Question Why did they live so long at the start of the bible if we descended from apes?
That's like saying "why did we live so long at the start of the bible if we descended from dust?" What makes your question any better than the literal? I would like to know the logic behind your question.
Because I don't understand that if we were descended from apes and if by the Holy Spirit they were granted long life. Why wouldn't God tell us that?
Because the intentions of Genesis was not to write a scientifically accurate piece, but to teach us that God created all things. The inspiration of the Holy Spirit is not a dictation on what man should write. That is a Quranic belief. The Biblical writers were inspired by the Holy Spirit, not forced to dictate what to write. Man sees the world around him, and with the limited view of the world he had, he was given inspiration to write something very deep, something that even he did not realize would point us to Christ, not to scientific accuracy.
For the same reason there was the tree of life and the thorn of death revealed to us. God told us that our actions have consequences, so we really chose death over Life (the I AM).
But if it is part of the natural order of things, then it is God who created physical death (and some verses argue spiritual death too "hell which was prepared for the devil and his angels").
On the other hand, death is introduced by the devil in our liturgy and in other books (like the Wisdom of Solomon).
I am still struggling to see how you are reconciling these two views. If death existed before Adam as you say, then evolution is a possibility. If it didn't, it is claimed to not be part of the original natural order and it is hard to see how it can be a possibility.
God Bless
If it is part of the natural order of things, and God especially wanted to have a certain relationship with man to make him exceed his natural capabilities, then Satan introduced death into man by taking him away from God. That is how I am reconciling it.
I have grown comfortable to say on these situations "I don't know" when it comes to literal interpretations simply because I feel they are of little consequence to my faith and dogmas in general. I take the allegory more important than the literal, and I find in the allegory the revelation of Christ and His work of salvation for us.
I thought I was clear in my answer. What about my earlier food for thought? Have you considered that?
Let me give you a scenario. Suppose I take Genesis very literally. So Adam eats the forbidden fruit after being deceived by Satan, and God REMOVES HIM from the Garden and puts an angel to forbid Adam to come near to the Tree of Life so that Adam does not eat of "both trees" at the same time. Who then is the author of death in this scenario? Why couldn't God just forgive Adam?
All our confusion can be put to an end if you accepted that evolution can be divided into 2 parts:
Macroevolution - where one species evolves into another specie, and Microevolution where one specie evolves or adapts to its environment through evolving - but remains the same specie - just better adapted.
if God created man (adam & even) then everything is great. If He created man through a macro-evolution process, we are destined to crush our faith: it really means that Eve didnt exist. It means that Adam didn't exist.
Why are you so adamant about Macro Evolution being a fact? If Macro Evolution is a fact, then how on earth did the sexes (male and female) come into existence? Let's take it from the big bang: It means that some cell evolved into a male of a certain specie, and then, just by sheer luck, a female of that same species came into existence, and just by luck, it JUST SO happened that both male and female of each specie are required to reproduce. It just SO happens, by sheer luck and chance, that male species and female species are attracted to each other to reproduce.
I believe in God, because the absence of God is also a reality that leads to death. We can perhaps understand better salvation and God and the beginning of the creation from learning more about the end of the Bible and Christ's life.
Why did Christ die for?? He died because man was in debt and dying. Man died. God did NOT create man to die. That cannot be true. It cannot be true because if God had created man to die, then its nonsense that we inherited a corrupt nature. We just inherited a nature that was already prone to death; not because of sin, but because God designed it that way. If God designed it that way, it means salvation makes NO sense.
Either I am not writing intelligibly for you, in which case it seems perhaps it's better for you to find someone who agrees with me to better explain my faith to you than me, or you seem to have reading comprehension issues. It seems you think I'm saying God created man to die which I thought I plainly showed you (with patristics evidence) that I do not believe God created man to die. Man is mortal by nature, but man was also destined to partake of God's immortality. What is so difficult about this last part?
Either I am not writing intelligibly for you, in which case it seems perhaps it's better for you to find someone who agrees with me to better explain my faith to you than me, or you seem to have reading comprehension issues. It seems you think I'm saying God created man to die which I thought I plainly showed you (with patristics evidence) that I do not believe God created man to die. Man is mortal by nature, but man was also destined to partake of God's immortality. What is so difficult about this last part?
