The Problem of Natural Evil and the Christ-Centered Model for Early Genesis

We live in a world which, though it is also filled with much wonder, beauty, and love, contains a horrific amount of evil. Not just human evil, but also what might be called "natural" evil. Nature is full of cruelty and tragedy. An example of the former would be abortion. And example of the latter something such as children getting cancer. Animals prey upon one another. So do humans of course, but theologically speaking that may not fall under the category of "natural" evil.

Young Earth Creationism has an answer for the problem of natural evil: The universe was created in a state of deathless perfection, but Adam's sin unleashed natural evil in its various forms. This answer is unsatisfying for two major reasons. One of these is the idea that God had foreknowledge of the choice Adam would make and still made him that way. This objection can be overcome in certain Trinitarian calculus. The other main objection is that it is unjust to put everyone, man and beast. through so much natural evil due to the sins of one man. It wasn't just to mar a perfect world due to the actions of one man. That charge against the YEC model is more poignant.

Young Earth Creationism has a lot of other problems, even if they had satisfying answers for the problem of natural evil. So in a way it does not even matter if they did have such answers. We can disqualify their cosmology on other grounds. One of them is that it completely misrepresents what the text of Genesis says about the initial conditions of creation.

Genesis chapter one paints a picture of a world which is dark, empty, and chaotic. There is nothing good about it, until the first word from God enters creation. His word produces light, and the light is good. That is, that part of creation which is connected to His word is good. Genesis chapter one is not claiming a perfect initial creation. It's claiming an initial creation of darkness that is not good which the light of His word enters. It is an account of taking a place of darkness and chaos and by degrees filling it with life and order.

So the first wrong-headed idea to get out of our minds is that the earth was initially like heaven and as punishment for Adam's sin all that was changed. It's not what the text says. Rather, this world was created as a place where light and darkness would be mixed from the beginning. It was formed as a place where His word was absent. As a place where His will can be done, but not a place where it must be done. Were it not so Christ would not have instructed us to pray "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done. On earth as it is in heaven."

So creation doesn't do God's will automatically. Just the opposite. Creation can't do God's will without God's help. It is a suitable (and that's the real meaning of the word translated "good" in Genesis chapter one) place for creatures like us, because we can't do God's will without God's help either. No more than a light bulb was designed to give off light disconnected to its power source. The question is, do we want that help?

In other words, the world is designed to be a place where free will is exercised. This world is the spinning coin where, for a time, the outcome known to God appears to us to be in doubt. It was a place without order. God, to some extent, imposed His will on it because that was necessary to bring forth and preserve life. But He left darkness mingled with light. There was room for Man to impose his own order on creation, whether in subjection to God's will or otherwise. Had the cosmos been fully aligned with God's will, then there would be no room for our own. Creation itself would have fought us at every turn. And it does fight us, but with chaos, not organized and systematic opposition to our ends. How frustrating it would be for sinful and unrepentant creatures to live in a world which forced us to walk in the light and left no room for our own devices. Thus, from the beginning He consigned this universe to futility- that is, chaos, the possibility of ways which are not submitted to His own will.

So if we want to know why God produced a universe so full of cruelty and tragedy we need only look in the mirror. We are the reason. It's the only kind of universe where free will can be exercised.  He meant for us to subdue and dominate the earth and shape the chaos into beauty. That was His commission to man in Genesis One. To produce a world where lions and lambs lay down together and eat grass.  He didn't impose a morally perfect word on us, but He set us up in a world which could be so shaped, and blessed us to that purpose.

The rest as they say, is history. Adam, His "privileged" stand-in for the race, choose to decide for himself what was good and what was evil. They decided to make themselves the judge of God's word rather than the beneficiary of it. Adam failed to realize that he was not properly in the middle between good and evil, between God and the Serpent, rationally evaluating which had the most plausible claim. Rather Adam was from the dust. He was a part of this natural world which has futility and chaos bound up in it. He wasn't in the middle of light and darkness. He too was in darkness and darkness in him until such time as the light of God's word drives it out.

So His plan was delayed, but not frustrated, by our exercise of free will. Who knows where mankind would be now if we had cooperated with God in re-making this world as He desired instead of questioning and disregarding His Word at every turn? Childhood cancer may have been wiped out 5,000 years ago. Abortion surely would have been. The Garden might have been enlarged so that it covered the good earth. Light increased, and the shadows of darkness driven into extinction in this realm.

One day, scriptures teach, this will be so anyway. Revelation says there will never be any night in the city of God. God's plan was not frustrated by our connection to this universe, the darkness in us. He has accomplished it and is accomplishing it in His own Person through the God-Man Jesus Christ.

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What they are Trying NOT to Save About Diversification of Amoebas

Are they trying to say that the genetic record shows they are older and more diverse than the fossil record? Not what one would expect if all life had a common ancestor, but in line with Creationist views that a Creator could produce a "zoo" of life with diversity right from the start.

