Early Church Fathers on Creation, Death and Eschatology Benno A
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PAPERS || JOURNAL OF CREATION 28(1) 2014 Early Church Fathers on creation, death and eschatology Benno A. Zuiddam For several early Church Fathers the doctrine of creation was important. This affected not only the way they looked at this world, but also how they saw God, as well as what they expected of him for the future. Chrysostom, Irenaeus and Theophilus of Antioch taught that the beginning and the end of this world belong together. The paradise once lost will be regained. They taught that this present world, including the animal kingdom, is essentially in discontinuity with the original creation. The suffering and death of animals was something that did not belong to God’s good original creation. Irenaeus and Theophilus specifically claimed that God’s future will include the restoration of the animal kingdom to a state that excludes violent death and suffering. id animals that have the “breath of life” die in Paradise? 1 Religion taught discontinuity Was physical death first introduced into the created D For most of its history, humanity has embraced what it world at mankind’s fall into sin, or was it there from the experienced as divine revelation on the subject of creation. be-ginning of creation, only now also extending to human- Perhaps most people on this planet still do, if one dares to ity? 2 How good was the original creation really? Was man ignore Western secular culture, its all-pervasive propaganda perhaps mortal from the very start? 3 In circles of academic and powerful interests. The Bible, as well as myths such leadership many theologians have given up on traditional as the Greek tradition of Pandora’s clay pot, teach that this concepts. This article will consider how early Christians saw present world is vastly different from when it first appeared. creation, death, and God’s plans for the future of this world. This notion is now widely discarded. First the st In a 21 century world where the evolutionistic worldview Enlightenment disallowed revelation as a reliable source of reigns supreme in most systems and public life, it is not knowledge and in science. Then Darwinism claimed that surprising that the answers theologians give to these natural selection created this world and that the process questions are usually shaped by this environment. Many included sickness, death and ruthless competition from the ministers and even more theological professors see physical start. As a result the prevailing teaching at Western centres death in the original creation as a fact of science. Doesn’t of education is that the biblical creation and the fall of man the fossil record show all those layers of dead animals before is scientifically wrong or irrelevant, perhaps only helpful man arrives on the scene? Of course animals must have died in some sociological sense. For all practical purposes it is 4 in Paradise. Death and decay were indispensable parts of insisted upon that ours was an imperfect world of death and the ‘good’ creation, and man was really mortal from the decay from the beginning. beginning. In light of the cultural and professional pressures that This view is based on the premise of a basic continuity prevail in our society, it is not surprising to note that between the original creation and the fallen world. The theologians have adapted their interpretation of Scripture presumption is that the laws of physics (as we know them to suit what is generally accepted as the so-called ‘facts now) operated and that external influences are excluded of science’. This is not a new development, as this (closed universe). The problem with this way of reasoning naturalistic worldview started to take over visibly in the is that physics is applied to metaphysics. Penetrating into 17th century—not only in the writings of Spinoza and to a data of the primeval world can hardly be done in a scientific lesser extent Descartes, but also in more popular books. In way, and belongs to the realm of suppositions and premises. 1691 the Rev. Balthasar Bekker wrote a book against the Science can only speculate about primeval history on the existence of demons, spirits and witches.5 He even doubted basis of theory. These theories can presume either continuity the existence of the devil. This book was so popular that or discontinuity with the present world; theistic involvement quickly thousands of copies were sold, resulting in a stream or exclusively material factors. They belong to the realm of pamphlets. Within a few years his book was published of metaphysical choices. This is a reality for the religious, in German, French and English respectively. The agnostic agnostics and atheists alike. position of the 18th century philosophers—Immanuel Kant 77 JOURNAL OF CREATION 28(1) 2014 || PAPERS one of the most influential—further paved the way to a publications by theologians with a university position, it situation where divine revelation was no longer considered is safe to conclude that nature in the “very good” Genesis