Mina,
I've been working like a dog and am mentally and physically exhausted. I've painted 1 km squared of surfaces in just 2 weeks.. .and I haven't finished yet. So please excuse me if I'm slow.
These questions are on my mind and I ask them when I get some time off.
Mina, if you believe in Micro-evolution and reject Macro-evolution of man, then we can move forward. Do you? Do you believe we came from Apes, or does this not apply to us?
Think of it this way. We are all like iron, and we are destined for partaking of the fire's heat. We are by nature cold, but united with fire, we become hot.
Likewise man who by nature is mortal partakes of God's immortality. That is how man becomes immortal.
Can dust be made immortal out of its own nature? No! It needs "the breathe of God", the Holy Spirit to be immortal. Therefore allegorically speaking, all animals including apes are dust, and man is dust like them. But man was also created with a stamp of God's image and likeness, so that He is able to comprehend spiritually a communion with the immortality of God Himself.
So whether man evolved from an ape or made directly from dust, it does not matter for the faith, since apes too are dust. Apes do not have the image of God. That is something that the Holy Spirit put in us seperate from the rest of the animal world. Therefore, we were made to be immortal, but we instead chose the world and lived in mortality. The author of our death is Satan and us. We are to blame. We the iron chose to stay away from the heat of fire and decided to choose the coldness of the rest of the metal world.
I hope this is easy, because other than this, I don't know how much easier this can get for you.
I don't find this an easy subject. Maybe you can brush this off as me having a low IQ, but somethings don't add up for me.
I'll post later when I get a breather.
Thank you for sharing your opinion and educating me this far.
I think also, BTW, that you have not read the actual issue in my question. I cannot reconcile evolution with salvation. It doesn't add up!! You act as if dust is dust, whether it be from Apes or if God made us from Dust, but it makes a difference! I'll respond later.
Perhaps if we start with the literality of Genesis, it would be better for you. As for me, I, from a true scientific point of view, disagree with how you differentiate between macro and micro. If you were involved in genetics research like me before entering medical school, you would know that such differentiation does not exist.
But I am interested to see how you are unable to see "dust" and "ape" similarly like I do. If you are saying God created our immortality from dust, then this is not a mere disagreement, but also a heresy.
Minasoliman, If God is All-Good and He created biological death, then biological death is good (as He saw everything that it was good).
If biological death is good, why is it that God, though making morality part of our nature, intended for us to remain in communion with His immortality? We know this because we are told that God does not desire the death of a sinner (and that it was introduced into our world by the envy of the devil).
I will leave aside spiritual death for now in order to be clear on things.
What is good for one species is not good for another. God knows what is good for others. God determined that what is good for humanity is to be set apart from the rest of the world into His divine grace, to partake of his divine nature. St. Cyril describes our godly image as a stamp. It's like a piece of paper. Some papers are good for writing and discarding, but other papers are stamped with monetary value that are made to last forever. Some papers, it is good that after using them, they should be recycled or even shredded into pieces. But certain papers have a value that makes it protected from being destroyed.
You can liken our nature therefore seperate from other animals as paper having a special stamp or seal for God. And our destiny is to partake of God, and be "laminated" by Him, or to be separate from God, and allow ourselves to be corrupted gradually from being in the world.
Is stamped paper liable to be ripped or recycled? Yes! But God wanted to protect this particular paper, and we chose not to be protected. God stamped the paper so that the paper may choose to live in lamination, but we chose to live without it, and suffer the consequences of age.
Furthermore, after the disobedience of man, St. Theophilus of Antioch (To Autolycos 2.26), St. Irenaeus (Against Heresies 3.23.6), and St. Gregory the Theologian (Orations 45.9) taught that death was a good thing for man, an act of mercy from God Himself, for it would be devastating to live immortally in sin. Why? So that it is the best option for man for repentance, to force them into repentance. "For it is in mercy, I am persuaded, that God inflicts punishment" (St. Gregory the Theologian). So even the punishment we receive is a silver lining, a "good" thing for us.
Perhaps if we start with the literality of Genesis, it would be better for you. As for me, I, from a true scientific point of view, disagree with how you differentiate between macro and micro. If you were involved in genetics research like me before entering medical school, you would know that such differentiation does not exist.
