Life Before, and Changes as a Result of the Fall
The thread "A few questions about the Genesis claims."
got my mind to wondering (again) about how animals acted and interacted before the fall and how some of these behaviors changed afterward (e.g. herbivores becoming omni/carniverous). What I wonder is, how much of it was a result of genetic degradation and environmental pressures/natural selection and how much of it (if any) was supernaturally caused by God as a part of the curse.
Things that I think would be difficult to account for aside from a supernatural act would be venomous/stinging creatures (snakes, scorpions, spiders, insects, etc). What purpose would fangs and stingers have served in Paradise? Sometimes I wonder if anyone's done work to see what effect different venoms have on plant life, but if anyone has I haven't been able to find it.
Granted, most if not all of this discussion will consist of guess-work and speculation, but I'm sure there's at least some we can reasonably infer from the Bible and observation. I look forward to your thoughts!
got my mind to wondering (again) about how animals acted and interacted before the fall and how some of these behaviors changed afterward (e.g. herbivores becoming omni/carniverous). What I wonder is, how much of it was a result of genetic degradation and environmental pressures/natural selection and how much of it (if any) was supernaturally caused by God as a part of the curse.
Things that I think would be difficult to account for aside from a supernatural act would be venomous/stinging creatures (snakes, scorpions, spiders, insects, etc). What purpose would fangs and stingers have served in Paradise? Sometimes I wonder if anyone's done work to see what effect different venoms have on plant life, but if anyone has I haven't been able to find it.
Granted, most if not all of this discussion will consist of guess-work and speculation, but I'm sure there's at least some we can reasonably infer from the Bible and observation. I look forward to your thoughts!
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Adam J. Benton on -
It could be possible that God, knowing all, knew that the fall would occur and thus gave animals features that might be redundant in Paradise, knowing they would need them for their survival later.
A lion might be pondering why he had been gifted fangs in Paradise, but once he was out hunting gazelles I bet he'd be thanking God he was given them.
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Permalink Reply by Stefan Morin on -
Adam J. Benton said:It could be possible that God, knowing all, knew that the fall would occur and thus gave animals features that might be redundant in Paradise, knowing they would need them for their survival later.
A lion might be pondering why he had been gifted fangs in Paradise, but once he was out hunting gazelles I bet he'd be thanking God he was given them.
That is possible, but it's also possible that the lion's fangs and many other features served specific functions. Pandas, for example, use their sharp teeth to eat bamboo. Obviously, we can't be dogmatic about it at all. Personally, I feel that, if features existed before the fall, they should have had a function.
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Permalink Reply by Adam J. Benton on
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They may well have had a function - but they wouldn't have been too good at it. In Paradise though this would not matter, who needs to eat food efficiently when it is bountiful?
To use your example of Panda's, for example, it is widely held that they will go extinct soon. A large part of this isn't - as is widely thought - because of their slow reproduction rate but because they aren't designed to eat plants. Being bears, their teeth are for meat eating and their stomach for meat digesting. As such, when they try to eat plants they don't do it very well at all to the point where they will most likely die out. This wouldn't been a problem in Paradise, they could eat Bamboo all they want, but in the 'real' world it is. Maybe Pandas just never gave up the habits of Eden?
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Permalink Reply by Justin on -
I like the question. Animals are so unique its almost as if they have been made for their environment. But then what's their purpose? In a perfect world they wouldn't need to take care of anything. However just as man had to cultivate the ground in paradise, so animals have their part. I think they developed the carnivorous features as a result of the Curse. Just as thorns inhibit plants, they also serve a purpose in protection. God can use some of these deformities for their advantage, instead of just letting them die. That's why Natural Selection exists. Otherwise everything should be dead by now. Too much has changed and if we didn't have a way out we wouldn't survive. I don't believe the argument that they were originally created that way. I'm sure they had the ability to get there, but I also believe God created them in mind of their eventual fallen state. So I don't know whether carnivorous features could serve a purpose in a perfect world, or if one should look for one.
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Permalink Reply by Adam J. Benton on
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It's not a simple change from herbivore to carnivore though, not just the addition of fangs. Their entire body structure is for killing - the amount of change that would've required is immense.
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Permalink Reply by Stefan Morin on
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I found an article on AiG that gets into some of this: link.
Adam said:
It's not a simple change from herbivore to carnivore though, not just the addition of fangs. Their entire body structure is for killing - the amount of change that would've required is immense.
Could you be a little more specific, Adam? Animals like the black-and-white ruffed lemur, the giant panda and certain types of bats and bears, all have jaws and teeth that appear to be suited for eating meat but are instead mostly or exclusively plant-eaters.
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Permalink Reply by Justin on
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Could you give some examples. I myself would like to know more.
Adam J. Benton said:It's not a simple change from herbivore to carnivore though, not just the addition of fangs. Their entire body structure is for killing - the amount of change that would've required is immense.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Mooney on -
Here's another AiG article on this subject:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v4/n3/designed-kill
It briefly mentions "mediated design" which is another possibility that I don't think has been mentioned yet.
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Permalink Reply by Adam J. Benton on
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I think snakes are a great example as they could be considered irreducibly complex. In order to hunt they need venom, venom glands, hollow fangs and all the associated body parts. Without any one of them, they would die out. One must then ask, can they, therefore evolve?
If they cannot (as the above article argues), then the change occurred spontaneously, either at the moment of creation or the moment of the fall. I think it was the former given two reasons.
First, the changes to the snake are mentioned (removal of limbs etc.) and on the list the addition of venom or fangs is not mentioned. Whilst it is possible that there were some changes omitted, given that the list of spontaneous changes to humans seems pretty complete, why not snakes too?
Secondly, Genesis 1:30
"And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat"
Given God is giving them herbs as substitute for meat suggests to me that he knows they need meat, in other words, were designed for meat consumption.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Mooney on
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I'm not sure which translation you were quoting, but I think in the KJV "meat" is used synonymously with "food." So while that verse is clear that animals were originally vegetarian, I'm not sure it implies anything about them being designed for meat consumption. Although, to find out for sure, we'd have to look at the original Hebrew word, probably.
Also, I wonder if the mediated design concept can overcome the irreducible complexity problem. Since its basically pre-planned adaptation, I wonder if perhaps the organism could be set up so that all of the needed traits could be "activated" simultaneously. I'm not sure if that's at all plausible or not, but I thought I'd throw out here for consideration anyway.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Mooney on
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Here's another AiG article on mediated design for anyone who is interested:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v4/n1/hidden-potential
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Permalink Reply by Adam J. Benton on
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The original Hebrew used in Gen 1:30, guess I was wrong about that. Silly me, trusting the KJV :P
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H40...
On mediated design, if you'll bare with me, I'd like to introduce the concept of female bees. There are two types, Queen and Worker, but they both have the same genome. So how are the two different types produced? Well, the Queen produces an inhibitory pheromone which stops part of the genetic code "turning on" and making Workers into Queens. Perhaps something happened in all animals before the fall, maybe Paradise was full of pheromones which prevented the "turning on" of carnivores traits.
Can we know this is the case? Well, scientists have done some experiments with inhibiting genes in animals. If my above theory is correct, we would expect them to stop being carnivorous. Oddly though, that is not what we see. Chickens who have been "inhibited" actually grow teeth! Although this research is preliminary, it might suggest that it actually happened in reverse. Maybe all animals were carnivorous, but herbivore traits override these (beaks overriding teeth in chickens). In some animals, this just never stopped happening whereas in others the "inhibition" stopped and they grew teeth.
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