Perryposted~ 19 hours ago(4/25/2014)
Post4308of4308
Joined12/21/2001
"Because the universe as it is, not as we would imagine it, allows for its possibility. When Adam fell, and became God's enemy ....everything in Adam, and under his dominion became disconnected one way or another - from the Source of Life."
..Whereas even the best apologist website I could find, a guy who has written an entire book on natural evil, said..
"However, given the very powerful evidence that animals (and their pain, suffering, death, and predation) pre-existed the first human beings, that view seems incomplete. If the pain and suffering of animals predates Adam’s existence, it is hard to see how his (or our) sin could fully explain it...it is worth asking this question: “If all animal pain and suffering came after Adam’s Fall, would the Fall be a potentially good explanation for that pain and suffering?”Many Christian theologians have thought so (Calvin endorses this view in his commentary on chapter 8 of the book of Romans for example).
But this explanation has one difficulty, a difficulty I call the “fragility objection.” To see the objection we must consider this question: “What is the supposed connection between Adam’s Fall and animal pain?"...In either case, however, it is hard to see why God would have made the integrity and well-being of nature, and of the innocent creatures in it, susceptible to the faithful obedience of humans (an obedience God knew they would not sustain). Why was nature made so very fragile in this way? Is not that fragility itself a defect (or evil) in creation?"