Today’s New Reason To Believe

Kenneth Richard Samples

In part one of this series I attempted to explain how Jesus Christ could experience the eternal wrath of God in just several hours of suffering on the cross.

I proposed that Jesus Christ could accomplish the eternal result of redemption in a short temporal period of time because he is ontologically (relating to the study of being) an eternal personal being. The theological point is that an eternal personal being (Christ being God Incarnate) can offer an eternal sacrifice by the very nature of his being without consideration to time factors.

This article will address a related question:

Why must nonbelievers suffer eternal judgment for a mere temporal period of sin?

In other words, if a person sins for seventy years here on Earth, what is the justice in God punishing the sinner for all eternity? Why an eternal punishment for a temporal period of infraction?

My answer to this question is very similar to the answer that I gave to the earlier question in part one. I propose that the answer to this perplexing question is found in the historic Christian view of God.

God is an eternal personal being of complete justice and holiness.

According to Christian orthodox theology, God is an infinite, eternal, tri-personal spiritual being—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This God is also a morally perfect being (reflecting complete holiness, justice, and goodness). Paul describes God thusly:

Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen (1 Timothy 1:17).

The Book of Revelation describes God in these ominous words:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come (Revelation 4:8).

So how does all this impact the original question?

Why must nonbelievers suffer eternal judgment for a temporal period of sin?

The answer is that God is an infinite and eternal holy being. Therefore to sin against this God is to commit an eternal offense.

The substantive theological issue here is not how long the person sinned while living temporally on the Earth. Rather the crux of the matter rests upon whom the sin was committed against.

To commit sin against an eternal God is to commit an eternal sin. Temporal sins against an eternal God bear eternal consequences. Eternal punishment is the cost of offending an eternally perfect moral being.

Part three of this series will address another difficult question concerning God’s justice in punishing sinners eternally.

For more on the study of Christ’s person, nature, and work, see chapters 9 and 11 of my book Without a Doubt: Answering the 20 Toughest Faith Questions and chapter 8 of my book A World of Difference: Putting Christian Truth-Claims to the Worldview Test.

God’s Instructions to “Subdue” and “Rule” Imply the World Was Harsh Before the Fall

by Daniel J. Dyke, M.Div., M.Th., and Hugh Henry, Ph.D.

One point of contention among those who believe in creation is the issue of death and decay in the original created order. The question, simply stated, is whether or not death, decay, disease, harsh conditions, etc., exists as a part of the world before the fall of Adam.

When God proclaimed creation “very good,” (tob meod) was the world blissful, like the popular concept of Nirvana—or did it function under harsh conditions?¹ Was it “perfect,” with self-sustaining agriculture and lions that literally ate straw? Or was it a world full of potential, in need of taming and management? Did fruit trees need pruning and did lions “lie in wait in a thicket” to “hunt the prey”?

Many old-earth creationists (OEC) hold that death and subsequent decay did occur in the original created order, but just not for man in his closed environment called “the Garden of Eden.” Young-earth creationists, on the other hand, often have a more restrictive interpretation. For example, Dr. Jonathan Sarfati writes, “A straightforward interpretation of Genesis shows that death of humans and vertebrate animals (Hebrew nephesh chayyah, “living creature”) is the result of Adam’s fall.”² Is this as clear as Dr. Sarfati asserts—or does the Bible suggest another interpretation?

The answer to this question may be found in the words kabash and radah (rendered “subdue” and “rule,” respectively, in most English translations) as used in Genesis 1:28. God instructs Adam to,

“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over … every living thing” (emphasis added).

Popular interpretation of the pre-fall world as a “blissful Nirvana” has become the de facto position and, for some, a test of orthodoxy. Before the fall man is believed to have lived in a paradise in harmony with nature. Thus, God’s command to “subdue” and “rule” is viewed as a nebulous, benign stewardship. Animatronic figures of children and dinosaurs playing together on display at the Creation Museum in Kentucky illustrate this in the extreme. It seems that, according to this interpretation, man’s only task was not to mess it up by eating forbidden fruit.

However, this unspoiled paradise scenario is not consistent with the meanings of kabash and radah. A Hebrew lexicon defines kabash as “subdue, bring into bondage;”³ and it defines radah as “have dominion, rule, dominate.”⁴ These words imply an aggressive, forceful stewardship, and suggest that the “blissful Nirvana” interpretation is wrong. Instead, the Bible teaches that the pre-fall world required humanity to tame and manage it. Land needed cultivation, fruit trees required pruning, and lions probably laid in wait to hunt prey.

