The temporal perspective – temporary life focused on death.
How can our world ever have been described as “very good” (Genesis 1:31) when there is so much suffering, pain, death, and destruction in it? Naturalistic scientists and secularists, who reject the Bible, reasonably ask how the many natural creatures, which are so obviously equipped to cause death (fangs, claws, venoms, tentacles, etc.) in order to sustain and propagate themselves, could be a part of the original very good creation described in Genesis 1–2. The natural creation seems equipped for death from the very beginning, and the nature of so many of the animals on earth seems to confirm that analysis.
Atheistic scientific objectors, and some of their religious sympathizers, claim that the Biblical creation account in Genesis 1–2 is merely myth. This objection appears to have some merit, if you confine yourself to the currently assumed temporal perspective. But the objection has no basis if the original very good creation took place in the eternal realm, which is not synonymous with our present real estate of time and death. My proposal, based upon the eternal perspective in the Bible, is that the first man and woman were exiled from the eternally created very good Garden of Eden (Paradise). They were imprisoned in this time-cursed world where they propagated their kind. It is from this environment that their spiritually dead materialistic descendants have aired their objections to Genesis down to the present day.
The eternal perspective removes the need to insist that humanity’s present cosmic real estate was created in six literal 24 hour days, as defined by our present temporal perspective, and without any manifestation of death. Young earth creationists are theologically consistent by pointing out that death could not be a part of God’s initial very good creation, because death was the penalty for failure to trust God. Thus death could not have been present before the first couple ceased to trust the Lord of creation. How “long” this “time” interval in God’s Garden Paradise might have been we don’t know.
Therefore young earth creationists argue for a literal six day creation and a remarkably accelerated existence of the first man and woman in their life on earth before the fall and before there was time for death to occur. They believe that the creation of man, his naming of the animals, his anesthesia for God’s surgery, the genetic engineering of Eve from Adam’s side, the temptation by the serpent, and their hiding from God all took place in a single twenty-four hour period, the sixth day of creation, as described in Genesis 2–3.
Young earth creationists reason this way because, according to Genesis and other Bible passages (Romans chapter 5, for instance), death did not enter the world until human sin necessitated death as punishment for the choice of human self-sovereignty over God’s rightful and righteous sovereignty. Their young earth scenario appears to avoid the conflict engendered by the occurrence of death in an ancient cosmos. But this avoidance is only partial, if their concept of death includes living organisms other than human beings.
For instance, there are organisms whose life spans are completed in hours rather than days. The deaths of short lived microorganisms in the human body are essential to human life as we know it. The Biblical description of the lives of Adam and Eve prior to the Fall is of such a nature that surely something must have died in the period before the first couple rebelled against God. If this is so, then the young earth creationist scenario does not satisfy the description of a very good world completely without death. Their explanation is only partially satisfactory. Furthermore, it does not at all explain why many creatures are so obviously physically equipped to cause death, unless there was an inexplicable and miraculously complex physical and behavioral transformation of biological life from forms not equipped to cause death before the Fall into the panoply of death-inflicting life forms after the Fall. For example take all the present day bloody carnivores and imagine what they were like in the very good days before the Fall and God’s promised punishment of death. It seems to me that such a transformation is far more cumbersome and difficult to accept logically and theologically than my proposition that Genesis 1–2 describe the creation of eternal Paradise prior to and extrinsic to the fallen world of historic earth-time that we presently inhabit.
A further difficulty with the assumption of young earth creation in time (historic earth-time with entropy and death) is that the Bible gives no indication as to “how long” (admittedly, a time-encrusted phrase) the first man and woman lived before they sinned and were cast out of the Garden. Does it seem reasonable to assume that all the events described in Genesis 2 and 3 took place in only 24 hours of a standard earth as we now experience. Surely some death must have occurred in the “time” it took for the first man, Adam, to name other animals and to have the woman genetically engineered from his body by God. Of course, this is true only if one is speaking from the temporal perspective to the exclusion of the eternal perspective.
In other words, from the temporal perspective, there will always be death. This is because only in entropic historic earth-time does life descend into death. Time, as we presently understand it, is entropic and always progresses to death, even though new life may be procreated in this progression. Therefore, I think it likely that historic earth-time is the curse which God pronounced for man’s sin.
Advocacy for a young earth creation in entropic time does not eliminate the conflict between young earth and ancient earth positions. But resolution of this conflict may be accomplished by recognizing that the initial “very good” creation takes place in eternity in the Garden of Delight (or Paradise) of God. This eternal creation is the basis of God’s eternal covenant (Genesis 1:26-28) to have man and woman reign over his eternal creation as co-equal vice regents.
This eternal creation is not the same creation in which we presently find ourselves. For we are the biological descendants of Adam, in his image and likeness after the Fall. The first two humans were exiled from eternity into the quarantine facility of entropic time, which is the birthplace of every human being since the Fall. We are their natural biologic progeny in this entropic cosmos formed from time, space, and matter. It is understandable that most of us are so at home here that we cannot imagine anything else. But God proclaims to us in Genesis 1–2, as well as throughout the Bible, that we are intended by him to reign in eternity free of entropy and death (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
My proposal is that it is pointless to argue for the world we inhabit being created in six of its own literal 24-hour days, if we recognize this world as being the consequence of the curse for sin. What right, or logic, permits us to impose our fallen cursed notion of time on God’s perfect eternal realm of Paradise? The “days” of eternity, however they may be defined, are not limited or defined by days in the cursed world of historic earth-time. Our contemporary confinement in this historic earth-time cosmos fulfills God’s warning that sin will incur the penalty of death.
