Nature and the fall of man

Where does the Bible say that physical death was a part of the curse? It seems to me that it is difficult to parse out spiritual death from physical death since both are referred to as "death" in the English translations.

First part: Nature was made that way in the first place. The Fall is a description of the resultant combination of our free will and our propensity to give in to our flesh.Second part: Point of view of a three-year-old child being treated for cancer vs that of the parent.Same, just a matter of scale.The Bible states that God loves all of us (except Esau--Romans 9:13) Assuming God is omnipotent, everything that happens to us is good for us. Does that mean we don't try to make things better? Of course not! It just means that we change our perspective a little and maybe our attitude a lot.

Gen 2:17 Obviously, Adam didn't die that day, so how is the "death" that happened to Adam that day differ from the "death" that Paul refers to in Rom 5:12? What other verses will help me gain the proper interpretation since I still see this as referring to the death of the soul and that Adam was never physically immortal?AH-ooo-GAH...AH-ooo-GAH....Possible off-topic alert...Dive...Dive....set condition one for WSRT....spin up all missiles!!!

Westminster Catechism....really long.#17 Man has an immortal soul but no mention of an immortal body. Nothing about animals living forever either.#20 "...entering into a covenant of life..." could be interpreted as meaning physical immortality...or spiritual immortality.#28 "...punishments of sin...upon the creatures for our sakes...together with death itself." Strongest implication that physical death did not exist prior to Adam's sin but not completely definitive since "together with death itself" could be interpreted as applying to man alone.However, this is their interpretation. Although the authors of this catechism may be considered authoritative, it would be better if the Bible were more clear on this issue.

What type of god are you expecting?
Omnibenevolent? Who are we to say that this girl's plight is not the best situation for that family and her at this time in their existance? This would make their situation "very good" (to quote one of the more famous Gods). I doubt that we have the perspective or knowledge to make that judgement.
At the risk of overusing an analogy, I will provide an example.
A parent, will not always give their child what they want because it is not always good for them. In fact, punshment or restrictions may be meted out in order to help the child grow up in the manner chosen by the parent. The parent typically sees these things as benevolent while the child many times does not.Perspective perhaps?

I think robin is talking about God allowing this "evil", not arbitrary acts of nature.

I assume you read the rest of my post and discounted it out of hand. I write this because you have gone back to the there-is-tragedy-therefore-there-is-no-God mantra.
By what criteria do you make this judgement? What makes that criteria valid?
Why can't God have a better view of things than you and then plan events accordingly?Look, I can't prove God exists any more than anyone else here; much less that the Fundamentalist Christian God is the right one.
But I disagree that you should discount the existance of a god because he/she/it does not conform to your definition of proper behavior.
You may disbelieve in particular gods because it appears that the world doesn't work in the manner that their "revealed word" states that they are running it. Again, you would have to provide a pretty strong arguement that you are interpreting that "revealed word" properly in order to make that judgement.See how amorphous this starts to get? God-in-a-box just can't be done without knowing what this God knows. Our same lack of knowledge also means that the box is not necessarily empty either.So, who are we to decide what is best?From your point of view, would you have sent soldiers off to die in Iraq? How about Vietnam? Europe, Africa and the Pacific in WWII?
What was the right thing to do in each of those cases?The parents of the girls love them. If it is the girls that I think you are talking about, they have friends. They have activities that they like to do. I am reasonably sure they don't like to be thought of as grotesque.
Perhaps their situation is best or at least "very good".

Then your God is you, since he is not allowed to do anything outside your criteria for good.I doubt that Faith or Randman would subscribe to that definition of God even though they believe in the Fall as a literal event that is slowly destroying creation.Let's say we take the fundamentalist point of view. Adam actions caused every "bad" thing that we see today....murder, theft, earthquakes, disease, birth defects. You still have to deal with the fact that God knew these things would happen before He made Adam, or anything in Creation. Yet He made Adam anyway and put him in a situation that God knew would result in the introduction of evil and decay into Creation. Does this make God evil by your criteria?If you leave a gun out, and sit there, watching without doing anything, while your three-year-old shoots himself, are you responsible for the three-year-olds death? I would say yes, even if you did not know that the child could or would be able to weild the weapon. God knew the outcome of making Adam and put him in that situation.This makes the fundamentalist God:
1. Evil (Bible disagrees)
2. Stupid (Bible disagrees)
3. Not omnipotent (Bible disagrees)
4. Not omniscient (Bible disagrees)
5. Working with a different concept of what is good and what is evil.Even if I were a fundamentalist, I would have to choose number 5.

I guess I could have communicated that better.God lays out the limits of our actions, that will be considered good, through the written word of His prophets. These limits are based on our capabilities. Our sense of good and evil, conscience, is based on those words and our limitations. (Ex: Do unto others...)
God's knowledge is not limited so His actions cannot be judged by our limited knowedge as "evil" or "good". We really don't know.What we see as a bad thing does not make it an "evil" thing. It could certainly be a good thing from God's perspective.

I was actually saying that we have no grounds to say that because the world has bad things happening and there was no actual "Fall" that there is no God.Even if we use the YEC God, we still come to the point that the things we perceive as bad are His doing. Following the YEC premise that God is only good then the bad things in this world are only bad from our point of view.

Shifts it where? I thought I already put the responsibility on God's shoulders. The God of any written religion has set up the standards of absolute good. It is just that the standards which show up as rules of behavior apply to mankind and not necessarily to God.
Deciding on and carrying out the killing of innocents (infants...etc) is wrong for mankind because we don't have the capability to know when that action is good or when it is bad. God, however, knows when the performance of an action, though perceived as bad, is actually good.
Then, assuming that God is absolutely good, anything he does or allows is absolutely good no matter how it is perceived. An evil act perpetrated by one of us created beings, in violation of the standards that God set, is actually good because God allows it. Therefore, God can condemn the act and possibly the perpetrator while still having the result be "good".edited to avoid the grammar monsterThis message has been edited by LinearAq, 01-03-2006 07:13 AM

I didn't say that it was a satisfying explanation. If you believe in God, you are always going wind up dealing with this situation, bad things happening. Just because man (Adam) causes the entry of bad things into the creation, does not mean that God is aleiviated of any responsibility. He set it up with the certain knowledge of the outcome.Whether or not the Fall is a literal event does not change the fact that God is ultimately responsible for the "bad" things that are happening in His creation.

I'm not saying that we have no choice, but God knew what would happen, yet did nothing about it. He obviously felt that things needed to happen the way they did.Simple example: You have the absolute ability, without endangering yourself or anyone else, to stop a murderer from killing a child yet you sit back and watch him do it. Are you responsible for the death of that child? I would say that you were.There is nothing wrong with God being responsible as long as we assume He is absolutely good and knows what the best course of action (or inaction) is.

It's a good thing that God is omni-everything or he might be limited by the logic shown here.You imply that God can make someone have free will but can't think of any way to convince that person to remain obedient. I guess He couldn't convince some of the angels either since they saw Him in his glory and decided that they would rather commit a form of suicide.Hmmm, maybe not so omni....

And yet the Bible tells us we are all what God cannot be: Sinners.Also,
Gen:21 The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood...BTW: Where in the Bible does it say all this stuff you just wrote?It seems to say the opposite, that without God's help we could never be or do good.Psalms 14:3 All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.Matt 15:18-20 {Jesus speaking} "But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man."Sure doesn't seem like we are "naturally" oriented toward God.