Ideal time theory & the problem of animal death

[Edmundp71]

Hi; first time poster here. I've been evaluating the merits of the ideal time theory, and am genuinely seeking some insights from fellow believers. I apologize in advance for the length of this post - it will take me some time to explain my difficulties.

TOPICAL BACKGROUND:
If you haven't heard the term "ideal time theory," it is a theory for reconciling the apparent age of the earth and the Biblical record. It has has been around, in one form or another, since shortly after the advent of stratigraphic geology; and I draw the term "ideal time" from Millard Erickson's book Christian Theology (1983). After a quick search on this site, it appears that it was discussed here once before, in 2013.

The ideal time theory essentially asserts that God when he created the universe did the equivalent of starting a DVD on track 21 or so instead of track 1. Adam and Eve were not infants, trees were already bearing fruit, watercourses existed, starlight was visible from earth, etc. The ideal time theory states that this maturity in God's newly created order might also extend to the geologic (and perhaps even the fossil) records that we see. The earth might be quite young while bearing the marks of age.

A common historical objection to this theory is that God would be a deceiver were He to have created an "appearance of age" in the universe. While I haven't yet decided whether to embrace the theory, I don't buy this objection to it. In the ideal time theory, the geologic record does not provide evidence for dating the earth; it informs us of the mechanisms that God put in place when he ordered the world. For example, the floods that we experience today produce layers of silt/sediment in the same way that geology suggests they would. To assert that geology must mean more than this is a philosophical decision, not a scientific one.

In short, in the ideal time theory the geologic and fossil record are part of a time-that-never-was ("the time before the dawn of time" if you are a fan of C.S. Lewis). Had God started the DVD at track 1, all of this would have played out in real time; but he started at track 21 to get to the good stuff - a relationship with humanity. This was His "ideal time" - the time that mattered to Him; and it reflects the value that He placed on us.


ISSUE:
My difficulty with the ideal time theory relates to the fossil record within the earth's geological strata. Even if fossils are part of a time-that-never-was - even if nothing died from the time Adam was created until Adam fell - they would suggest that death was a mechanism that God put in place prior to the Fall. It would suggest that physical death (at least among non-humans) is not inherently bad.

My question to you folks is - can such a view of physical death be reconciled with scripture? Might the deaths of plants and animals not be the result of sin? After all, the plants were given as food prior to sin.

A couple of verses immediately come to my mind in this regard (Rom 8:20-23, 1 Cor 15:26, etc.). 1 Cor 15:26 in refers to physical death as an enemy; but is it the enemy of man or of all creation? All creation groans and travails together (Rom 8:22); does this mean that creation began dying when man fell, or does it mean that all creation suffers because man - given charge of the world - is bound by corruption?

The alternative to the ideal time theory view of plant/animal death is that the natural order changed when God cursed the ground, and that death among all of God's creatures began at this point. However, this would mean that God did a massive creative/transformative work at the curse - something on par with a couple of days of creation. I don't rule this out, but it also requires an interpretive leap.

Anyway, this is my problem. I don't know which explanation is preferable. Any thoughts?

Respectfully,

Edmund P



PERSONAL BACKGROUND:
It might be referentially useful at this point to give you some of my own beliefs regarding Creation. There are a TON of potential rabbit trails in the following statements; for those of you wanting to help, I sincerely request that they not be pursued (at least not for this particular question thread).

1. I believe that the Bible is true in its account of creation. If science and the Biblical record are irreconcilably opposed, I would rather look the fool and embrace the Bible.
2. I believe that the waw consecutive that begins the Genesis creation account means it is not to be considered myth or poetry.
3. I further believe that the articular numbering of yom in Gen 1 precludes its interpretation as some indeterminate time period, but that it means a literal twenty-four hour day. For this reason, I believe that the earth is relatively young.
4. I do NOT believe that the date of the Creation or the Flood can be determined from the Biblical record. This by itself is a big topic; but for now I will simply state that the inclusion of an extra name in Luke 3:36 (Cainan) that is not present in the Gen 11 genealogy (11:13) plays a part in this.
5. I believe that genetic diversity increases as alleles change over time; and that this does not violate the principle of "after their kind" that is described in Genesis 1.

 

[lforrest]

Welcome to the forum Edmund!

