Chapter 2
The Fall, the Curse, and the Flood
Four great events changed the primeval world from the “very good” world, as it was described by God himself at the end of the six days of creation (note Gen. 1:31–2:4) to “this present evil world,” as the apostle Paul called it (Gal. 1:4) in the first century of the present era. These were, in order: (1) the sin and fall of the first man and woman; (2) the curse pronounced by God on the whole creation as a result of that sin; (3) the Flood that physically destroyed the antediluvian world in the days of Noah; and (4) the confusion of tongues and dispersion of the nations at Babel.
These world-changing events are described in Genesis 3–11, but are, in general, completely ignored in the evolutionary world view. Nevertheless, they are vitally important to a true understanding of the present world, with all its terrible problems. They necessarily constitute important components of the creationist world view, so the biblical accounts thereof are summarized in this chapter.
God’s Principle of Conservation
The world that God created is not a dead, static, unchanging thing. Rather, it teems with activity, with things happening, with life. Not only does the creation exhibit an infinite variety of marvelously designed structures and relationships, but also there is an unlimited complexity of interactions between these systems.
These interactions are called processes, and the study of these processes is the function of scientists. Because of the great number of different systems and processes, it has been necessary for science to divide and subdivide itself over and over again. Not only are there physicists and chemists, biologists and geologists, and other such basic scientists, but also physical chemists, organic chemists, nuclear physicists, classical physicists, and numerous other specialists within these basic disciplines. Many fields of science that once were special emphases in physics or one of the broad sciences have developed into independent branches of their own — sciences such as meteorology, hydrology, ecology, metallurgy, paleontology, and many others.
All of which points up both the extreme breadth and complexity of science and also the impossibility of any one scientist ever becoming a real firsthand authority in more than a very restricted scientific specialty. Furthermore, scientists as individuals are real people and therefore subject to the same conceits, prejudices, and other weaknesses as non-scientists. Scientists should accordingly be very cautious about making broad pronouncements on sociological or religious matters in the name of “science,” and laymen should be carefully skeptical about such pronouncements when scientists do make them.
In spite of the great number and variety of scientific processes, there are two statements that can be made about all of them without exception. These are the following:
1 All processes involve interchanges and conversions of an entity called energy, with the total energy remaining constant. Scientifically this is called the law of conservation of energy, or the first law of thermodynamics.
2 All processes manifest a tendency toward decay and disintegration, with a net increase in what is called the entropy, or state of randomness or disorder, of the system. This is called the second law of thermodynamics.
Thus, all the processes of nature are fundamentally processes of quantitative conservation and qualitative disintegration. These two laws, accepted by all scientists as the most universally applicable principles that science has been able to discover, were recognized only about a hundred years ago. However, these basic principles have been in the pages of the Bible for thousands of years, though not expressed in modern scientific terminology. The conservation principle is clearly set forth by the fact of a completed creation which is now being sustained by its Creator.
Colossians 1:16–17, for example, indicates both aspects of this truth. “By him were all things created . . . and by him all things consist.” Note that “created” is in the past tense. The Scripture does not say: “By him are all things being created.” Therefore, creation is not going on at present. The word “consist” is a translation of the Greek word from which we get our English word “sustain.” Thus, the verse says in effect that “by him all things are sustained.” By the Lord Jesus Christ, all things — all systems and structures, all kinds of organisms and relationships — were created once for all in the past and are now being conserved.
This same principle — that nothing is now being created or destroyed — is also implied in many other passages. Examples include Hebrews 1:2–3: “He made the worlds . . . upholding all things by the word of his power”; 2 Peter 3:5–7: “By the word of God the heavens were of old, and . . . the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store”; Psalm 148:5–6: “He commanded, and they were created. He hath also established them for ever and ever”; Isaiah 40:26: “Who hath created these things . . . for that he is strong in power; not one faileth”; and Nehemiah 9:6: “Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all.”
The first chapter of Genesis describes this creation, and it should be stressed as strongly as possible that it is only in the Bible that we can possibly obtain any information about the methods of creation, the order of creation, the duration of creation, or any of the other details of creation. Since, according to both Scripture and the first law of science, nothing is now being created, therefore the scientific study of present processes can reveal nothing about creation and God’s creative processes except that it must have taken place and that it was through processes not now operating. Denying this is the most fundamental fallacy in the evolutionary theory. Evolution assumes that these present processes are the same process by which all things have developed from primeval chaos into their present complexity. Both the Word of God and the first law of science say otherwise.
At the end of the account of creation, the record is very explicit and definite: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made” (Gen. 2:1–3).
This summary is very clear in its insistence that whatever methods God used in creating and making all things — including man himself — He stopped using. The present work of providence — of providing for the conservation and sustenance of all the basic entities that He had created — is of a different order altogether from His work of creation.
The Fall and the Curse
Superimposed on the conservation principle, however, is the decay principle. The second law of thermodynamics, no less than the first law, is a universal law governing all processes. Although energy is never destroyed, it continually becomes less available for further work. Everything tends to wear out, to run down, to disintegrate, and ultimately to die. All processes, by definition, involve change — but the change is not a change in the upward direction, such as the evolutionists assume.
Somehow it seems contrary to the nature and purposes of God that He would create a universe in which decay and death constitute one of the basic principles. He is a God of grace and power; as a gracious and merciful God, surely He would not build such a principle into His creation if He could avoid it. Since He is also omnipotent, He certainly did not have to do it that way. Why, then, do “we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Rom. 8:22)? Is this what God intended, when He finished His creation and pronounced it all “very good” (Gen. 1:31)? Obviously not; God is not capricious, and we can be absolutely sure that He will accomplish His good purpose in creation.
The answer can only be that the second law is a sort of intruder into the divine economy, not a part of either the original creation or God’s plan for His eternal kingdom