Opinion column
Creation was very good, but was it perfect?
Regular contributor James Knight explains why he believes that God’s very good Creation was not actually perfect prior to the fall.
It's amazing how many Christians you meet who think the world is only a few thousand years old (hint: it isn't - it's 4.6 billion years old). It's also amazing how many Christians you meet who don't understand what the Immaculate Conception is (hint: it's not the foetal or baby Jesus). Thinking of other popular misconceptions - another one I've heard quite often is that the world was once perfect, because God created it that way, and it only became imperfect after the fall in Genesis 3.
The reality is, there is absolutely no reason to suspect the world was perfect before humans came along and spoiled the party by sinning in the Garden of Eden, and there is no scientific basis for a once perfect world either. I have complex views about what the Garden of Eden represents in the story, but I'm pretty sure it isn't a perfect paradise.
In Genesis 1, we read that creation of material things, plants and animals was 'good'. When God created humans, He called this creation 'very good', delineating a special categorisation for creatures created in His image. But good and very good are not the same as a 'perfect world' prior to sin.
Moreover, Satan was in the garden too, and lied to Eve, and Eve makes the mistake of believing that the fruit should not be touched, when God said the fruit should not be eaten. Whichever way we interpret those verses, it is clear that whether they are lies, deceptions or simple mistakes, they would not have existed in a perfect world.
Some try to get around this by saying that it was Lucifer's fall that occurred in the perfect world. But that doesn't address the matter - it simply puts the same problem one step back. If Lucifer was happily co-existing alongside God and the other angels in a perfect paradise, then it must have been pride that caused his fall from grace. But pride and falling from grace also wouldn't happen in a perfect world, so this theory doesn't resolve the matter either.
The upshot is, the idea that the original creation was 'perfect' is one that seems to have been made up out of thin air by a small proportion of Christians. There is nothing in scripture or in science that gives the slightest indication of an initial perfect paradise - and it's a misconception that Christians would do well to terminate at their earliest convenience.
The image is courtesy of pixabay.com.
James Knight is a local government officer based in Norwich, and is a regular columnist for Christian community websites Network Norfolk and Network Ipswich. He also blogs regularly as ‘The Philosophical Muser’, and contributes articles to UK think tanks The Adam Smith Institute and The Institute of Economic Affairs, as well as the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC).
The views carried here are those of the author, not necessarily those of Network Norfolk, and are intended to stimulate constructive debate between website users.
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