I've never heard of the ideal time theory until now. It does seem to have merit, and perhaps it is time to put one of my own thoughts into writing which may help with your paradox:

Suppose that before the fall, the world was not bound to the linear progression of time. That the world existed in a way similar to how God himself is revealed to exist in scripture, with timeless qualities but perhaps not to the same degree.
So when man ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he was supposed to die, become dead. I am assuming that if man were even pseudo timeless there would be no future death, but only a present state of death when he sinned. Then to avoid losing Man altogether God introduced linear time whereby his plan for man's Salvation was carried out.

To combine this with the ideal time theory, the fall would be the starting point instead of the creation of man. It would be the point that death is introduced, because before time things simply are alive or dead.. there is no dying from a timeless perspective.

When time began it would be like an unfolding from the starting point, forwards and backwards.

Its just a thought.

 

[Edmundp71]

Thanks for replying, lforrest.

Looks like I did poorly at writing a question that other people would answer. I suppose brevity is better than thoroughness sometimes.

 

[Dave24]

When God told Adam and Eve that they would die, they did not ask or wonder what death meant. I believe they experienced death when they saw animals die. We know from scripture that in the coming new world animals will not harm each other or humans. They will stop feeding on each other...

I give God all the credit for everything in the universe, i believe in adaptation but not evolution. How God exactly went about creating things we will most likely never know. He does not expect us to know it either.

 

[River Jordan]

Hi; first time poster here.

Hey! Welcome to the forum.

A common historical objection to this theory is that God would be a deceiver were He to have created an "appearance of age" in the universe. While I haven't yet decided whether to embrace the theory, I don't buy this objection to it.

I actually think that's a valid objection to the idea. At the very least, God would have to have created starlight depicting cosmic events that never actually happened, or rings in trees representing years that never occurred. I can't imagine any point to that, other than intentional deception.

In the ideal time theory, the geologic record does not provide evidence for dating the earth; it informs us of the mechanisms that God put in place when he ordered the world. For example, the floods that we experience today
produce layers of silt/sediment in the same way that geology suggests they would. To assert that geology must mean more than this is a philosophical decision, not a scientific one.

I don't understand how that would work. Consider a geologic stratum that has volcanic ash above and below it. Does this ideal time idea interpret that as there never really were volcanic eruptions that produced those ash layers, and God just put them there for.........well, some unknown reason?

In short, in the ideal time theory the geologic and fossil record are part of a time-that-never-was ("the time before the dawn of time" if you are a fan of C.S. Lewis). Had God started the DVD at track 1, all of this would have played out in real time; but he started at track 21 to get to the good stuff - a relationship with humanity. This was His "ideal time" - the time that mattered to Him; and it reflects the value that He placed on us.

Does that mean the fossils are of organisms that never actually existed?

ISSUE:
My difficulty with the ideal time theory relates to the fossil record within the earth's geological strata. Even if fossils are part of a time-that-never-was - even if nothing died from the time Adam was created until Adam fell - they would suggest that death was a mechanism that God put in place prior to the Fall. It would suggest that physical death (at least among non-humans) is not inherently bad.

My question to you folks is - can such a view of physical death be reconciled with scripture? Might the deaths of plants and animals not be the result of sin? After all, the plants were given as food prior to sin.

It looks to me like you may be jumping through a lot of unnecessary hoops to reconcile your reading of scripture with the actual reality of God's creation. My suggestion is to accept creation for what it is and go from there. After all, it really wasn't that long ago that many Christians were absolutely sure scripture depicted a stationary earth, and worked very hard to deny the actual reality of the situation.

 

[DPMartin]

Edmund

It seems the theory requires one to be under the assumption that the biblical creation was 6, 24 hr days. Which is impossible according to scripture that states the sun and the moon didn’t exist until the fourth day. So there was no revolution of the earth to measure as a day in relationship to light of the sun shining on it. How long was the first day, or the second? Even the first verse if you will. How long was it that God was creating in the beginning till there was heaven and earth? And how long was it until that was accomplished to when His Spirit moved on the face of the waters?



As far as the flood, there could be mitigating factors in the estimations science goes by. In their theories to prove, and what equipment used. 50 years or more ago the school books said the surface of the earth and the continents were form by glaciers now it’s volcanic activity that formed continental plates and their movement. Who knows what they will say is so next.

 

[Edmundp71]

Hi all,

I'll try to address each of you in turn; thank you for the replies!

Before I do, though, I want to express my appreciation for your civility. It is truly a blessing to discuss these things with the people of God.

