I'm not so sure it is about creation before the fall. It talks about ships on the sea too.

God's creation and his providence are still awesome and worthy of praise, despite the fall.

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R.Vic Bottomly
Providence Reformed Baptist Church, Tacoma, WA

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

This is true, although I think God's creation is the main theme. It's hard for me to consider the things mentioned as being results of the fall however. It seems like it's saying God made lions to go after their prey. He created them naturally to do that.

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The Piper will lead us to reason...

Rick Larson
Hope Christian and Missionary Alliance Church
Apple Valley, MN.

It looks like this is a Psalm on the creation but it is post the breaking of the Covenant of Life. The last verses expose this.

And just to be honest with Reformed Baptist Dude.... I don't have an answer for the teeth thing. I do know God can create food without it being a living being first. But I am not so sure he did. I will point this out... In the New Heavens and New Earth the Lion is to lay down with the Lamb. I will make this assumption, God knowing before hand by His will that the fall of man would effect all things fit all things for the fall.

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(Norseman Moderator)

R. Martin Snyder
1689er
Harmony Baptist Church (Member)
PuritanCovenanter MSN Blog
PuritanCovenanter's MySpace Page

"Our object should not be to have scripture on our side but to be on the side of scripture; and however dear any sentiment may have become by being long entertained, so soon as it is seen to be contrary to the Bible, we must be prepared to abandon it without hesitation."
William Symington

Click to get:Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Exactly. It is a Psalm praising God's handywork in creation, but some (like Kline) take its categorization as a "creation Psalm", and then press the unproven assumption that it is exclusively a pre-fall creation. Of course the flawed exegesis is then pressed into service to try and prove other ungrounded ideas by those authors, but we will save that for a later discussion...

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Adam J. Myer
Waiting on the September accessions board.
Evergreen PCA
Salem, Oregon

I don't think that it would be too far fetched to say that if the attributes of the soil/atmosphere changed after the fall to such an extent that Adam's labor became rigorous toil, that God could have changed the attributes of some of his animals as well.

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Adam J. Myer
Waiting on the September accessions board.
Evergreen PCA
Salem, Oregon

What's especially interesting (and I have no problem accepting the "no pre-fall death" doctrine) is how God appears to have made his creatures with attributes that would only be useful to them post-fall, such as Lion's teeth, etc.

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The Piper will lead us to reason...

Rick Larson
Hope Christian and Missionary Alliance Church
Apple Valley, MN.

I believe man changed as well. And that is part of the death pronounced upon man. I believe Adam shone as Moses Face and as Jesus did in the mount during his transfiguration. Adam was clothed with a radiant physical glory most likely and when he sinned it left and he saw he was naked. Something genetically probably changed also. There is evidently other genetic modifications that have taken place since we no longer live as long and the colors of our skin and appearances are contrasted so.

__________________

(Norseman Moderator)

R. Martin Snyder
1689er
Harmony Baptist Church (Member)
PuritanCovenanter MSN Blog
PuritanCovenanter's MySpace Page

"Our object should not be to have scripture on our side but to be on the side of scripture; and however dear any sentiment may have become by being long entertained, so soon as it is seen to be contrary to the Bible, we must be prepared to abandon it without hesitation."
William Symington

Click to get:Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Like I said...

I will make this assumption, God knowing before hand by His will that the fall of man would effect all things... [He] fit all things for the fall.

__________________

(Norseman Moderator)

R. Martin Snyder
1689er
Harmony Baptist Church (Member)
PuritanCovenanter MSN Blog
PuritanCovenanter's MySpace Page

"Our object should not be to have scripture on our side but to be on the side of scripture; and however dear any sentiment may have become by being long entertained, so soon as it is seen to be contrary to the Bible, we must be prepared to abandon it without hesitation."
William Symington

Click to get:Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Nicholas, you are assuming too much when you conclude that just because an ant can be sqaushed by an elephant and die in a post-Fall world, that that means an ant can be squashed by an elephant and die in a pre-Fall world. Can you demonstrate that an elephant would even make the mistake of stepping on an ant in a pre-Fall world? Just because things are the way they are in the animal kingdom NOW,doesn't mean that that is the way they were THEN.

Steve, I believe that a lion has teeth and claws to kill and eat meat in a post-Fall world, but that doesn't necessarily mean that teeth and claws on a big cat kind in a pre-Fall world were used to kill and eat meat. Have you ever seen the teeth of a fruit bat? They look like swords to fend off any would-be contender for its prize of meat that it just acquired by slashing and dashing its victim, but a fruit bat can only eat fruits. Those dagger like teeth are not for killing and eating meat, but for vegetation. We must not make the mistake of assuming that things in the post-Fall world mirror the things in the pre-Fall world.

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Tracey McKinney
Trinity Fellowship Church
Plano, TX

“If you find me short in things, impute that to my love of brevity. If you find me besides the truth in anything, impute that to my infirmity. But if you find anything here that serves to your furtherance and joy of the faith, impute that to the mercy of God bestowed on you and me. Yours to serve you with what little I have.” John Bunyan (Works, 1:336).

Tracey, since this whole thread is not a hill I will even argue on, my statements must be taken with speculation in mind. This cannot even be used as a "necessary consequence" theological statement.

Perhpas you are right, perhaps there was no reproduction involved prior to the fall. God created male and female of each, and the area was big enough for all of them. I seriously doubt it, but I was not there!!!! But what I will 'dialogue/debate" on is that in no way was the creation created immortal.

