Monday quote

I dread government in the name of science. That is how tyrannies come in. In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent. They 'cash in'. It has been magic, it has been Christianity. Now it will certainly be science.

CS Lewis, "Willing Slaves of the Welfare State."

The difference between the old and new covenant

Christianity sees itself as a continuation of what God was doing with the Jewish people. Christianity started due to Christ. Although it is seen this way, it did not start at the time of the incarnation or resurrection of Christ. We are the descendants of Abraham by faith. Christianity in a sense is at least as old as Abraham and therefore as old as Judaism. Further we see God's plan for a redeemer in Genesis 3 so the plan of Christianity dates from at least the Fall, and an argument can be made for the time of creation.

So how does the new covenant we have in Christ differ from the old covenant of Moses?

We live in the age of grace and not the age of the law, but this is not the difference. Paul states that the law was given to show the transgression. The Israelites were unable to keep it.

Now the law came in to increase the trespass (Romans 5:20)

Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made (Galatians 3:19)

We live post resurrection but this is not the difference. We are saved thru the blood of Christ, but then so were the patriarchs. All men are saved thru Jesus, even those who lived before his death and resurrection. The blood of bulls and goats was unable to atone for sin (Hebrews 10:4). Jesus blood however can atone for any man:

For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. (Hebrews 10:14)

We live by faith but this is not the difference. Abraham was justified by faith and this before the Mosaic Law. Habakkuk tells us that the just shall live by faith (Habakkuk 2:4). Faith was the criteria for salvation even under the Mosaic Law. Of course since the time of Christ we are aware of who our salvation is thru.

The change is power. We have been given the Holy Spirit who gives us the ability to follow God. Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel spoke of this during the age of Law.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." (Jeremiah 31:33)

And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. (Jeremiah 32:38-40)

And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. (Ezekiel 11:19-20; see also 36:26-27).

Hebrews confirms this

This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds (Hebrews 10:16).

The new covenant is marked in time by the death and resurrection of Jesus. And this event is imperative to our salvation: both before and after the incarnation. This is the central event of the Christian faith. But the change in covenant is not the age of grace, nor the fact that salvation is thru Jesus, nor the necessity of faith: these were and continue to be fundamental to salvation. The new covenant is a new heart, an ability to know and live these things by the power of God's Spirit whom he gives without limit (John 3:34).

Monday quote

We must look for the intentions of nature in things which retain their nature, and not in things which are corrupted.

Aristotle, Politics, 1.5.

Monday quote

The closer we look at things that man has made, the more we see the flaws. However when you examine what God has made, the closer you look the better it seems.

David A. DeWitt, Unraveling the Origins Controversy, p. 202.

Monday quote

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.

Eric Hopper

Did Adam name all the animals in 1 day?

An argument against God creating the universe in 6 six days revolves around the creation of man on the 6th day and the tasks assigned to him. Here is an example I came across some time ago, though similar arguments have been made countless times.

Andrews itemises 12 events which he thinks would take too long to accomplish in a mere 24 hours; though it should really be in 12 hours.

1. God creates the various living creatures along with wild animals and animals that become domesticated [nephesh/soulish creatures] (Genesis 1:24-25).
2. God creates Adam in the divine image (Genesis 1:26-27; 2:7).
3. God gives Adam a mandate of dominion over creation (Genesis 1:28).
4. God makes the plants available as a food source for man (Genesis 1:29-30).
5. God plants a garden and puts the man in it (Genesis 2:8).
6. God gives Adam instruction concerning obedience to God’s specific commands (Genesis 2:9, 16-17).
7. God commissions Adam to cultivate the garden (Genesis 2:15).
8. God commissions Adam to name or classify the animals (Genesis 2:19-20).
9. God declares Adam’s need for a suitable helper (Gen. 2:18, 20).
10. God induces sleep and performs surgery on Adam (Genesis 2:21).
11. God creates Eve (Genesis 2:22).
12. God ordains that Adam and Eve enter into a divinely constituted marriage relationship (Genesis 2:23-25).

Adequate responses are given in the comments. I would like to reiterate them and add some further perspectives.

These tasks can be categorised three-fold: God's activities; God's interaction with man; and Adam's tasks. Using the above roughly chronological scheme we can group the items

• God: #1, #2, #4, #5, #10, #11.
• God and man: #3, #6, #7, #9, #12.
• Adam: #8.

One could quibble over the grouping, is #9 God or God and man?, but they are generally correct.

The reason for my grouping them is that the various activities are limited by man and not God. So all the items that God did alone, half of the 12, could take less than a second combined. That said, I have no problem with God sculpting Adam from clay then Eve from Adam over a short period of time.

God's interactions with man take time because man is finite. The 5 items listed would take a measurable amount of time, but as they are all commands they need not take much time at all: a few minutes. And #3, #6, and #7 (along with #8) may be all part of one conversation.

Thus, despite a list of 12 items it really boils down to one: Adam naming the animals.

Before addressing Adam's task I would like to identify a concern in Andrews' modification of the text. For item #1 he writes about the animals that become domesticated. Now it is true that animals have become domesticated since creation (dogs) and James 3:7 confirms this, however Genesis does not say this. Domestic livestock were created that way

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:24-25)

See also when God creates man he gives them dominion over the livestock (Genesis 1:26).

For item #8 Adam is supposedly told to name or classify the animals. Genesis does not say that Adam is to classify the animals (which has connotations of taxonomy), Adam is told to name the animals; the same way that Adam names the woman (Genesis 2) and God names the day, the sky, the land, etc (Genesis 1).

Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call (qara') them. And whatever the man called (qara') every living creature, that was its name (shem). The man gave names (shem) to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.

...Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called (qara') Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.” (Genesis 2:19-20, 23)

Domestic animals (livestock) existed from creation and Adam is told to name, not classify, the animals.

Is this task feasible in a day? Most certainly. The naming of the animals is closely tied to the dominion mandate. Humans are made in the image of God which includes rulership.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26-28)

God brought the animals to Adam and we are told he names 3 categories of animals (Genesis 2:20):

1. Livestock
2. Birds of the heavens
3. Beasts of the field

This is a highly restricted set of the earth's fauna.

Andrews points to Whitcomb and Morris stating in The Genesis Flood that there were 30,000 species of land animals at the time of the Noadic Deluge. I make no claims for the accuracy of that particular figure, but it is only partially relevant. Speciation between creation and the flood expanded those numbers significantly. Even so, Adam was naming a limited number of land animals. He wasn't naming the animals that creep on the ground, a category that exceeds the livestock, birds, and beasts combined. Returnig to speciation: Adam was naming cats, not all the types of cats we now have that descended from these first animals such as lions, tigers and lynx; and bears, not polar bears, brown bears, and black bears; and oxen, not bison, water buffalo, and yak.

As to the time Adam took to name them, he need not take much time at all: a few seconds, if that. The point of naming relates to the dominion mandate not to obtain a degree in taxonomy. Adam (and Eve and their descendants) were to rule over the world including its fauna, that is the point of Adam naming them. In bringing the animals to Adam it also appears that God wished Adam to note that the animals had companions but Adam did not. The activity of naming served to consolidate Adam's dominion mandate and his aloneness.

There was plenty of time for the activities of the 6th day of creation. The only activity that took significant time was the naming of the animals. A close reading of the text reveals this to be a limited number of animals for a specific reason that need not have taken much time at all.

Monday quote

If I ever reach heaven, I expect to find three wonders there: first, to meet some I would not have expected to be there; second, to miss some I would have expected to be there; third, the greatest wonder of all—to find myself there! 

John Newton, 1725–1807.