Christ Centered Model Points to Highland Location for Flood of Noah

Before I talk about another possible scenario on the Flood of Noah, some background is in order about the Christ-centered model for early Genesis. It is a very different way to understand the same text. That a model which is Christ-centered is a "very different" view of early Genesis ought to be a red flag to Christians that the common view in error. The church got a lot right. They got Jesus Christ right. They got the gospel right. They got, miraculously, the Trinity right. But they have gotten early Genesis very wrong. They don't understand the text and where it points to those things they have gotten right: Christ, the Gospel, and the Trinity. Before it hardly mattered. Now it does. 

In the Christ-centered model, Adam is not the sole genetic father of humanity but rather a figure of Christ (Rom. 5:14) formed to bring the line of Messiah into the world. He need not be the first man, except in the sense that Christ is the second man- that is as a stand-in for the human race. He could have come long after humanity got its start. The flood is aimed only at the clan of Adam, which is not the same as the race Adam. Thus, the descendants of Adam are another example of the "chosen people" theme which finds its highest manifestation in the Household of Faith. 

As unlikely as that sounds to someone who has not studied the model and what it says about the text, this permits a much more local flood than even some regional flood advocates have envisioned. Rather than a global or even regional flood, it was a local flood with global consequences. That is to say that the flood would have ended the line of Messiah, thus consigning the entire world to ruin- except for the deliverance of Noah and his family. When God was talking about the flood bringing the world to ruin unless He acted, He was talking about the consequences of destroying the line of Messiah. The ark did not contain examples of all the animals in the world, but just the more limited set made for Adam in the chapter two account. And it means a flood which left survivors besides the clan of Noah.

Yes, that is too much to take in at a glance and I don't expect people who have not had the background to follow all of it. After all, all the videos I linked to above just scratch the surface of the contents of a 342 page book. And it gets worse. Most people with an opinion on it place the garden of Eden far to the south of the Tigris and Euphrates, but if we have the region where the ark landed right, it is likely that the southern location for Eden is wrong. A great deal of evidence points to an origin for civilization via domestication of plants and animals on the northern reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This fits well with the Christ-centered model's view of Adam and the Garden.

Mesopotamia has a lot of flood stories with common elements to the account in Genesis because that's where the clans of Noah journeyed to after the flood. It wasn't because Mesopotamia is where the flood had its greatest impact. Mesopotamia got a "glancing blow" from the flood of Noah because it was down-hill from the true flood target area. Even still, the effect was enormous, but still manifested as local floods along the Tigris and/or Euphrates rivers as they drained portions of the highlands. The whole of Mesopotamia was not covered. The flood deposits found by Sir Woolley at Uruk may be an example.

I don't know where the Garden of Eden was, or where the clan of Adam took up residence once they were expelled. But the most likely region based on the epicenter of plant and animal domestication events is somewhere in the southern band of this picture below....

The three large highland lakes shown there are Lake Van (left), Lake Sevan, and Lake Urmia (lower right). This is a very mountainous region. But if you will look closely (you may have to click on the image and open it in another tab) you will see a sort of "bowl". The high mountains have even higher mountains on all sides, except for a few narrow drainage points. I have outlined this region in yellow below. The picture is not as big so you may need to toggle between the two in order to see it.

Where could water be trapped in a highland local flood scenario?

Some may be thinking "but they would have seen the mountains on the horizon if they were trapped in such an area." That's one of the misconceptions about the ark I discuss in this video. The text indicates that they did not have an unobstructed view of the horizon. They may have only been able to see what was immediately around their ship.

Here is a short video showing a Bronze age site in this region and from there zooming the horizon where you can see the mountains and understand how the inhabitants would be in a "bowl" or at least a "pan". You can see how flood waters coming in would be restricted from going out and though it looks small on the map, even a tiny part of that area is huge in life.

People have been looking for the evidence of a global flood, and even a flood which covered the whole of Mesopotamia, for a long time. They have not found such evidence and its time to consider the possibility that this is because the evidence is not there. They have the wrong place. They need to look north, to a flood in a place that is surrounded by high mountains with very few and narrow river canyons through which such a flood could drain.

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I withdraw my critique of Roohif

It looks like I made a bone-headed mistake in reading Roohif's paper. He wasn't measuring what I thought he was. This is a placeholder acknowledging the error in place of the critique.

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Christ is the Image of God: Asking the Wrong Questions on "What Does it Mean to be Human"?

I think we have been asking the wrong questions in these debates about humanity and the image of God. We have been wrangling over issues about what makes us in the image of God and speculating about some mental level or what have you. This of course leads to issues like those raised in the heartbreaking stories (and I have them in my own family) from the “Disability and the Image of God” thread. Then comes the speculation about Neanderthals and other hominids and if they were “in the image of God”.

