Origins 2(1):32-41 (1975).
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Many who look at the suffering in nature find it difficult to believe that an intelligent designer is the creator of life. Some reflections on this conclusion are presented below.
1. The sea wasp, a small, fragile jellyfish of the South Pacific,
can kill a human being within seconds after draping its tentacles over his body.
2. The female lobster may carry 97,000 developing embryos on her
abdomen. Only 1 out of 5000 will survive long enough to reproduce.
3. The desert locust undergoes a population explosion. The resultant
overcrowding triggers the development of wings which enable it to mass migrate. Streaming
out of the desert, the insects devastate the plant life in their path, plunging an
impoverished nation into a famine.
4. Each year medical researchers frantically race to produce a vaccine
for the latest strain of the flu virus. Perhaps before they succeed a new form will have
mutated into existence.
Many Christians think of nature as beneficial and beautiful. But as we
are all too aware, it has its ugly, cruel, and dangerous side. Mankind dies from
accidentally eating toxic plants, suffers the ravages of epidemics, and struggles to
protect his food crops from disease and plant and animal pests. The Christian —
particularly the Christian scientist — has to explain such things within the context
of his world model, his Christian conceptual framework.
The conservative Christian believes that God created the universe and
its basic life forms. According to Scripture, when God originally made life, He considered
it "good" (Genesis 1:25). Did God judge the goodness of His creation by a
different standard, or has something happened to it in the meantime?
Christians have grappled with the problem of evil in nature in various
ways. Some have suggested that God established evil to emphasize and favorably contrast
with His goodness. Others have seen nature's harshness as a divine punishment on fallen
man. Thus, for example, William Kirby wrote in one of the famous Bridgewater Treatises
on natural theology that God created fleas, lice, and intestinal parasites after the fall
of Adam and Eve to torment sinners (1).
The existence of evil in a nature created by a good God has always been
a real problem to Christianity. An incident in the life of Charles Darwin illustrates the
kind of struggle it puts people through. He once wrote to his botanist friend Dr. Asa Gray
about his declining religious faith (2):
I am bewildered. I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see so plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficient and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.
Darwin found one solution to his dilemma by concluding that living things were evolving to higher levels through the operation of simple laws of matter and energy. The apparent cruelty and suffering was just an unfortunate result of organisms adjusting to their environments. In the 1844 draft of what eventually became The Origin of Species, he concluded (3):
It is derogatory that the Creator of countless Universes should have made by individual acts of His will the myriads of creeping parasites and worms, which since the earliest dawn of life have swarmed over the land and in the depths of the ocean.
By adopting the concept of evolution, he thought (4):
We cease to be astonished that a group of animals should have been formed to lay their eggs in the bowels and flesh of other sensitive beings; that some animals should live by and even delight in cruelty; that animals should be led away by false instincts; that annually there should be an incalculable waste of the pollen, eggs, and immature beings....
The problem is real — we cannot ignore it without reaping the
consequences. But the Scriptural model does have an explanation of the evil in nature.
The Bible indicates that the perfect state God established on earth did
not last long. When the first man and woman disobeyed their Creator's simple prohibition
against sampling the fruit growing on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they
rejected God and alienated themselves from Him. He had placed them in a perfect world, but
they had demonstrated that they were no longer spiritually and psychologically capable of
handling such. They needed a place more suitable for their fallen, weakened characters.
After God led them to admit their changed condition by asking where they were — thus
forcing them to admit why they were hiding — He revealed the kind of earth they would
from then on have to cope with (Genesis 3:14-19). "Cursed is the ground because of
you," He declared to Adam, "in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your
life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the
field" (Genesis 3:17, 18).
Adam and Eve now faced a world quite different from the one they had
known until then. Growing food would be more difficult. Fruit had grown bountifully about
them in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 1:29; 2:9, 16). But now they would have to depend more
on the harder-to-cultivate field plants (Genesis 3:18). The phrase "In the sweat of
your face you shall eat bread" suggests what Adam would have to contend with as he
grew food. Apparently plants needed attention from men even in paradise. God had put Adam
"in the garden of Eden to till and keep it" (Genesis 2:15). Now vegetation would
get out of hand much more quickly and on a larger scale. Weeds are nothing more than
plants that compete strongly against cultivated ones.
After Cain murdered his brother Abel, he found it still more difficult
to raise crops. God told him, "When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield to
you its strength" (Genesis 4:12).