Regards,

Edmundp1

 

[Edmundp71]

@ Dave24:

1. Regarding Adam and Eve's potential understanding of death - thank you for the observation!



2. Regarding animals not harming each other in the new order - I appreciate you bringing up Isaiah (11 & 65). If these passages are talking about an actual ecological condition in the new heavens and the new earth, then it is very relevant to the "death of animals" discussion from my initial post.

Commentators appear divided with regard to this question, if you are curious. I've checked eleven commentaries so far, and two are sure that these are literal wolves, lambs, lions, etc.; three are sure that the language is figurative only; and six are unsure. I myself am not completely sure but lean a little towards the language being figurative, since the Isaiah 65:25 passage appears to parallel vv. 22-23, which is applying the predator-prey relationship to people.

3. Praise God! He deserves all credit, regardless of what we understand.

In HIM,

Edmundp71

 

[Edmundp71]

@ River Jordan:


Phew! Your post will take a little time to digest. Thank you for a thorough reply.

I may need to wait a couple of days to answer; in the interim, I wanted to let you know that this delay is no commentary on you. I recently bought a house and don't have internet there yet (I'm currently checking the internet from a McDonalds).


@ DP Martin:

Likewise for your reply. Thank you for your response; I'll try to reply in a couple of days.


A brother in Christ,

Edmundp71

 

[River Jordan]

No hurries, no worries!

 

[Edmundp71]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Hi River! Sorry for the delay. It's amazing how internet takes a subordinate place to furnaces and plumbing.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]PRELUDE: I'm going to try to address your feedback without using the quote tool. Not that I think poorly of its use; but when I was younger I argued for the sake of proving myself better than others and it brings up some bad memories.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]CONTENTS:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]1. You mentioned that you thought I was unnecessarily jumping through hoops to reconcile Scripture with the ideal time theory. I consider this a valid criticism and that is one of the reasons I am asking for feedback. I don't think that I'm there yet with this theory, though. I want to be sure that I'm not substituting belief in God and His word with a belief in my [/SIZE]interpretation of His word, which is one of the reasons I want to look at the text from different angles.
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]2. I suppose I still disagree about the "God as deceiver" criticism. I think that it can be raised against any young earth theory (not just the ideal time theory) but that in every case it reduces to the statement "since God's supernatural behavior isn't measurable by means of my scientific inquiries, it's His fault."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]One of the things I like about the ideal time theory is that it draws attention to the fact that at some point, ordinary dating by observation wouldn't have worked for creation (an outside observer from our time couldn't have guessed by looking at Adam that he was only a week old). Whether or not the theory is correct, it is a reminder (at least to me) of the limitations of science in proving God. Eventually we have to take Him at His word.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]3. You expressed concern about the volcano that would have never existed to provide a geological layer of ash, or the trilobite that would never have existed to provide the fossil remains. From what I understand, the ideal time theory is suggesting that we view cosmological existence a little differently. The first 20 tracks of the DVD exist, but they were never played.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]You also mentioned concern that you couldn't see a reason for God doing creation in this way. My only thought would be that this level of preparation demonstrates how much He loves us. The testimony that fossils, the geological records, etc, are [/SIZE]prologue - that tracks 1-20 were unimportant in comparison with two naked children in a garden thousands of years ago - is a humbling thing to me (in a Deut 6:10-13 way). We weren't sixth in a series of creative days. We were His special creation.
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]All this, I suppose, gets us off-topic. Mainly I was trying to see if other scriptures either support or contradict the idea that plant/animal death was pre-fall, in an effort to test this theory. In the end - whether right or wrong - He deserves glory. I'm just looking for a means to praise Him more.[/SIZE]

 

[River Jordan]

1. You mentioned that you thought I was unnecessarily jumping through hoops to reconcile Scripture with the ideal time theory. I consider this a valid criticism and that is one of the reasons I am asking for feedback. I don't think that I'm there yet with this theory, though. I want to be sure that I'm not substituting belief in God and His word with a belief in my interpretation of His word, which is one of the reasons I want to look at the text from different angles.

All scripture requires interpretation. I know some Christians like to say they just read the text for what it says, but that's not realistic. For example, Genesis 1:2 says "Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." Does that have an obvious interpretation? I don't think so.

