in YEC circles is that death plays a big role in the creation
of a human. In order to
understand this we need to look at how cells die.
A cell can die in one of several ways but what
concerns us here are starvation and apoptosis. Killing a cell via starvation
(either oxygen or food) is an ugly way for a cell to go. Clark describes
this type of
cellular death. The lack of oxygen causes the
mitochondria, the cells energy generators, to shut down. Finding
the power source dimming, the cell kicks in back up systems which burn emergency
stores of starch and fat
and maybe even protein. Messages pile up all over
the cell as instructions are ignored. The lysosomes, the garbage collectors
are overworked as cellular trash pile higher and higher As
all sources of energy run out,
metabolic stillness comes over the cell. The last
crucial system to cease are the pumps that man the cell walls. The pumps
at the cell wall which keep potassium in and water and calcium out of
the cell finally fall
silent. The calcium rushes in and distorts the
mitochondria. Next water pours through the cell wall in untold quantities,
placing a huge pressure on the outer cell wall. Finally the cell wall
bursts spilling cellstuff all
over the place. The cell is dead. The macrophages,
cellular cannibals, come and eat the remnants of the dead cell.
There is a second form of cellular death which
is more peaceful, but it is death nonetheless. It is apoptosis, cellular
suicide. A cell that has been instructed to commit suicide behaves very
differently. There is no
inrushing of water and no explosion as the water bursts the cell.
The cell, in this case, chops its own nucleus into millions of small snippets
of DNA. The rest of the cell doesn't even notice for a while but the
cell is already irreversibly dead. The cell then physically detaches itself from all of its neighbors. The cell begins to undulate
with small pieces of cell pinching off and floating away. These small pieces
are called apoptotic
bodies. Inside each apoptotic body, the cellular
machinery continues on, mitochondria making ATP and cellular pumps continue
pumping. The apoptotic bodies are then eaten by neighboring cells.
What is interesting is that God uses apoptotic
death to create each and every animal. In the case of human development,
our hands look like paddles at the end of the sixth week of development.
But then the cells
between the fingers undergo apoptosis and die.
What they leave behind are the fingers. Look at the inside of one of
your fingers now. The ancestor of the cells you are now looking at barely escaped
death during your
development. If they had been a smidgen
closer to the webbing, they too would have been instructed to die.
So, what does this have to do with Eden? Well if God created the cellular biochemistry, then He also created the instructions for cellular death and God himself used death to create us!
What is even more amazing is that God created a system in which death is the primary state. Clark states:
"The death of cells by suicide is involved
in a great deal more than just the shaping of fingers from a webbed hand. In
the developing human fetus, cell suicide also plays a major role in the formation
of the nervous system. Nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord
(neurons) are connected to other parts of the body by nerve fibers-long, thin
extensions of cells residing in the brain or spinal cord and carrying
electrical impulses that stimulate targeted cells to perform specific functions.
At a certain stage of fetal development, these neurons begin generating
enormous numbers of nerve fibers, which they simply cast out in the
general direction of tissues and cells needing nerve connections.
If a particular nerve fiber happens to find a cell with a nerve attachment
point on its plasma membrane (a muscle cell, for example), it makes a connection.
That fiber and the brain or spinal-cord neuron from which it came)
survives and becomes the nervous system's communication line to the targeted
cell for life. If, on the other hand, the nerve fiber fails to establish
contact with an
appropriate cell-and fewer than half do-the neuron
that sent it out must commit suicide, dying the same quiet apoptotic
death that helped to form the hand.
"The role played by cell suicide in the
genesis of the nervous system represents an interesting and fundamental fact
about the biology of this kind of dying in many cells: death is actually
the default state for each of these neurons. From the moment a neuron
is spun out of the central nervous system toward potential target cells,
it is destined to die. Only if it finds a connection with another cell will
it be rescued from an otherwise certain death; it will receive chemical
substances (called growth factors) from the target cell that in effect switch
off the death program. In some respects this seems an incredibly wasteful
way to build a nervous system." William R. Clarkson, Sex & the Origins
of Death, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 37-38
The same thing happens with the cells of our immune system. Death is the default state.