In the beginning God created a balanced nature with every organism
completing its strand of the intricate web of life. But after man's fall, new forces
started to tatter that web. Environmental conditions deteriorated. Reflecting man's
declining moral and religious life, chaos also crept into the physical world. Another
crisis marred the earth's ecology when, because of man's actions, God sent a global
catastrophe to devastate the earth's biosphere (5). The geological disaster of the flood
upset the whole balance of nature. The world around us today is reconstructed from the
pieces and debris surviving the flood. We may never fully know its impact on living things
and their ecological relationships.
With the passage of time the effects of the fall have accumulated. The
physical world had so altered by the time of the early Christian church that the apostle
Paul, anticipating Christ's return, wrote that "creation itself will be set free from
its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that
the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now" (Romans 8:21,
22). Employing the symbol of childbirth, Paul tells of a world seeking and needing
restoration.
Scripture recognizes the existence of evil and suffering in nature, but
at first glance it almost seems as if God Himself is responsible for it. Genesis 3 relates
several curses God placed on the serpent, on Eve, and on nature. In Genesis 4:11 God
curses the ground because of Cain's crime. Since the Bible declares that God set a curse
on the physical world, does that make Him responsible for the poisonous stings of
scorpions, bacterial infections, and the reign of tooth and claw?
Before jumping to any conclusions, however, we must see how Scripture
defines a divine curse.
After Cain killed his brother, God called down evil on the first
murderer. In response, Cain complained, "My punishment is greater than I can bear.
Behold, thou has driven me this day away from the ground; and from thy face I shall be
hidden" (Genesis 4:13, 14). That God had withdrawn Himself and left Cain to take care
of more of his own affairs upset him. He realized that the soil would no longer produce as
well for him as it had done before his crime. Cain knew that God would cease to as
actively insure good crops. A fundamental premise of the Biblical world model is that
nature does not operate independently of God. Nature is under His direction (Nehemiah 9:6)
and, left to itself, would break down and perish.
We see in the book of Job an illustration of what happens when God
lessens or removes His active protection and control. God asked Satan what he thought of
Job's loyalty and character (Job 1:8). Satan discredited the patriarch's allegiance,
charging that Job worshipped and obeyed God only to insure His protection and material
support (verses 9, 10). To prove his allegation, Satan urged God to remove His protection
and then see how Job would act. God did so, permitting Satan to attack him.
The book of Job clearly demonstrates the source of Job's difficulties.
It shows what results when God withholds His control of events on our planet. Order breaks
down, and Satan does everything he can to push things to chaos.
The authors of the Bible understood and feared lest God in any way
lessen or abdicate His rulership, whether in the spiritual or physical realm. "Your
iniquities have made a separation between you and your God," Isaiah announced,
"and your sins have hid his face from you so that he does not hear" (Isaiah
59:2). All Scriptural models of nature must take into account the historical reality of
the fall and the consequences of sin. Sin is a state of alienation from God. Man, when he
fell spiritually, cut himself off from God. To keep from immediately destroying a race now
by nature antagonistic to Him, God stepped back. No longer did He participate as directly
in events on earth. And each time He placed a curse on our planet, He loosened His divine
reins on nature a little more. And as humanity persisted in their rebellion, their
behavior forced Him to let nature increasingly break down.
When Israel prepared to enter Canaan, God set before them the choice of
a curse or a blessing (Deuteronomy 11:26-29). If they would follow His leading, He would
insure them ample rain for their crops and pastures. But if they worshipped nonexistent
gods, the land would receive no rain (see verses 13-17). The two rainy seasons of
Palestine would no longer continue. God had made them happen. If the Hebrews chose the
curse, He would not always cause the rains to occur. Their actions prevented Him from
blessing nature as much as He would like.
The Hebrews often reminded themselves that if they did not reject God,
He would not be forced to spurn them. If they thwarted God so He could not be their
Protector and Sustainer, they would find themselves not at the mercy of a God of order,
but in the power of Satan, the originator of chaos, ruin, and decay. Many times the
Hebrews feared that God would separate Himself from them — or even that He actually
had. "How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?" David pleaded in Psalm 13:1.
"O Lord, why dost thou cast me off?" (Psalm 88:14) (6). Through the prophet
Isaiah, God told Israel that because of their behavior, "When you spread forth your
hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood" (Isaiah 1:15).