In order to paint a good picture of conditions in the pre-fall world, it is necessary to review the uses of kabash and radah elsewhere in the Old Testament. Eleven other uses of kabash all refer to violent action against strong resistance. Specifically kabash is used in regards to:

1. Military conquest against a strong enemy a. The Israelites conquering Canaan.⁵ b. King David conquering neighboring peoples.⁶
2. God freeing his people by throwing off the yoke of their captors with the coming of the Messiah. ⁷
3. Enslavement a. Israelites capturing and enslaving residents of Judah. ⁸ b. Jews selling themselves into slavery. ⁹ c. Forced enslavement of Jews by their Jewish brothers.¹⁰
4. Haman charged with intent to assault Queen Esther. ¹¹
5. God destroys the sins of those who repent. ¹²

Old Testament uses of radah beyond Genesis 1 always imply total control and/or conquest—even total destruction—in the face of violent resistance (or the potential for violent resistance). Radah occurs five times in Mosaic literature after Genesis 1, in regards to:

1. Management of slaves. Leviticus 25:43, 46, and 53 seem especially revealing. Verses 44-46 give Israelites carte blanche with regard to slaves who are “aliens among you,” but verses 43, 46, and 53 repeat specific instructions not to “rule” (radah) Israelite slaves “with severity” or “ruthlessly.” Use of a qualifier to decrease severity suggests radah might have an element of brutality.
2. Rule of the Israelites by cruel enemies if they reject God’s laws and commands.¹³
3. Conquest and destruction of evil opponents by the Messiah and/or David.¹⁴

The usage of radah is similar in 14 instances throughout non-Mosaic literature:

1. Solomon’s absolute control of the territories and “kings” within his empire.¹⁵
2. Control of taskmasters over the conscripted workers in Solomon’s building projects (including the temple).¹⁶ The work was not carried out joyously, but under great severity; if the dialog in 1 Kings 12 between the people and King Rehoboam after Solomon’s death is literal, the conscripts were controlled and directed with “whips.”
3. The severe rule of the Israelites by their enemies.¹⁷
4. Rule over the wicked by the righteous after death.¹⁸
5. God’s vanquished enemies (“them”) ruled (or led) in the victory procession by the tribe of Benjamin, the smallest and weakest tribe.¹⁹
6. The Messiah’s absolute rule, as prophesied by David.²⁰
7. Absolute control by Israel of her enemies when God restores His people by defeating their enemies.²¹
8. Rule of the people by priests, allowing or blocking access to God.²²
9. Radah with a negative—implying no control.²³ God through Ezekiel promises a restored Egypt will exert no control over its neighbors.
10. Mistreatment and abuse of the weak in Israel by their stronger brothers.²⁴

In the context of the popular “blissful Nirvana” interpretation, it is useful to evaluate the “minimum requirement” of the text. That is, what is the least restrictive usage of kabash and radah?

1. The minimum use of kabash seems to be assault.²⁵ Other uses involve enslavement and killing people, both of which increase in the level of brutality involved.
2. The minimum Mosaic use of radah seems to be God’s instructions to the Israelites not to “rule with severity” over slaves who are fellow Israelites.²⁶ Mosaic literature says elsewhere that an Israelite slave provides “double the service of a hired man” to a fellow Israelite.²⁷ Hence, the minimum use implies submitting to the will of another, such as an employer or a benevolent master.
3. The minimum non-Mosaic use of radah is probably control of taskmasters over the conscripted workers in Solomon’s building projects (including the temple).²⁸ Based on 1 Kings 12, they were at the very least treated like Israelite slaves; however, if whips were really used, they were governed more severely.

Words have meaning. When the various uses of kabash and radah unanimously convey such a strong connotation—with no clear indication of any other meaning in the context of Genesis 1—it is statistically significant. That same strong connotation must be deemed to apply to Genesis 1.

Our next article will discuss application of the meanings of kabash and radah to the question of the condition of the world before the fall.

Endnotes:

1. Note that this is the Hebrew comparative form of the adjective, not the superlative; this implies that the world was in better condition, but not in perfect, or even in the best, condition.

2. Jonathan Sarfati, Refuting Compromise: A Biblical and Scientific Refutation of “Progressive Creationism” (Billions of Years) As Popularized by Astronomer Hugh Ross (Green Forest, AR: MasterBooks, 2004), 195. In reading the quote and the title of this work, the reader should note that Dr. Sarfati engages in a type of argument known as “poisoning the well.” The term “compromise” carries the idea of unfaithfulness and rejection of biblical authority.

3. Francis Brown et al., ed., A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), 461.

4. Brown et al., ed., A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, 921-2.

5. Numbers 32:22, 29; Joshua 18:1 (subdued, NASB).

6. 2 Samuel 8:11; 1 Chronicles 22:18 (subdued, NASB).