But I am interested to see how you are unable to see "dust" and "ape" similarly like I do. If you are saying God created our immortality from dust, then this is not a mere disagreement, but also a heresy.
Mina,
There's macro-speciation and micro-speciation. Micro: where an organism evolves to adapt to its environment, and macro-speciation, where an entire new specie is formed. These are not my definitions, but those from any science book.
For the life of me, I cannot understand how you can believe in Evolution (of man from apes) and believe somehow in God's salvation for us. Man didn't die. He was already dead. He was created to die. OK, so God breathed His Life (Holy Spirit) into man, and man had eternal life.
Adam sinned and lost the grace of immortality. He died.
Why do we inherit this fallen nature? It was Adam who sinned. Why is God punishing the rest of mankind because Adam sinned?
Why then is mortality part of our nature as St. Athanasius puts it and you have also affirmed?
That is the way God created us. It is probably so that we do not vainly rely on ourselves. If we can be immortal without God, there is no need to believe in Him. But if we are immortal and living in sin, our condition only worsens as well. That is why death is a form of mercy and compassion, a necessary component of our salvation, and especially now after Christ also made death no longer a dreaded thing, but life-giving.
Dear Zoxsasi,
I'm not sure if you want me to address evolution or not, especially since you're only repeating the same thing as before. I assume you at least understand the way I think and I in no way am telling you how you should think. But if you are having difficulty, I will for the sake of discussion with you, take the literality of the Bible.
Man was created from dust like all animals, but given a stamp of the divine image with the Holy Spirt dwelling in him. There is nothing in creation that is immortal by nature. Not even angels. This is important to understand. God has mercy to allow immortality of our souls, but it is an act of His mercy. As St. Athanasius teaches, all we do when we sin is seek to revert back to our own non-existence.
When Adam sinned, we were born with him in exile. Nevertheless, remember that all of Adam's descendants "fall short". There is maybe two at least in the Old Testament who are so righteous, they remained alive, Enoch and Elijah.
But your question is much deeper also. Why is that we suffer or born suffering and why are we all destined to die? Right now, consider the posts I gave to Katanikhoros and think about our condition. We are born in exile and further our worsening condition by copying the habits of our progenitors. God did not want man to live in vain. It could very well be that if we can sin and live forever, there is no point to life. We end up looking for other ways to worship what is only seen by our physical eyes. God wanted to teach us in the time we have here on earth how life is meaningless without God. Many old people are "ready to die", ready to meet their savior, and have the eternal relationship they already developed on earth. And Christ did something so mysterious and wonderous. A man with small logic would think God would just take away suffering and death now. Instead God came and suffered and died Himself!!! And He came down even to the depths of Hades that He may raise us up to the right hand of the Father. We cannot know why we suffer and die, but we do have an unexplainable peace and joy when being mingled in unity with Christ we can partake of suffering and death with the utmost faith and hope.
Therefore death now saves. Not only is it a call to repentance as in the Old Testament, but also a means to be raised into the very eternal God Himself. Glory be to Him!
The only open question is how did Adam exist if we came from Apes. Was he the 1st male specie to come from an Ape? In your opinion? How could God create woman from man given that man evolved? It means that the female specie had already existed before Adam (or his kind) was formed.
There's a limit to how much allegorical lessons one can extract from Genesis.
The only open question is how did Adam exist if we came from Apes. Was he the 1st male specie to come from an Ape? In your opinion? How could God create woman from man given that man evolved? It means that the female specie had already existed before Adam (or his kind) was formed.
There's a limit to how much allegorical lessons one can extract from Genesis.
So for those questions I'm content with saying "I don't know" as I said earlier. Perhaps God will reveal to me the answer later. Perhaps God will reveal scientifically in the future that I and many others were wrong about evolution as being factual, but in order for that to happen, it would have to be just as debunkable as say theory of gravity. It may seem gravity pulls two bodies together, but in reality, we might find out that there is no such thing as gravity. Perhaps one day, God will show us in His time that it may seem genetically we are all connected in a very consistent manner, but perhaps we will find something that may take us away from our illusions.
