One of the main contentions of Young Earth Creationism (YEC) is that “the belief in millions of years totally contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture.”[1] Last week we responded to one example YEC advocates Ham and Hodges gave in support of this (see here) and this week we will look at a second related to “disease:”
“Evidence of diseases like cancer, brain tumors, and arthritis, can be found in the fossil remains of animals said to be millions of years old. The Scripture teaches that after God finished creating everything, with man as the pinnacle of creation, He described the creation as ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31, emphasis added). Certainly, God calling cancer and brain tumors ‘very good’ does not fit with the nature of God described in Scripture.”[2]
This is a slippery argument that uses philosophy (specifically the area called theodicy) to distract from science. In other words, it raises questions related to the problem of evil that divert attention from wrestling with the fossil record. Further, along with its faulty reading of the text (making “very good” equal to God-like perfection), it also does little to solve the problem of evil.
To say it another way, connecting “very good” directly to God’s perfect, unchangeable nature does not irradicate the problem of evil, it just puts natural evil like cancer, brain tumors, and arthritis in a different place after the fall, raising even more questions like how could a world be ‘very good’ if it was suspectable to evil?” Or “If ‘very good’ is directly connected to God’s perfections, is he also morally culpable like the original creation was?” “Is God’s nature able to be corrupted or spoiled like Eden’s was?”
Again, Ham and Hodges’ argument solves nothing related to the problem of pain. I wonder too how they handle the existence of things like mosquitoes or poison ivy. Were these part of what was originally “very good” or did they just suddenly appear or evolve after the fall?
For Christians who love God and want to handle the Bible correctly, there’s a better way than the Answers in Genesis’ approach to the creation narratives. Moreover, here are a few exegetically and theologically sound ways of getting at what “it was very good” actually meant:
- It perfectly corresponded to God’s intention.[3] In other words, it was “tov,” the little three-letter Hebrew word that means “good”—one that shows up seven times on the very first pages of the Bible:
“Light is tov,
land and sea are tov,
plants are tov,
day and night are tov,
sea animals and birds are tov
land animals are tov.
And then the seventh: God saw all that he had made, and it was very tov. So God created it tov. And when everything is spoken and accomplished, when all the intricate harmonies are formed, God’s glory echoes through all of creation: tov me’od. Very good! Very well done! Perfect! Harmony! What a masterpiece! All these English terms, and more, are found in the word tov.”[4]
- It was “perfect” in the sense a newborn baby is “perfect:” beautiful and bursting with potential. Physicist Howard Van Till uses the phrase “fully gifted DNA” to get at a related idea of how God designed the original creation with everything it needed to grow and adapt. Returning to our newborn analogy, my friend Gordon Fish makes this great observation: “How many times have you heard a newborn baby called ‘perfect?’ This seems to argue that perfect/good has a context pointing to potentiality… endowed with everything needed to achieve the desired end. Being unable to walk, talk, feed, or clothe oneself is hardly how we’d describe a perfect adult. Additionally, Moses is said to be a ‘fine boy’ in Ex 2:2” and tov is the word that is translated as “fine.”
- It was morally good. In this view, the material creation is not evil (e.g. like early Gnostics taught);[5] however, we should not look for moral goodness in the way the cosmos operates. As we noted above, we know that the creation was morally culpable. Eden was able to be spoiled unlike the nature of God or even Heaven and the perfect state.
- It was functionally ready for human beings. John Walton takes this interesting view by first asking, “What would it mean for something not to be good?” He then points to a clue in Genesis 2:18 where God says, it is not good for Adam to be alone. There good is linked to something that is not suitable or functioning properly. Walton then uses this passage to anchor his understanding of Gen. 1. His conclusion?: When God said it was “very good,” he meant it was now functionally ready to support human life.
- The quality of God’s workmanship was good. Creation is good because it is sacred space where God dwells. Further, it’s not a problem to be overcome or a trap; it’s a place where God’s creatures experience his blessings. (Provan) And, gratefully, despite brain tumors, cancer—or any other horrible thing we might insert here, this is still true! Like all of us– God’s human creatures, there’s still something stunningly beautiful about creation despite its profound brokenness.
[1] Ken Ham and Bodie Hodges, How Do We Know That the Bible is True? (Green Forest, AZ: Master Books, 2019) 287.
[2] Ibid.
[3] NRSV Annotated Bible.
[4] Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer, A Church Called Tov: Forming a Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale), 8-9.
[5] “Flesh” in the New Testament (Romans 8:1-17; Galatians 3:3) is the misdirection of the will; it is not saying that muscles and ligaments are inherently evil.