. Cells of the immune system, including the
warrior cells we met earlier, are also generated in great excess. These
cells-white blood cells called lymphocytes-are allowed to circulate throughout
the body for several weeks after they are formed. If they encounter
a threat to the body-a foreign protein in the bloodstream, or a virally infected
cell-and eliminate it during that time, they will be granted longevity.
As when neurons make contact with a targeted cell, lymphocytes detecting
a foreign protein or engaging a virally infected cell are rewarded with
growth factors that switch off their death program. The resulting
cell may survive five years, or ten, or even for the life span of its host,
providing a type of 'memory' of pathogens previously encountered by the immune
system. But if they fail to find and eliminate a foreign invader during
the allotted trial period, they are invited, in effect, to fall on their
swords. Again, death is the default state for these white blood cells. They
undergo exactly the same kind of death as cells in the webbing that binds
embryonic fingers together. The phenomena of cellular overproduction,
selection, suicide, and memory are examples of the many ways in which
the nervous system and the immune system seem to parallel one another."
William R. Clarkson, Sex & the Origins of Death, (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1996), p.39
But what is even the most amazing thing, God created a secret code which instructs any cell given this code to self-destruct.
Cells selected by CTLS [cytotoxic T lymphocyte-grm]
for death are not murdered; they commit suicide.
"So it turned out that all of the years
spent looking for special CTL weapons had, after all was said and done,
been wasted. CTLS are not equipped with weapons for destroying altered cells.
What they are equipped
with is knowledge of a special security code.
Every cell in the body-not just a few extraneous cells in the developing fetus-has embedded in it a self-destruct program. What CTLs know, uniquely
among all the cells in the body, is how to punch in the security code that
activates that program and ultimately causes the selected cell to commit
suicide." William R. Clarkson, Sex & the Origins of Death, (New
York: Oxford University Press,
1996), p. 43-44
And as we develop from a single cell, our cells become mortal. The death gene, designed by God, is still active.
"The death genes themselves are never fully shut
off. Again, as we saw earlier in a different context, death is the default
state. Tumor cells appear to have found a way to turn some or all
of the death repressor genes back on, or to turn the death genes off, and to
a greater or lesser degree mimic germ cells." William R. Clarkson, Sex &
the Origins of Death, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p.100
So the question for the YECs who believe that there was no death before the Fall is: Why did God Himself create special security codes, instructions and machinery for death if there was NO death before the Fall?
If cells could not die before the Fall, how were animals created when cells didn't die between their fingers?
If cells didn't die before the Fall, would one of Adam's cells that fell off of him end up creating a clone of Adam?
Furthermore, God took steps to avoid cellular death from starvation by telling the animals to eat in Genesis 1:30. If cellular death could not occur, then there was no need for food.
Many young-earth creationists will then respond that cellular death is not real death. But it is. If the cells in a small region of your heart die due to lack of oxygen, your heart will stop beating effectively and cut off the oxygen to your brain. If the cells of Adam's children's brain could die during development (as God intended and designed) then it proves that they are not immortal. If they are not immortal, then they could also die from lack of oxygen. If, when the heart stopped beating, the brain cells died from oxygen deprivation, then that human would die.
One natural question concerns whether or not Adam and Eve were immortal. Traditionally it is believed that they were born immortal. This is also not stated in the Bible. God gave them food to eat. If they couldn't die from starvation, why did they need food? If they couldn't die from starvation then the cells of their body couldn't die either. (One can't have all the cells of Adam's body die while Adam continues to live. That makes no sense.)
I would contend that God intended man to live forever
but they were not yet immortal. The Tree of Life was in the Garden
to impart immortality. If they already possessed immortality, then the Tree
of Life was useless
because it was giving them something they already
had. But if they were not yet immortal, they could die. God's intention
was to prevent that death via the Tree of Life but man's sin circumvented
God's intention.