At the moment, what I have learned is that God likes to remove branches that bear no fruit and prune branches that it may bear more fruit. I feel the lesson from evolution is this. Now is it possible that God created Adam through an evolutionary process? Yes. Could it be possible that God created Eve from Adam's side despite no scientific possibility? Yes! God was born from a Virgin, and as a male no less, showing complete scientific impossibility.
But in these stories (with the exception of the Virgin Birth) I think the Church fathers stressed the importance of their allegory. Of course I don't take the whole Old Testament as allegory. But there are parts, when you study in depth and learn with discernment, that seem to be that the only way to accept their inspirations is solely allegory.
I suggest you read Origen's "Philocalia", compiled by St. Gregory the Theologian and St. Basil the Great to see how ancient Christians were taught on proper exegesis of the Scriptures and discernment on when to take the Scriptures literally and, this is the important part, when NOT to take it literally, even if written as history. This is not something we just came up with. This has been an ancient Church tradition since the very beginning. The Scriptures are not (for the most part) a direct dictation of God to man's ears, but a digestion in man's heart and man pouring out the inspiration based on BOTH the Holy Spirit AND his own cultural and limited historical concepts of the times. The Holy Spirit allows these concepts to be written so as to show us not the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law, which is ONLY in Christ Jesus. Otherwise, like the ancient Jews, we would blind ourselves behind the veil of the Old Testament and not allow our true Bridegroom to lift the veil for us to see Him more clearly in the Old Testament (He already did, but they simply put the veil right back). Let your reading of the Old Testament therefore take priority in seeing Christ in them, not in merely seeing them literally.
The only open question is how did Adam exist if we came from Apes. Was he the 1st male specie to come from an Ape? In your opinion? How could God create woman from man given that man evolved? It means that the female specie had already existed before Adam (or his kind) was formed.
There's a limit to how much allegorical lessons one can extract from Genesis.
Hello Zoxasi,
Please forgive my butting in, but I felt compelled to address the statement I highlighted in bold.
Our Fathers have taught us that we can understand the Bible primarily according to Historical, Moral/Ethical, and Allegorical senses.
It seems to me that you believe the Allegorical Sense is limited in it's application, while in truth the Fathers believed the Scriptures to be an inexhaustible well of deep spiritual meaning.
In truth it is the Historical meaning of Scripture that is limited.
The way I reason about it is relatively simple, but it may be of use to you.
Human knowledge is limited (by our individual lifespan and abilities), human history is limited (bounded by time), human language is limited (in what it can express).
God is eternal, inexpressible in His glory, unlimited in His power, and mysterious in His nature.
The Holy Scriptures are written through the inspiration of God, by men. Thus the history it can contain is inherently limited by the knowledge of the author, the time period it was written in, etc; with the exception of prophecy and other divine revelation.
The primary purpose of the Holy Bible is to reveal God and the plan of our salvation.
This comes as a revelation from God and not men, therefore the ability of the Bible to express spiritual truth is by nature as eternal, as mysterious, and unlimited as the God who inspired it.
Since human language is limited in what it can express and God is not, it is necessary for allegorical language to be applied to reveal God through language.
God is eternal, unlimited, and mysterious our knowledge of Him can grow without end, therefore the allegorical meanings that we can extract from the Scriptures are potentially unlimited as well.
Therefore allegorical meanings are throughout the whole Bible.
We know this as even historical events serve a spiritual purpose, leading us to a deeper, more mysterious truth.
For example the 318 servants of Abraham were interpreted allegorically by the fathers as identifying our Savior and His cross by name.
So it is my opinion that we should not ask ourselves "is it appropriate to seek a deeper spiritual meaning through allegory here?" but rather "is it appropriate to expect a purely historical meaning here?"
The question for me is: How does God reveal Himself? I know He revealed Himself in Adam; in image. I know He revealed Himself in Christ.
So for me, He does not need to reveal anything more than that would bring us to Him. So the things that tie us to this world (apes) are useless to the wisdom of closing our separation from Him.
Joshuaa said:The question for me is: How does God reveal Himself? I know He revealed Himself in Adam; in image. I know He revealed Himself in Christ.
So for me, He does not need to reveal anything more than that would bring us to Him. So the things that tie us to this world (apes) are useless to the wisdom of closing our separation from Him.