7. Zechariah 9:15 (devour and trample, NASB).

8. 2 Chronicles 28:10 (subjugate, NASB).

9. Nehemiah 5:5 (forced into bondage, NASB).

10. Jeremiah 34:16 (brought into subjection, NASB).

11. Esther 7:8 (assault, NASB).

12. Micah 7:18 (tread under foot, NASB).

13. Leviticus 26:17 (rule, NASB).

14. Numbers 24:19 (have dominion, NASB); this is Balaam’s prophesy.

15. 1 Kings 4:24 (had dominion, NASB); Psalm 72:8 (rule, NASB). Since Psalm 72 is Messianic prophesy, this use of “rule” also refers to the Messiah’s rule. However, since the context is comparison with the rule of Solomon, it seems appropriate to group Psalm 72:8 with 1 Kings 4:24.

16. 1 Kings 5:15, 9:23; 2 Chronicles 8:10 (ruled, NASB).

17. Nehemiah 9:28 (rule, NASB).

18. Psalm 49:14 (rule, NASB). The severity is less clear in this instance, but the context of the psalm is that good people triumph over the wicked after death—even if the wicked may triumph in life.

19. Psalm 68:27 (ruling, NASB). Although the antecedent of “them” is ambiguous, it is unlikely that the antecedent is “the princes of Judah” since Benjamin ruled Judah only during the reign of Saul and the context of the Psalm is God’s defeat of His enemies and bringing them under the rule of God’s people

20. Psalm 110:2 (rule, NASB). Although precise meaning of the phrase that the Messiah will “rule in the midst of [his] enemies” is not clear, the context of the psalm implies absolute Messianic control, in particular His judgment of the nations (Psalm 110:6, NAS) after He “shatter[s] kings” (Psalm 110:5, NASB).

21. Isaiah 14:2, 6 (rule, subdued, NASB).

22. Jeremiah 5:31 (rule, NASB). The context of this passage is the unfaithfulness of the people of Judah, which will bring about conquest by Babylon. Although the passage makes clear that the unfaithful majority “love” the fact that unfaithful priests ignore God’s laws, the book of Jeremiah also details how these unfaithful priests severely persecuted those who followed God, like Jeremiah, Uriah, and Baruch.

23. Ezekiel 29:15 (rule, NASB).

24. Ezekiel 34:4 (dominated, NASB).

25. Esther 7:8 (assault, NASB).

26. Leviticus 25:43, 46, 53 (rule, NASB).

27. Deuteronomy 15:18 (NASB).

28. 1 Kings 5:15, 9:23; 2 Chronicles 8:10 (ruled, NASB).

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Mr. Daniel J. Dyke received his Master of Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary 1981 and currently serves as Professor of Old Testament at Cincinnati Christian University in Cincinnati, OH.

Dr. Hugh Henry received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Virginia in 1971, retired after 26 years at Varian Medical Systems, and currently serves as Lecturer in Physics at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, KY.

Keith McPherson

Keith McPherson received his Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1993, and currently works as an electrical engineer in Melbourne, FL, in the fields of communications and signal processing.

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It’s no secret that we are highly dependent on electronic devices. We use them for managing schedules, communicating, staying “connected,” and storing, managing, and using various media such as music, photographs, and videos. These information processing devices have become an integral part of our everyday lives. It is vitally important that these devices utilize robust methods to protect the integrity of the data that is stored and processed by them.

Information theory, information processing, and error control coding¹ are relevant fields behind the technological systems and devices of our time. Engineers work diligently to protect the integrity of data processed by various terrestrial and satellite communications systems in place today. These systems and associated machines enable reliable communications on a truly global scale. Critical to successful communications and reliable information processing are coding techniques² that engineers have discovered and developed. These techniques play an important role in maintaining the high reliability of data in spite of many error-inducing characteristics of a typical communications link. As remarkable as this technology is, it turns out that within our own cells there exists an even more elegant set of information processing miracles.

Strict and rigorous analogies of information processing systems and several man-made coding techniques occur in nature, specifically in genes. In this series, we will explore the genetic system and will see that it is actually an information processing system.

Genetic System Overview³

The so-called “central dogma of molecular biology” acknowledges that, at the most fundamental level, the construction of proteins involves a one-way flow of information. Proteins are the workhorses of the cell and are vital for all cell functions. Information for protein construction is stored in the cell’s DNA, which is contained in the nucleus. From the nucleus, DNA is transcribed to mRNA; mRNA then takes the information out of the nucleus into the cytoplasm for protein construction. At the ribosome, the process of translation takes the information copied into the mRNA and builds the sequences of amino acids, which will eventually fold to construct the protein. This entire process is called protein synthesis. The flow of protein-building information from DNA—and also in DNA replication—shows that the cell’s bio-machinery is an information-based system.