As an aside, I am not assuming anything when I stated that there would be no need for reproduction organs if there was no death or decay. God did say He would INCREASE labor pains, not start them. And again, the thorns and thisles were present already outside of Eden. Why would their be venomous snakes? The sticky tongues of frogs and chameleons, did God give them this attribute just so they could eat plants or berries? Or prepare them for a post fall world?

Energy produces decay right? When the sun and the stars were created, their burning according to the law of thermodynamics would say that there is decay immediately. The instant light was created, entropy was present.

The YEP(young earth position), is the one that specualates. If we look at what the bible says, they are the ones who assume too much by seeing "good and "very good". And making them mean immortal. And no death or decay prior to the fall.

Now you can say that the 2nd law of TD was not created until after the fall, which has been used by YEp's, but actually must be rejected. Since no movement or light can happen if there is no 2nd LOTD.

Even the names of the Animals are defining what they are.

Lion H738 from H717 "in the sense of violence"

Cormorant H799411 "bird of prey" from H7993 "to throw, cast hurl fling" - referring to its diving in pursuit of prey

Hawk H5322 "unclean bird of prey

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N. Robert; Trinity Reformed Church RCA, Holland MI

Once in a while you can get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right."

If what you are talking about is animal reproduction then I'm not sure where I said that? What I said was just because things (not everything!) are the way they are in the animal kingdom NOW, doesn't mean that that is the way they were THEN.
Nicholas, my only point regarding these questions is this: In a post-Fall world the venom of snakes is used as a weapon and for prey as is the "sticky tongues of frogs and chameleons." Is it possible that these "attributes" (as you call them) could be used for other purposes in a pre-Fall world? We can't know and we don't have to know exactly what they could be used for because the pre-Fall world was a very different world that you and I live in. Adam could tell us. I do believe what we CANNOT say, and that is: Just because a lion has teeth and claws for killing, and snakes have venom for killing today, that does not necessarily mean they used those attributes for killing in a pre-Fall world.
Unfortunately we cannot ask Adam if these definitions, which all come from post-Fall nature observation, match the attributes of pre-Fall animals. When Adam named the pre-Fall lions, did he mean "in the sense of violence"? All literature post-Fall nature observation has documented the behavior of lions, cormorants, and hawks and has defined them according to their post-Fall behaviors. Were these observers there to see these animals in a pre-Fall world? The key word in your above quote is "are" as in NOW; not "were" as in pre-Fall.

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Tracey McKinney
Trinity Fellowship Church
Plano, TX

“If you find me short in things, impute that to my love of brevity. If you find me besides the truth in anything, impute that to my infirmity. But if you find anything here that serves to your furtherance and joy of the faith, impute that to the mercy of God bestowed on you and me. Yours to serve you with what little I have.” John Bunyan (Works, 1:336).

At a few people have pointed out that their interpretation of what the created state originally was is based on looking at the final state in the new creation and seeing that as a reflection of the original created state. The problem I see with this (and I'm open to being wrong in my interpretation) is that scripture does not describe the original created state of humans in this way. The final state describes rest from labor, and in fact work is assumed to be not necessary because God has labored to provide that blessed rest for us. This is not a reflection of the original created state. In the original state work, not rest, is assumed to be necessary:

The final created state is a more of a reflection of what God does after creating Adam (although even then work is assumed necessary, but is certainly restful by comparison). By a special act of providence God plants a garden in this barren wilderness of dust, takes the man out of his original state in the dusty barren land and places him in an orchard that he did not labor to grow, and enters into a covenant of life with him. This is not the original state of the man, but a special act of providence afterward:

When the curse on the man comes, it is relative to this blessed life in the garden. He is cursed to eat what he labors and sweats to produce from the ground on his own–he is cursed to return to his created state outside the garden where we were previously told there was no plants because "there was no man to work the ground." Just being cast out of the garden is death in regards to the blessed restful life he had in the garden. And in addition to that he is cursed to finally return to his pre-created state: dust. He would first return to the dust in the sense that he would leave the garden and return to the dusty wilderness land where his labor would greatly be increased, and then he would eventually return to the dust in the sense of his pre-created state:

That is, Adam would return to the dust outside the garden and have to work for himself to produce food, and also Adam's body would eventually return to the the dust outside the garden. I'm not sure how this information might influence how one interprets the temporality of earthly life before the fall, but perhaps in light of my earlier quote from Calvin that he believed earthly life was temporal pre-fall, it might influence this conversation in some way. Although I'll admit I'm not sure what I think myself about the temporality of earthly life before the fall

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C. Gorsuch
Glencullen Baptist
Portland, Oregon

Tracey, I believe we are at an impasse. I can provide solid scriptural basis for the understanding I promote, and you give the same speculative answer for each. ie: "God created them with post fall behavior in mind". And somehow the 2nd law of thermodynamics was created prefall, but only became true post fall. Language is language, prefall and post fall. When create is used prefall, it means exactly the same post fall. If you took every word prior to the fall, checked the hebrew, then looked and compared it to when it was used post fall, they mean exactly the same.

Lastly, I see no difference in God's Sov plan effected by saying their was death,deacay, entropy before the fall. And actually we must remember that the angels that fell from their first estate, sinned. Therefore sin came into the earthly world of man in genesis 3, but existed prior to that. Unless Satan and his minions were cast down for something other than sin.

With the chance of me repeating the same thing ad nauseum, you may have the last word. But please make it more sunstantial than, "Nicholas, the pre fall world was different than the post fall world." That is mere sophistry and some philosophical speculation.

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N. Robert; Trinity Reformed Church RCA, Holland MI

Once in a while you can get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right."