So the things that tie us to this world (dust) are also useless as well when compared to the divine wisdom we receive from Christ.
Then you have no disagreement with me. I can extend this to anything in the world, even medicine. That only proves we waste our time when we disprove a scientific theory that makes no difference on the faith, whether or not the theory is true.
Everything has a direction. Some things are more benign in direction in comparison than the inheritance Christ wants to share with us. Inheritance starts from a family relationship and as I started before satan will inherit this world when it's past its use by date. That is the direction of things Christ cannot save, even the apes whether you prove them or not. Because they cannot choose to go to Him by how He has revealed Himself.
Comments
Let me give you a scenario. Suppose I take Genesis very literally. So Adam eats the forbidden fruit after being deceived by Satan, and God REMOVES HIM from the Garden and puts an angel to forbid Adam to come near to the Tree of Life so that Adam does not eat of "both trees" at the same time. Who then is the author of death in this scenario? Why couldn't God just forgive Adam?
But if you asked did God create biological death of all animals? I say yes.
Either I am not writing intelligibly for you, in which case it seems perhaps it's better for you to find someone who agrees with me to better explain my faith to you than me, or you seem to have reading comprehension issues. It seems you think I'm saying God created man to die which I thought I plainly showed you (with patristics evidence) that I do not believe God created man to die. Man is mortal by nature, but man was also destined to partake of God's immortality. What is so difficult about this last part?
Likewise man who by nature is mortal partakes of God's immortality. That is how man becomes immortal.
Can dust be made immortal out of its own nature? No! It needs "the breathe of God", the Holy Spirit to be immortal. Therefore allegorically speaking, all animals including apes are dust, and man is dust like them. But man was also created with a stamp of God's image and likeness, so that He is able to comprehend spiritually a communion with the immortality of God Himself.
So whether man evolved from an ape or made directly from dust, it does not matter for the faith, since apes too are dust. Apes do not have the image of God. That is something that the Holy Spirit put in us seperate from the rest of the animal world. Therefore, we were made to be immortal, but we instead chose the world and lived in mortality. The author of our death is Satan and us. We are to blame. We the iron chose to stay away from the heat of fire and decided to choose the coldness of the rest of the metal world.
I hope this is easy, because other than this, I don't know how much easier this can get for you.
But I am interested to see how you are unable to see "dust" and "ape" similarly like I do. If you are saying God created our immortality from dust, then this is not a mere disagreement, but also a heresy.
You can liken our nature therefore seperate from other animals as paper having a special stamp or seal for God. And our destiny is to partake of God, and be "laminated" by Him, or to be separate from God, and allow ourselves to be corrupted gradually from being in the world.
Is stamped paper liable to be ripped or recycled? Yes! But God wanted to protect this particular paper, and we chose not to be protected. God stamped the paper so that the paper may choose to live in lamination, but we chose to live without it, and suffer the consequences of age.
Furthermore, after the disobedience of man, St. Theophilus of Antioch (To Autolycos 2.26), St. Irenaeus (Against Heresies 3.23.6), and St. Gregory the Theologian (Orations 45.9) taught that death was a good thing for man, an act of mercy from God Himself, for it would be devastating to live immortally in sin. Why? So that it is the best option for man for repentance, to force them into repentance. "For it is in mercy, I am persuaded, that God inflicts punishment" (St. Gregory the Theologian). So even the punishment we receive is a silver lining, a "good" thing for us.
Dear Zoxsasi,
I'm not sure if you want me to address evolution or not, especially since you're only repeating the same thing as before. I assume you at least understand the way I think and I in no way am telling you how you should think. But if you are having difficulty, I will for the sake of discussion with you, take the literality of the Bible.
Man was created from dust like all animals, but given a stamp of the divine image with the Holy Spirt dwelling in him. There is nothing in creation that is immortal by nature. Not even angels. This is important to understand. God has mercy to allow immortality of our souls, but it is an act of His mercy. As St. Athanasius teaches, all we do when we sin is seek to revert back to our own non-existence.
When Adam sinned, we were born with him in exile. Nevertheless, remember that all of Adam's descendants "fall short". There is maybe two at least in the Old Testament who are so righteous, they remained alive, Enoch and Elijah.