Every cell nucleus contains DNA composed of two long strands of nucleotides. The set of nucleotides (adenosine, guanosine, cytidine, and thymidine) used comprise a four-letter chemical alphabet (A, G, C, T). The combinations that arise from this alphabet describe how to construct each and every protein in the cell. Each strand of the DNA is complementary to the other strand, and they are intertwined to form the famous double helix. Coding portions of DNA describing the construction of proteins are called genes.

The structure of RNA is similar to that of DNA, with the main exception that RNA consists of a single strand, and so is not characterized by a double helix. Also, uridine replaces thymidine so that the nucleotide alphabet for RNA is A, G, C, U. Three sequential nucleotides form a codon, the fundamental unit that describes the amino acid sequence that forms the protein. As an example, the codon AUC codes for the amino acid isoleucine.

Sequences of amino acids are constructed to form polypeptide chains. These chains fold into complex 3-D shapes determined in part by the chemical forces and bonds within the amino acid sequences. Polypeptide chains assemble to complete the construction of the protein. DNA has to specify one amino acid at each link in the chain. Out of more than 80 possible amino acids (each with right- and left-handed versions), only 20 left-handed ones are relevant for biological systems.

The genetic code refers to the mapping between the codon in the DNA and the 20 biologically relevant amino acids. Since there are 4³ = 64 possible codons, and there are 20 amino acids, there is redundancy in the code (~3x) and many mappings are possible. Moreover, since there are different degrees of similarity between the 20 relevant amino acids, the specific details of the mapping become very important. In the event that one of the nucleotides in the codon is in error, a good mapping chooses a replacement amino acid as similar as possible to the desired one, thereby maximizing the possibility of a functional protein in spite of the error.

Error Control Coding and Genetic Information Processing

Given that living systems process information, there exist several good reasons to expect error-correcting codes to be in operation:

Life itself depends on robust information transfer.

There are real impairments that must be overcome. For example, though mutations already exist within their genomes, organisms maintain functionality.

The low error rates observed in the genetic system demand an adequate explanation.

Genetic information is inherently digital in nature (i.e., genetic information is specified using a finite set of discrete objects) and is characterized by redundancy.

Furthermore, in the words of leading researcher, Gail Rosen,

Since DNA is a finite, symbolic sequence, it is natural to extend the use of coding theory to sequence analysis.⁴

Redundancy, the most basic property for any error-correction scheme, exists within the genetic system. All error-correction schemes require redundancy in the coded data protected by that scheme. At its root, the genetic mapping code exhibits such redundancy, and coded genetic sequences themselves also exhibit redundancy. Other leading researchers comment,

All the methods of error-control coding are based on the adding of redundancy to the transmitted information. As the genetic information is redundant, and since the genetic code is also redundant itself, the possible existence of error-control mechanisms represents a somehow natural hypothesis related to the biological task of ensuring a high degree of reliability in the transmission and expression of genetic information.⁵

We have established that living beings are information-processing systems, and that the genetic communications system is ideal for digital information-processing and error-control coding. In future articles, we turn our attention to a few analogies between modern digital communications systems and genetic information processing.

Notes/References:

1. In general, the techniques we will discuss in this series fall under three broad categories: error-correcting codes, error-detecting codes, and Gray coding. “Forward error correction (FEC)” and “error-control codes” are terms also commonly used to refer to error-correcting codes in the technical literature. See here and here for a brief introduction to error-correcting and error-detecting codes. See here for a brief introduction to Gray codes.

2. See note 1.

3. See 6, 7, and 8 for complementary overviews of the genetic system and further evidence for design in the genetic system.

4. Gail Rosen, “Examining Coding Structure and Redundancy in DNA,” IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine 25 (Jan. - Feb. 2006): 62 - 68.

5. D. L. Gonzalez, S. Giannerini, R. Rosa, “Detecting Structure in Parity Binary Sequences,” IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine25 (Jan. - Feb. 2006): 69 - 81.

6. Fazale Rana, “Biochemical Synonyms Optimized, Part 1 (of 2) ,” Today’s New Reason To Believe, August 21, 2008.

7. Fazale Rana, “Biochemical Synonyms Optimized, Part 2 (of 2),” Today’s New Reason To Believe, August 28, 2008.

8. Fazale Rana, “FYI: I.D. in DNA; Deciphering Design in the Genetic Code,” Facts for Faith, Quarter 1, 2002, 14 - 23.