2. I suppose I still disagree about the "God as deceiver" criticism. I think that it can be raised against any young earth theory (not just the ideal time theory) but that in every case it reduces to the statement "since God's supernatural behavior isn't measurable by means of my scientific inquiries, it's His fault."

No, it means what I said, i.e., that in order for this idea to be true, God would have had to have created starlight depicting cosmic events that never actually happened, or rings in trees representing years that never occurred. What reason would God have for doing that? And before you answer, ask yourself if you would accept a similar answer from a Hindu.

One of the things I like about the ideal time theory is that it draws attention to the fact that at some point, ordinary dating by observation wouldn't have worked for creation (an outside observer from our time couldn't have guessed by looking at Adam that he was only a week old). Whether or not the theory is correct, it is a reminder (at least to me) of the limitations of science in proving God. Eventually we have to take Him at His word.

And part of taking God at His word is accepting His creation for what it is, rather than what we think it should be.

3. You expressed concern about the volcano that would have never existed to provide a geological layer of ash, or the trilobite that would never have existed to provide the fossil remains. From what I understand, the ideal time theory is suggesting that we view cosmological existence a little differently. The first 20 tracks of the DVD exist, but they were never played.

I'm sorry, but that doesn't make any sense to me. Could you explain further?

You also mentioned concern that you couldn't see a reason for God doing creation in this way. My only thought would be that this level of preparation demonstrates how much He loves us. The testimony that fossils, the geological records, etc, are prologue - that tracks 1-20 were unimportant in comparison with two naked children in a garden thousands of years ago - is a humbling thing to me (in a Deut 6:10-13 way). We weren't sixth in a series of creative days. We were His special creation.

That doesn't make sense to me either.

All this, I suppose, gets us off-topic. Mainly I was trying to see if other scriptures either support or contradict the idea that plant/animal death was pre-fall, in an effort to test this theory. In the end - whether right or wrong - He deserves glory. I'm just looking for a means to praise Him more.

 

[Edmundp71]

Hi River,

Would you be willing to continue our discussion off this topic thread? I'm glad to discuss these matters, but I feel like the discourse is travelling further and further away from my original question.


As I mentioned, I am new to this forum, so I don't know - is there a place on this site where two people can have a peaceful dialogue privately (Y!A used to have this years ago)? If not, we could also potentially do it with email.

Respectfully,

Edmundp71



ADDENDUM:
When I made my original post, I had hoped that a topical and personal background to my question (plant/animal death) would allow people to answer my question more pointedly. It appears that it has had the opposite effect. I ask all of you for your pardon for this. Should I ever ask another question on this site I will try a minimalist approach.

 

[justaname]

Hi River,

Would you be willing to continue our discussion off this topic thread? I'm glad to discuss these matters, but I feel like the discourse is travelling further and further away from my original question.


As I mentioned, I am new to this forum, so I don't know - is there a place on this site where two people can have a peaceful dialogue privately (Y!A used to have this years ago)? If not, we could also potentially do it with email.

Respectfully,

Edmundp71



ADDENDUM:
When I made my original post, I had hoped that a topical and personal background to my question (plant/animal death) would allow people to answer my question more pointedly. It appears that it has had the opposite effect. I ask all of you for your pardon for this. Should I ever ask another question on this site I will try a minimalist approach.

You can use the Private Message feature or simply continue in this thread...

Shalom!

 

[River Jordan]

Would you be willing to continue our discussion off this topic thread? I'm glad to discuss these matters, but I feel like the discourse is travelling further and further away from my original question.

Sure, whatever you like. Or you can restate your original question and we can go from there.

As I mentioned, I am new to this forum, so I don't know - is there a place on this site where two people can have a peaceful dialogue privately (Y!A used to have this years ago)? If not, we could also potentially do it with email.

There is a private message feature here.

 

[Edmundp71]

Replying to DP Martin:

Well, if you stuck with me until I could respond to your post, I want to sincerely express my thanks.


You mentioned that your impression of the ideal time theory was that it requires that one assume the Genesis account refers to literal 24-hour days. While I do believe that they are literal 24-hour periods, I don't think it is necessary to the theory.

The ideal time theory asserts that the perceived geologic age of the earth is not derived by looking at the days of creation, however long or short one makes them.


I will say this, however, with regard to the issue of plant/animal death - if the days are indeed eons/epochs, then it would suggest that animal death is not a result of the fall or the curse. It is that issue that I am trying to evaluate.