Because of man's rebellion God has had to limit His guidance of the
natural world. And Satan, as we have seen in the case of Job, immediately steps in to fill
the vacuum. Here we come to the core of any Scriptural model which attempts to explain
imperfection in a world created perfect. The Bible documents a universal conflict between
good and evil. Satan has questioned God's right to rule the universe and seeks to usurp
His place. Instead of quelling Satan's rebellion through force, God has decided to
vindicate His right to authority and power by letting Satan demonstrate on a limited scale
the consequences of his rule. The earth has become the arena where Satan reveals his
inability to govern. Satan not only seeks to control humanity, but also the earth's life
forms and physical forces (7).
Christ, in His parable comparing the gospel's impact on individual
minds, explained the existence of the unconverted in the church through the symbolism of
tares or weeds growing among wheat. When asked where the tares came from, He said,
"An enemy has done this" (Matthew 13:28). Perhaps here we can find an analogy or
symbol for the origin of poisonous plants and animals and the carnage and decay we find
throughout nature. God has to let the universe witness and be convinced of Satan's true
character. The best way to reveal another person's motives and nature is to permit him to
expose himself. It is a painful process for both God and man, but it is the only way God
can forever immunize the universe against the principle of sin. Satan must condemn
himself, and does so as much by the way he abuses and distorts nature as what he does with
human lives.
The devil was once an especially honored angel (see Isaiah 14:12-15).
He has intelligence and experimental knowledge far beyond that of human science. As man's
increasing rejection of God forced Him to withdraw His protection over nature, Satan has
turned the earth into a laboratory of destruction. He is systematically trying to destroy
God's creation (8).
The overwhelming majority of scientists would be aghast if someone
suggested they consider the role Satan plays in nature. As a fundamental tenet of modern
science they rule out of their study and theories anything relating to the supernatural.
Instead their whole approach to nature involves explaining everything in it on the basis
of physically demonstrable forces. But the Christian who centers his world view around a
Biblical model considers such an approach as incomplete and inadequate. He also regards
the distinction between the natural and supernatural as in many ways artificial. He
believes that the scientist is leaving out of his world view other forces which also
influence nature. In the case of Satan one can keep an eye out in the laboratory or field
for destructive or degenerative forces. Although science cannot treat supernatural powers
as it does other forces, it can include them in its paradigms and mental constructs just
as it does other unverifiable assumptions. The Christian scientist should operate on the
assumption that God and Satan are as much a part of total reality as any physical,
chemical, or biological law.
To study nature without taking into account the impact Satan has on it
is like examining ecology while ignoring man's influence because he has a highly developed
conscious intelligence and the rest of life apparently does not. Yet man has always played
a major role in fashioning the balance of nature we see today. The Scripturally oriented
Christian believes that we should also recognize Satan's twisting and reweaving of the
fabric of life. To understand reality, we must take into account everything in it —
including nature, man, God, and Satan.
Few would deny the existence of evil. Through Scripture we discover
Satan as its source. The very nature of evil is to distort and corrupt. As God has
withdrawn His protection and control over nature, Satan has set out to destroy. That God's
decreasing guidance would lead to nature's breaking down on its own was not enough for
him. The vast knowledge and intelligence which he retained even after his expulsion from
heaven he has — according to the Biblical model — turned against God's physical
creation.
As God lifted His sustaining hand from the natural world, a number of
things started happening. How Satan has attacked nature, what processes he used, we have
no exact way of knowing. As with so many other things, Scripture does not supply details.
But we can draw some conclusions from the apparent results, and we can develop analogies
from how man affects or manipulates nature. Though it would horrify most scientists to
hear it said, we are moving from the known to the unknown in a manner similar to the way
one uses some more widely accepted explanations of nature.
First, from Genesis 3:18 we know that God specifically said thorns and
thistles would appear. Thorns are modified stems in which the growth process has gone
awry. The apical meristem usually functions only briefly, after which it either sloughs
off or matures into tough, thick-walled cells. Drought conditions will stimulate some
plants into developing thorns. In this case God may have more directly caused thorns and
thistles to arise since He mentioned them beforehand. But more likely they followed the
pattern of Satan's other interference with nature (9). If the latter is the case, Satan
would have quickly learned which factors would alter a terminal bud into a thorn instead
of a regular stem. Then he would see to it that as many plants as possible with the
tendency toward modified stems passed the trait on. He would make sure that thorns became
a part of the plant's genetic makeup. Spines — modified leaves — would follow a
similar pattern.
Delving into biochemistry, Satan could discover how to transform a
harmless substance into a poisonous one. A change of 2 out of the 574 units of the protein
part of hemoglobin results in sickle-cell anemia.
