"TO EVERY THING THAT MOVES ON THE EARTH. I HAVE GIVEN EVERY GREEN PLANT FOR FOOD."

In the October ' 83 issue of Bible-Science Newsletter (on page 16) one reader asked:

While I am a Christian, I have difficulty reconciling the Bible a particular account of creation with nature. In Genesis 1:30 the animals were given plants to eat, but not meat. How can Genesis 1:30 be reconciled with all the carnivores? Were carnivores created after the fall of Adam? Or are we supposed to believe that carnivores actually were "designed" and "structured" for plant eating and that their present apparatuses employed for pursuing meat is contrary to what they were actually destined to do? Can you list some special books or references which show that carnivores can be made to live contentedly on a vegetarian diet?
M.R., Long Beach, California

To which the editor replied:

1. We cannot obtain direct evidence supporting either the Genesis or evolutionary account of carnivorous origins.

2. A "meat-eaters" teeth and claws are well suited to eating plants with fleshy stems and tough skinned fruits, like for instance, the fleshy trunk (in reality a vine) of the banana tree. One may speculate that though animals today do not generally eat material such as banana stalks, the animals which once filled that niche have switched to meat.

3. The editor also quoted Henry Morris to the effect that carnivores today can live on a vegetarian diet if they must, though they cannot be made to exist contentedly on such a diet. He also added that his own cat loves corn on the cob and sauerkraut. Lastly, he suggested that plants existing before the Flood provided more complete nutrition than plants do now.

But questions still remain. Like...

1. True, we cannot obtain direct evidence supporting either the Genesis or evolutionary account. But there does exist fossil evidence of large skeletons with smaller skeleton remains of their final meaty meal tucked neatly in their rib cages. Futhermore, no one seems to doubt that many dinosaurs were carnivorous. (Or there must have been some very big banana stalks for Tyrannosaurus Rex to chew on, while gazing longingly at the brontosaurus-burgers he could be eating instead.) And since these and other fossilized remains were supposedly laid down by the Flood, this evidence does refute claims made by many creationist authorities (cited by the editor) that "all animals were vegetarian before the Flood."

2. Where did these heavily clawed and sharp toothed animals learn to stalk their prey prey, after living on nothing but banana stalks before the Flood? Of what use were special adaptations of hollow fangs, and their accompanying venom, and the spider's ability to build a web in the garden of Eden. if the spider only ate green plants? Were green plants, like Venus fly traps, allowed to eat flies in Eden? Did the female praying mantid mate without having to bite off the male's head to induce copulation? Did the bees and wasps in Eden have stingers? Did the wasps partially paralyze a caterpillar, then use their ovipositors to insert their eggs into its flesh, afterwhich the eggs hatched and ate the caterpillar from the inside out? The editor explains that "all abilities and features known today were present in perfection (in animals in Eden) although, like recessive genetic traits, they may not have been expressing themselves." So I guess God utilized his foresight and creative ability to include the genes for venomous poisons in plants and animals, web-making in spiders, stingers in bees and wasps, etc., to be expressed later. Thank God.

3. Creationists deplore evolution since it requires millions of years in which billions of creatures fed on one another, with over 50% of all known species (as evidenced in the fossil record) becoming extinct. To creationists this is a 'brutally harsh' scenario inconsistent with a creation that God found to be initially "Good." But is the evolutionary tale more 'brutally harsh' than God wiping out all life on earth in a great Flood; punishing animals that knew no sin for man's sin; making carnivores out of harmless herbivores; or even making his own Son suffer extinction on the cross? (Not to mention the eternal suffering awaiting 'the many.') Compared with the brutal harshness of a fundamentalist's unquestionable God. it is the evolutionary scenario that appears rather 'Good!' After all, evolution is no worse than the 'brutal harshness' going on around us right now.

"The Biblical words about the genesis of heaven and earth are not words of information but words of appreciation. The story of creation is not a description of how the world came into being but a song about the glory of the world's having come into being. 'And God saw that it was good' (Genesis 1.25). This is the challenge: to reconcile God's view with our experience." --from The Wisdom of Herchel, ed. by Ruth Marcus Goodhill

Previous... Geocentricity of Genesis

Continued... Naming the Beasts in Eden

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