But your question is much deeper also. Why is that we suffer or born suffering and why are we all destined to die? Right now, consider the posts I gave to Katanikhoros and think about our condition. We are born in exile and further our worsening condition by copying the habits of our progenitors. God did not want man to live in vain. It could very well be that if we can sin and live forever, there is no point to life. We end up looking for other ways to worship what is only seen by our physical eyes. God wanted to teach us in the time we have here on earth how life is meaningless without God. Many old people are "ready to die", ready to meet their savior, and have the eternal relationship they already developed on earth. And Christ did something so mysterious and wonderous. A man with small logic would think God would just take away suffering and death now. Instead God came and suffered and died Himself!!! And He came down even to the depths of Hades that He may raise us up to the right hand of the Father. We cannot know why we suffer and die, but we do have an unexplainable peace and joy when being mingled in unity with Christ we can partake of suffering and death with the utmost faith and hope.
Therefore death now saves. Not only is it a call to repentance as in the Old Testament, but also a means to be raised into the very eternal God Himself. Glory be to Him!
So for those questions I'm content with saying "I don't know" as I said earlier. Perhaps God will reveal to me the answer later. Perhaps God will reveal scientifically in the future that I and many others were wrong about evolution as being factual, but in order for that to happen, it would have to be just as debunkable as say theory of gravity. It may seem gravity pulls two bodies together, but in reality, we might find out that there is no such thing as gravity. Perhaps one day, God will show us in His time that it may seem genetically we are all connected in a very consistent manner, but perhaps we will find something that may take us away from our illusions.
At the moment, what I have learned is that God likes to remove branches that bear no fruit and prune branches that it may bear more fruit. I feel the lesson from evolution is this. Now is it possible that God created Adam through an evolutionary process? Yes. Could it be possible that God created Eve from Adam's side despite no scientific possibility? Yes! God was born from a Virgin, and as a male no less, showing complete scientific impossibility.
But in these stories (with the exception of the Virgin Birth) I think the Church fathers stressed the importance of their allegory. Of course I don't take the whole Old Testament as allegory. But there are parts, when you study in depth and learn with discernment, that seem to be that the only way to accept their inspirations is solely allegory.
I suggest you read Origen's "Philocalia", compiled by St. Gregory the Theologian and St. Basil the Great to see how ancient Christians were taught on proper exegesis of the Scriptures and discernment on when to take the Scriptures literally and, this is the important part, when NOT to take it literally, even if written as history. This is not something we just came up with. This has been an ancient Church tradition since the very beginning. The Scriptures are not (for the most part) a direct dictation of God to man's ears, but a digestion in man's heart and man pouring out the inspiration based on BOTH the Holy Spirit AND his own cultural and limited historical concepts of the times. The Holy Spirit allows these concepts to be written so as to show us not the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law, which is ONLY in Christ Jesus. Otherwise, like the ancient Jews, we would blind ourselves behind the veil of the Old Testament and not allow our true Bridegroom to lift the veil for us to see Him more clearly in the Old Testament (He already did, but they simply put the veil right back). Let your reading of the Old Testament therefore take priority in seeing Christ in them, not in merely seeing them literally.
I know He revealed Himself in Adam; in image.
I know He revealed Himself in Christ.
So for me, He does not need to reveal anything more than that would bring us to Him. So the things that tie us to this world (apes) are useless to the wisdom of closing our separation from Him.
I know He revealed Himself in Adam; in image.
I know He revealed Himself in Christ.
So for me, He does not need to reveal anything more than that would bring us to Him. So the things that tie us to this world (apes) are useless to the wisdom of closing our separation from Him.
So the things that tie us to this world (dust) are also useless as well when compared to the divine wisdom we receive from Christ.
Some things are more benign in direction in comparison than the inheritance Christ wants to share with us.
Inheritance starts from a family relationship and as I started before satan will inherit this world when it's past its use by date. That is the direction of things Christ cannot save, even the apes whether you prove them or not. Because they cannot choose to go to Him by how He has revealed Himself.
If Christ made death as a form of mercy for us, why does Paul call death Christ's final enemy?
It just seems that the patristic consensus is that death was not caused by God who is the Life.