The creation account of Gen 1 ends with the declaration, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31 ESV). The key issue boils down to what is meant by the expression “very good.” Old-earth creationists and young-earth creationists agree that this is the issue about which they have the most disagreement. More than the proper interpretation of Gen 1-3, the age of the earth, or even the theory of evolution, this is the question that stands above all others: Did animals die before Adam and Eve fell in the Garden?
The fossil record presents us with a troubling past. It reveals a history of predation, disease, and intrinsic selfishness. The problem of immense suffering in the natural world was not lost on Darwin. In a letter to J. D. Hooker he observed, “What a book a Devil’s chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low & horridly cruel works of nature!” Later Darwinists echo his opinion. David Hull asks, “What kind of God [would create the] Galapagos Islands?…The God of the Galapagos is careless, wasteful, indifferent, almost diabolical. He is certainly not the sort of God to whom anyone would be inclined to pray.” They see the tragic history of the fossil record as difficult to reconcile with the Christian understanding of the benevolent nature of God. So, was there animal death before the Fall? Various Christians hold to four different views: one that answers “no” and three that say “yes.”
Answer One: No—There Was No Animal Death Prior to the Fall. Arguing for the first view, Kurt Wise and Ken Ham contend that no creatures, including insects and bacteria, experienced death before Adam’s fall. For them and other young-earth proponents, the question of animal death goes to the very heart of the authority of Scripture and the nature of God.
Answer Two: Yes—But Animal Death Was Still Caused by Adam. William Dembski presents a second view. He makes the interesting argument that, though animal death predated the events of Gen 3, their deaths still are the outcome of Adam’s sin. Adam’s fall, like Jesus’ atonement, was a cosmic event, and as such had retroactive effects.
Answer Three: Yes—Animal Death Was Caused by Satan. Still others, such as C.S. Lewis and Charles Foster give a third view. They suggest that natural evil came about with the arrival of the first evildoer—Lucifer. Satan committed the initial moral evil when he rebelled against God sometime in the primeval past, and in so doing brought about natural evil. Therefore, suffering and death existed before Adam and Eve arrived on the scene.
Answer Four: Yes—Animal Death Was Caused by God. Finally, some such as Hugh Ross, David Snoke and Mark Whorton, say that animals died before Adam’s fall, but they do not hesitate to attribute the cause of death to God. They argue that the nature and purpose of death changed when Adam and Eve rebelled.
Personally, I find myself leaning towards the third answer—that Lucifer’s rebellion was a cosmic event, and it had cosmic effects. We need to remember that Adam joined a rebellion that was already underway. In addition, the biblical record seems to indicate that the Garden was a special place, unlike the rest of the world. If animal death existed prior the fall of the original couple, then this might explain the necessity of the Garden. This would also shed light on God’s mandate to Adam and Eve that they were to make the rest of the world look like Eden. Unfortunately, they failed their mission miserably. Thank God for the Second Adam, Who succeeded where the first Adam did not (1 Cor 15:22, 45)! (Adapted from 40 Questions about Creation and Evolution)