Now I have mentioned what I write next before around here, and people have just seemed to not see it and go on as if it didn’t matter. That’s fine if you want to endlessly dialogue without making any progress, but I want to make progress. And to do that we must first define our terms. What is the Image of God? What does that even mean? Who has it and how is it obtained? 

It would be an enormous post if I laid it all out here, but I am going to lay enough of it out to make my point. That way when issues related to the same topic come up again I can just refer back to this thread. 

According to the scriptures, Christ is the image of God. We may have our own private interpretations of what it means to be “in the image of God”, but for a Protestant Christian like me the meaning laid out in the scriptures is the authoritative one. I will show here that according to the scriptures Christ is the image of God. Thus a person cannot be “in the image of God” unless one is in Christ. If you are “in Him” then you are in the Image of God. Adam was only “in the image of God” because he was in fellowship unmarred by sin with the LORD God in the Garden. It was not something intrinsic to him that people outside the Garden didn’t have. Afterward, even he did not claim that he was “in the image of God”, just the likeness (Gen. 5:1-2). 

Colossians 1:15 says that Christ is the image of God, and further that as far as we are concerned God has no other image than Christ. It says of Him, “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” (The phrase “firstborn of all creation” is interesting too, but one point at a time). That Christ is God’s image is confirmed in 2nd Corinthians 4:4 which says of Christ “Who is the image of God.” Hebrews 1:3 says that Christ is the “exact representation” of God’s being or nature- in other words, an image. 

Christ is the image of God, and God has no other image that is accessible to anyone but Himself. That is why when Thomas asked to see the Father, Jesus said “if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” That is why 1st Timothy 6:16 describes Christ in the full glory of God with these words: “Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see". It is why the first chapter of the Gospel of John says “18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” Some translations say “He has explained Him” for that last phrase. Further, in chapter six that gospel declares “46 Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.” We can’t see God, but we can see His image. That’s not us- its Christ.

When God says “let us make Man in our own image” He is saying that the goal is to make man to be in Christ. The ultimate goal of God is not to have a bunch of independent little figures of God-like beings running around creation separate and unconnected to Him. Man can do that, it is what we are born into, but that is the path of disobedience. It is the choice that the Devil wants for Man. It is a choice which promises freedom but ends in the slavery of delusion. God wants His children to choose Him as He has chosen them. He made us as little god figures, in the likeness of God. But what sort of god-figures shall we be? His plan was for us to become the Christ kind. Christ is His image. 

God created the first Man in His image, and He made Adam in His image. It was always God’s intent to both create Man in His own image in the eternal realm and to make man in His own image through a process in the temporal realm. The fall of Adam interrupted that process, but the death and resurrection of Christ re-established in the temporal realm what God declared done in the eternal realm. 

One must take the scripture (Genesis 9:6) which says that “God made man in His own image” in light of this larger picture. He did, but that does not mean that men currently born into the world are in the image of God. It is what is in heaven where His will is done and what can happen on earth when God’s intent is fulfilled in our lives. 

When we are born in this world, we are not born in the “image” of God. All men are born in the likeness of God, but not the image. We have an earthly image. This is why it is written (John 3:7) “you must be born again.” If you were born in the image of God the first time, you would not need to be born again a second time. When we are born again, we have a heavenly image, and through faith and the renewal of our minds by the Holy Spirit we become conformed to that new image which we have.Here are some scriptures which support this declaration, starting in …
Romans chapter eight: 

29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
And further in Colossians the third chapter…
9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
And then from 1st Corinthians the fifteenth chapter:
47 The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. 48 As is the earthy, such as they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such as they also that are heavenly 49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. 

And also in 2nd Corinthians the third chapter:
“18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
From these four passages, and from others besides, it should be clear that man is not automatically born “in the image of God”. All men are made “according to the likeness” of God, but this is not the same thing as being created “in the image” of God. Only those in relationship with Him are in His image. Hitler was not created “in His image”, nor was Jack the Ripper, or any other number of notorious monsters in human form. They were according to the likeness of God in the sense that they had the potential for connectedness and moral awareness. They used that god-like capacity to ungodly ends. 

We are not made in His image when we are born. An image is an exact representation. We are according to His likeness, but our natural image is more similar to that of Adam after the fall. We who believe are being conformed to God’s image by the renewal of the Holy Spirit. This is what the scripture teaches. 

To that you may say “Aha but Adam was made in the image of God.” Well, he started that way. Then the fall happened. By the end of things not even Adam considered himself to be in the image of God, only the likeness. See Genesis 5:1 which is the towledah for “the generations” or account of Adam. He says that God made man “after the likeness” of God, but never mentions “image”. We will explore that passage in more detail later.

When we are born again, and Christ said we must be born again, we are re-born in His image. As we walk with Him in faith we are conformed to that new image which He has given us. This is a view consistent with Romans 8:29 and the rest of these verses.

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