Factors from different parts of the same organism will interact to
produce a deadly combination. The tobacco plant forms nicotine when chemicals manufactured
in the leaves and roots act upon each other. A tobacco plant grafted onto a tomato root
has no nicotine. Just as man can breed living things to enhance or eliminate a particular
physical characteristic — including toxicity — so can a highly intelligent being
like Satan. He has a whole world of life-forms at his disposal to experiment on, plus the
assistance of the other fallen angels (10). Consider another analogy. Man has bred
chickens with greatly increased egg-laying ability. Here is an accomplishment differing
only in magnitude from what I believe Satan could have done to the reproductive rates of
countless other organisms.
Sometimes an organism will become dangerous by simply getting out of
its normal habitat. Bacteria of the gastro-intestinal tract are very specific where they
live. If they stay there, they do not harm the host. But if they accidentally get into
another area they may cause malabsorption, interfere with fat absorption, or even
synthesize proteins or other metabolic products which cause diarrhea (11).
Genetic material has an inherent, though limited, ability to mutate. As
God lessened His control on nature after the entrance of sin, DNA and other genetic
material apparently became more unstable. Satan, in his search for destructive agents,
could take advantage of the fact. This seems particularly illustrated in the development
of disease organisms.
A perfect world would have no pathogenic organisms. Bacteria, for
example, would play only beneficial roles in the ecology of a paradise. Even Eden had
refuse. Flower petals and discarded fruit parts would litter the ground unless something
broke them down into useful organic matter. Bacteria would have done the job then as they
still do now. Cattle cannot digest the cellulose of grass without the help of
microorganisms. In addition, bacteria fix nitrogen in legumes. Other varieties aid in
digestion and secrete vitamins as the B complex group. Escherichia coli produces
vitamin K. Bifido-bacterium bifidus protects breast-fed infants against the
dysentery bacillus and other intestinal pathogens. Bacteria mutate and reproduce rapidly.
Satan could take advantage of such capacity by selecting strains that secreted toxic
substances.
The same situation would happen to protozoa and fungi. At first they
were solely beneficial, helping to decompose organic matter. The protozoa inhabiting the
intestinal tract of termites break down the tough fibers of cellulose. But under Satan's
intervention, such organisms probably began to prey on living things. Fungi turned from
their necessary task of decomposing dead plant parts to parasitizing live tissues. Insects
that originally consumed dead organic matter have also gotten out of hand.
Parasitism is a graphic illustration of nature's degeneration. Both
plants and animals now attack other living organisms. Some animals discarded everything
but their digestive and reproductive powers. Tapeworms are little more than digestive and
sex organs. Sacculina, a parasite of crabs, has no digestive system of its own.
Yet its larval form is still a free-swimming nauplius, the first developmental stage of a
crustacean after it leaves the egg. Instead of maturing into a normal barnacle, it becomes
only a mass of filaments spreading through the crab's tissues.
Just as the reign of sin produced thorns and toxins in plants, animals
developed their deadly changes. The bee's stinger, for example, is a modified ovipositor.
In bees and wasps the ovipositor no longer aids in laying eggs, but has been greatly
altered into a weapon. Some animals began secreting deadly substances. The venom of
poisonous fish apparently derived from a secretion produced by the glands which coat most
fish with a protective slime. The spines that deliver it are modified fin rays.
After man's fall animals began to prey on each other. Those with the
right digestive systems, teeth, and claws could kill and devour other animals —
provided their behavior changed in that direction. Being a carnivore is as much
psychological as it is physiological. Parrots are mostly vegetarians even though they have
the beaks and claws of a carnivore. The kea parrots of New Zealand ordinarily grub up
roots. But a dwindling food supply will goad them into attacking sheep. The parrots rip
open their backs and feed on the kidney fat.
Man can breed animals for particular behavioral traits — for
example, Tennessee walking horses and sheepherding dogs. In nature the forces of evil
selected destructive behavioral patterns just as man has selectively developed dogs with
savage dispositions.
Space does not permit discussion of sin's other channel of impact on
nature — fallen man (12) — but we can see that Scripture contains an adequate
model to explain our present world. God did not create the evil and suffering we find in
nature. The Bible clearly indicates its true source. Scripture gives the Christian
scientist a foundation from which to begin his exploration of how the forces of evil
reshaped a world created perfect.
FOOTNOTES
FIGURE 1. Prickles — (often called thorns) — one of the many examples of the cruelty of nature.
All contents copyright
Geoscience Research Institute. All rights reserved.
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