We had a neighborhood gathering at my house, I got into a heated debate with a college student. I was defending the Bible well, then he said that if God made all animals equal, how come there are extinct animals. Then everything got very quiet as they were about to cut a cake. I’m pretty sure I got spared some serious humiliation. How do I respond to him the next time we meet. He invited me to his birthday party. I’m sure he will bring up the same question.<\/p>\n
Thank you!<\/p>\n\t
A logical argument can be decomposed into a series of premises. Premises are statements of facts. They are then combined in some fashion to lead to a conclusion. The student’s argument can be laid out as:<\/p>\n
Premise 1: God made all animals equal.<\/p>\n
Premise 2: Some animals are extinct.<\/p>\n
Conclusion: God didn’t make the animals.<\/p>\n
Premise 2 is correct. But where can you find premise 1? I don’t find the Bible ever saying all animals are equal, instead we find praise for various animals for the different traits they exhibit. For example, Job 39-41. Premise 1 is false. A false premise means the entire argument is false.<\/p>\n
“Equality” is one of those words people like to toss around without ever quantifying it. Equal in what way? Is equality even required? For example, God is said to be impartial. That is He judges all men by the same rules regardless of their position (Romans 2:11). But the Bible doesn’t say God treats all men equally, else all of mankind would go to heaven or hell. Some people are rich, some are poor, some are born healthy, some have handicaps — we are not all the same in every aspect of life. But in regards to the standard by which we are judged, there we are all treated in the same fashion (Galatians 3:28).<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: We had a neighborhood gathering at my house, I got into a heated debate with a college student. I was defending the Bible well, then he said that if God made all animals equal, how come there are extinct animals. Then everything got very quiet as they were about to cut a cake. I’m…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[37,302],"class_list":["post-39111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-apologetics","tag-creation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":21346,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/if-god-wanted-us-to-eat-meat-why-did-he-give-animals-defenses\/","url_meta":{"origin":39111,"position":0},"title":"If God wanted us to eat meat, why did He give animals defenses?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: If God wanted us really to eat meat, then why did He make animals with senses? Why give animals some kind of self-defense? If really Noah's word is true, why don't you eat the flesh of a tiger every day? Why don't you yourself go and kill a python\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26579,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-bible-and-dinosaurs\/","url_meta":{"origin":39111,"position":1},"title":"The Bible and Dinosaurs","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 27, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Don Martin The word dinosaur, as such, is not found in the Bible. We must remember that man has named many of the animals today. The word dinosaur is associated with the Greek \"dino,\" meaning terrible. There are animals named in the Bible concerning which we have no definite\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Brontosaurus-300x213.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":21282,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-could-dinosaurs-have-evolved-into-hundreds-of-species-and-then-go-extinct-in-the-few-thousand-years-since-the-flood\/","url_meta":{"origin":39111,"position":2},"title":"How could dinosaurs have evolved into hundreds of species and then go extinct in the few thousand years since the flood?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: So you believe that two \"dinosaurs\" were on Noah's ark for over a year, left the ark (where there must have been little to no vegetation), multiplied, evolved into hundreds of different kinds of \"dinosaurs,\" lived for thousands of years, side by side with man, went extinct and became\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9578,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/isnt-the-raising-of-animals-disrespectful-of-the-animals-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":39111,"position":3},"title":"Isn’t the raising of animals disrespectful of the animal’s life?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Essentially everything that is edible can be food, but how we make that selection is what makes the difference.\u00a0 I noticed that most people who defend indiscriminate meat-eating look at all life and automatically revert to the thought process of \"how can it benefit me\".\u00a0 There is a huge\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28873,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-makes-some-animals-clean-while-others-not\/","url_meta":{"origin":39111,"position":4},"title":"What makes some animals clean while others not?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 9, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: When God has created animals, he saw \"it was good\" (Genesis 1:25). Then why he told Noah that there are unclean animals (Genesis 7:2)? Aren't all animals created by God and \"it was good\"? What makes some animals clean while others not? Answer: If you look at the list\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4221,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/god-wouldnt-allow-his-creation-to-kill-each-other\/","url_meta":{"origin":39111,"position":5},"title":"God wouldn’t allow His creation to kill each other","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Jesus might have eaten fish, but by no means did he or God say ''Let us kill everything that walks.'' If he said that we could eat meat, then why on earth would killing a human be murder? We are all equal. That's what the Lord says. Therefore, none\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}