a valid source of scientific knowledge. Even if theologians creation is now generally redefined by evangelical theologians in Protestant countries didn’t compromise all the way (like to include death and decay. In the field of eschatology these 19th century continental liberalism), the new positions were ‘neo-evangelical’ scholars tread more carefully. This is often embraced without realizing the logical fallacies and understandable since the cross, regeneration, going to inconsistencies that resulted at an exegetical and doctrinal heaven, ‘eternity’ and the second-coming are prominent level. teachings in these circles. Many evangelical denominations and movements had their origins, at least in part, in particular teachings about the end times. Creation and eschatology The doctrine of creation was more vulnerable as In the study of theology, the fields of creation and evangelical circles often contrasted New Testament eschatology (teachings about the end times, last phase of the Christianity with the old dispensation of Moses and the Law. world) are closely connected, because the doctrinal concepts It was much easier in such a context, to let go of Mosaic involved affect one another. When continental German, creation concepts—which never featured prominently French and Dutch universities embraced mythological from the pulpit anyway—than to contradict widely shared interpretations of Holy Scripture in the 19th century, this came socio-cultural expectations for loved ones and professional with a changed expectancy for the future. This is particularly associates alike. Also for personal reasons and private hopes, evident in professor Scholten from Leiden University and his theologians are more inclined to keep the old eschatology, pupils.6 There was no longer any hope for the resurrection of in some form or other. For many this would still include the the body and life everlasting in that sense. Everything was resurrection of the body, for humans that is. Some Christian spiritualized and eternal life was eventually restricted to evolutionists, fully embrace the old eschatology, seemingly the human soul. Science had taught theology that miracles extending Christ’s redemptive power to all creation. N.T. don’t happen and that dead bodies don’t come to life again, Wright, for example, designates Christ’s resurrection in a so the theories of the theologians changed accordingly. The popular publication as “the hope for God’s renewal of all personal God of Christianity was replaced with the abstract things, for his overcoming of corruption, decay, and death, Force of Deism.7 In the 20th and 21st centuries, subsequent for his filling of the whole cosmos with his love and grace, development saw many theologians, ministers and priests his power and his glory”.11 In line with the church’s teachings embrace naturalistic worldviews, giving up their belief in over many centuries, Wright affirms that the liberation of a personal God, and a conscious personal future after the the body of Christ from death and decay foreshadows the death of the body. liberation of the rest of the old creation.12 Historical evangelicalism withstood this trend originally; Wright affirms traditional eschatology in a situation preferring traditional views of creation and eschatology. where many theologians have given up on the traditional Although in the United States more than 40% of the Catholic doctrines concerning creation and the eventual population has young creationist views on the origins of renewal of this world alike. Still, Wright’s affirmation of man,8 there is hardly any support for creationism among the traditional Christian eschatology would have gained in the evangelical academic leadership. Creationism is rarely persuasion if the basis for this had not been destroyed by the taught in American colleges and seminaries.9 Best-selling introduction of a new doctrine of creation. The goodness of evangelical authors such as N.T. Wright, Alister McGrath, the old creation is largely spiritualized, while on a material and Tim Keller are all evolutionists. That, surprisingly, about level Darwinism reigns.13 Instead of Paradise lost, Adam was half of the evangelical pastors still hold creationist views is mortal long before he trespassed; the fall into sin was really due to outside factors, and despite their professors. In Europe about spiritual death: “The result is that death, which was the situation is worse, also among the general public. A recent always a part of the natural transience of the good creation, survey published in National Geographic shows: gains a second dimension, which the Bible sometimes calls “In European countries, including Denmark, spiritual death.”14 Sweden, and France, more than 80 percent of adults With the old view of a vastly different nature of the surveyed said they accepted the concept of evolution. original creation largely discarded and redefined, doctrines The proportion of Western European adults who about the person of Christ and God’s character have quietly believed the theory ‘absolutely false’ ranged from shifted.