Based in part on golden age passages in Isaiah (11:6-7; 35:9; 65:25), young-earth creationists think the world to come won't have predation. They regard the new Eden as a reversion to the "very good" state of prelapsarian Eden.
There are some exegetical problems with that extrapolation. The passages in Isaiah are poetic. The prosaic description of Eden in Gen 2-3 doesn't say that.
But I'd like to approach it from another angle. Many boys (myself included) take an avid interest in wildlife. An interest they don't outgrow. As adults, they retain their interest in animals.
In addition, many men and boys have a particular fascination with dangerous animals. Venomous snakes. Anacondas. Reticulating pythons. Crocodiles. Komodo dragons. Leopards, lions, and tigers. Grizzly bears. Kodiak bears. Sharks. Sea leopards. Wolves. Wolverines. Mandrils. And so on and so forth.
Some men become herpetologists. Some men move to Africa to study the wildlife or hunt big game.
If wildlife in the world to come is confined to fawns, bunny rabbits, and Kola bears, is that the average man's idea of paradise? In addition, many guys like to do things with an element of risk, like skiing, whitewater rafting, horseback riding, race cars, and contact sports. Admittedly, metrosexuals have a different point of view.
My point is not that the world to come will automatically be an extension of whatever we like to do in the here-and-now. But that cuts both ways. When we make projections about what the world to come will be like, some Christians are conditioned to envision a parklike landscape garden with nothing more menacing than chipmunks and pink flamingos. But as long as we're going to speculate about the world to come, is that really your idea of paradise?
Again, I'm not suggesting that the world to come will be dangerous for the saints. Yet the world to come will still have natural hazards. It's not as if there won't be cliffs. If you went hiking in the mountains, that doesn't mean stone turns into sponge. It would be more a case of providential protection from harm than the absence of harmful things.
ah but will you give your pet boa constrictor a hug, or will it be the other way around?
ReplyDeleteLends new meaning to putting the squeeze on someone.
DeleteI theorize that natural hazards would have existed pre-fall as well in some form (those 4 rivers surrounding the garden present a drowning risk), but that the promise of Psalm 91:11 was — at that time — absolute.
ReplyDeleteAdam would have had heightened senses/reaction time and accuracy compared to our diminished state, as well. But in the event of that that one-in-a-billion accident, as Steve says,
"It would be more a case of providential protection from harm than the absence of harmful things. "
"Adam would have had heightened senses/reaction time and accuracy compared to our diminished state"
DeleteThat's a good point!
I mean that it's possible the glorified body may be quite improved over our present body. Though, of course, I wouldn't go so far as to say we're superheroes or anything.
DeleteRight. We know that reduced reaction time (which also correlates with IQ, while we're at it) is the result of deleterious mutations accumulating in an organism — walk that backwards to before 6000 years of extreme selective pressures and bottle-neck effect inbreeding, and Adam's body would have been top notch. The man lived over 900 years, after all.
DeleteAs for the resurrected body, I've heard compelling arguments to the effect that it will be glorified beyond Adam's pre-lapsarian state. More "like the angels in heaven," if you will. Makes no difference to me — better to be a doorman in the house of the Lord and all that.
Perhaps we will be able to be injured, albeit without the accompanying pain and misery, and vastly improved healing capacity.
ReplyDeleteWe don't know exactly what changed from the Edenic world to the post-fall world, or even from the pre-flood to the post flood. As it is, we can only speculate. That places us outside of what has been revealed. Whatever it will be, it will be perfect. Whatever we have now is far from perfect.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, we use the lack of perfection now to give us the challenges we need in order to keep things interesting to us. I have a friend who insists that there will be golf in the new earth. I like to remind him that if there is, we will all get holes-in-one all the time. That would be perfect. Then it wouldn't be interesting anymore because we would all go back to the clubhouse with scores of 18.
Either the new earth won't be exactly perfect, or we lack the ability at this time to comprehend perfection. I think that latter is probably true.