When God pronounces the curse on the man and woman (Genesis 3:16-19) it is clearly the curse of entropic time and death. In time comes physical death, which is the promised penalty for sin. From the beginning, each of us enters this cosmic timescape spiritually dead and physically alive as our inheritance from Adam. The quarantine facility of time serves to prove within each of us whether the condition of spiritual death is merely a temporary estate or an eternal reality—a passing illness or an incurable and everlasting disease that separates us from God.
The eternal perspective – unending life focused on God who is life.
Eternity is the absence of entropic time. Eternity surrounds entropic time like an ocean surrounds an island. Eternity is the context out of which entropic time was created and will someday end. Eternity is the real estate of God Almighty (El Shaddai). Eternity is the environment in which there is no death. There is not even violent death in eternity, for in eternity there is no sin and there is perfect unity of persons in Christ (John 17:20-23) in the very good eternal real estate. Though such a notion may be counterintuitive to human temporal consciousness, it is evident from the eternal perspective in the Bible. Open minded people might want to understand differing perspectives on an issue so significant as eternal life. History is full of examples of people searching for a fountain of youth, and modern contemporary marketing promotes many potions and preparations promising longer healthier life. But eternal life is not longer life; it is life everlasting in the perfection of God (Matthew 5:48; 1 Corinthians 13:10).
This understanding depends, of course, on one’s willingness to trust the accuracy and truth of God’s word. It also depends on not attempting to confine God within familiar or traditional theological boxes, which are comprehensible to finite human intellects that have their temporal blinders securely in place. It depends on our willingness to let God be God, to acknowledge Him for Who He Truly Is—Omniscient, Omnipotent and Omnipresent (everywhere and everywhen). Such willingness is humbling to the human ego, which is why it is difficult to adopt. But such willingness is the essence of what it means for man to glorify God. It depends on the willingness of each of us to admit the truth—that God is God and we are not. Not everyone is willing to admit this truth. This admission is the first step in overcoming the lie of the Tempter in the Garden of Eden, “. . . you shall be as God. . .” (Genesis 3:5)
Undoubtedly this will be counterintuitive to religious people who think they know something about God. However, when it comes to God, human intuition should expect the unexpected. Einstein is said to have quipped about such provocative ideas, “If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.”
With regard to familiar death, is it not possible that God created people for eternal life, to eternally trust him for life and blessing, rather than for inevitable death? Is it possible that many will have difficulty accepting this idea because their familiarity with a biological death-centered view of life in historic earth-time overwhelms and precludes an unending life-centered view in eternity?
Though people seem to expect and wish they could live forever, they cannot quite believe it, because, in this time cursed world death dashes their expectations. It has been sardonically noted that the two certainties are death and taxes. The temporal perspective is our common but paradoxical understanding of life, as we perceive it, with a small “l.” But the eternal perspective of the Bible is of Life with a capital “L.” These two views of “life” are summed up in the New Testament writers’ use of the Greek words bios and Zoe, as previously explained in post #9 – Complementary Truths—Two Kinds of Life. The good news (the gospel) of the Bible is that God has created eternal life in his holy presence, and he graciously provides us entrance into that life if we will simply believe and trust him for it.
Is it possible that eternal life—life as God possesses it—is rejected because the skeptics cannot imagine or accept anything different from their own time and death centered existence? Their common experience dictates that nothing in life is certain except death and taxes. But if we take off these common temporal blinders, I believe it is possible that we will discover that what the Bible promises will end for the faithful in eternity is actually the continuation of God’s eternal covenant with his people from the very beginning as proclaimed in the opening chapters of Genesis 1–2. To take off the temporal blinders is to deny self and trust God. To deny self and trust God is the central message of the Bible that brings eternal life to God’s people.
The willingness to trust God’s word makes all the difference between those who recognize only the temporal perspective and those who recognize both the temporal and eternal perspectives. The willingness to trust God’s word is what distinguishes that which is uniquely human in all of us from that which is merely animal. People bear the image of God, which may be defined in part as the ability to hear the very words of God from his eternal perspective (Romans 3:1-2), and to live and act in a manner other than what the animal side of human nature and temporal circumstances dictate. So it is the words of God that define what it means to be truly human.
The temporal and eternal perspectives are intricately interwoven in the Biblical account where they are frequently found alongside one other. This is because the Bible is the historical account of the interaction of God with his creation in order to redeem and fulfill his covenant to have a people for himself to rule over the eternal creation (Paradise) as his vice-regents.
Comprehending these perspectives and recognizing them in their appropriate contexts is key to understanding the Bible and human history. This key is the gift of God’s Holy Spirit to those who receive his grace in Jesus Christ. Those who turn expectantly to God in Christ are turning from the familiar death-centered life in entropic time, as all animals have it, to the enduring eternal Life, which is Life as God has it and which he bestows on all who trust him. This is why Jesus proclaimed,
(John 10:10) “I came that they may have Life, and have it abundantly.”
And those who believe Jesus become the children of God,
(John 1:12-13) But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
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