Response to RTB - animal death before the flood.

As I mentioned in the beginning of my talk, I don't think the age of the earth is the issue here. I think what the issue here is the implications of an old earth and that is mainly animal death before the fall. And this is what the late Henry Morris said, and this could be, and there are a number of places you see these types of statements in the young earth literature: "It is nothing short of blasphemy to attribute to the omnipotent and omniscient God of love and grace, the horrific, purposeless, waste-filled and age-long death of billions of living things prior to the rebellion of Adam." I don't know that I necessarily explain what Henry Morris means here. I think it's pretty clear: that to take an old earth position, at the end of the day, is blasphemous, because you are impuning the nature of God. You are saying that God is responsible for animal death, and how could God, as all powerful, all loving God be responsible for animal death, and that animal death is a result of Adam and Eve's rebellion. This is a serious charge and I'm going to address this from an old earth perspective. But before I do that, I want to first of all lay out what the old earth position is, to be very clear how the old earth regards death before the fall. First of all, there was no animal death before the fall. The old earth position argues...sorry, that that there was no human death before the fall. The old earth position argues that there was animal death only, that humans died both spiritually and physically at the time of the fall. In the Garden of Eden, God tells Adam "You can eat of any tree in the Garden that you want to, but the day that you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that is the day you surely will die." Well Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden fruit. They did die. They died on that day, but that death was spiritual first and foremost. They were alienated from God, and that set in motion events that led ultimately to the physical death of humanity, in my particular view...from my own personal perspective. But the whole point here is the emphasis is on spiritual death and alienation and secondarily is (on) human physical death. Now, with regard to this position, there is a very clear understanding from an old earth perspective, that animals are not humans. That Genesis 1:26-27 says very clearly that humans beings are made in the image of God, and this is a unique characteristic that human beings possess: that none of the other creatures, none of the other animals are made in the image of God. And it's because we're in the image of God that we have this relationship with God, it's because we're made in the image of God that we can serve as God's stewards, and God's viceroys on the planet. Genesis 2:7,19 teach again the same idea, Adam is created from the dust of the earth, and God animates him with the divine breath. The beast of the field and the birds of the air, too, are also created from the dust of the earth, but they are not animated with the divine breath. Now is this an intentional omission? I think so, and I think that omission is telling us something very important: that we're made physically out of the same materials as animals, but that we're unique in that we possess the divine breath, that We're made in the image of God. Genesis 9, I think, drives this point home very powerfully: that being made in the image of God is significant and the passage here is telling, is comparing humans and animals. You can kill animals, you can eat their flesh, but if you kill a human being, this is a great affront to God, and your life will be demanded of you, Why?, because humans are made in the image of God. Here it's teaching very clearly a distinct difference between human death and animal death. So from an old earth perspective, animal death before the fall is not the same, qualitatively, as human death. These types of death are very different because of the fact that humans, uniquely, are made in the image of God.