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Death before the fall?

Dinosaurs might not have died for human sins
— but Jesus surely did!

Discussions about the compatibility of faith and scientific understandings like evolution and Earth’s age raise an uncomfortable question: did animals die before the Fall? The Scriptural debate primarily lies in interpreting Genesis and Romans, which differ among evangelical scholars. Genesis 1 declares creation as "very good,"¹ but scholars disagree on whether it means absolute perfection, divine approval, or something else.² The provision of "green plants for food"³ implies pre-Fall plant death. It is debated whether this permission implies a prohibition against other foods like microorganisms, insects, or animals.⁴ In Romans 5:12, scholars debate whether "death came through sin"⁵ links sin to biological or spiritual death, and whether it applies to just humans or includes other non-plant species,⁶ which is further complicated by the question of classifying microorganisms, insects, fungi, etc. Many excellent studies analyze these passages, yet exegesis fails to definitively answer whether animals die before the Fall, allowing faithful Christians to hold differing views.

We will instead take a different approach, analyzing the relation of God’s goodness and animal death. This paper attempts to show that Christians need not insist on a deathless pre-Fall to protect God’s character. The insistence on animal death as a result of the Fall is not theologically necessary, and tying God's goodness to it is a spiritually dangerous and flawed theodicy.

The Problem

How can a good God create animals that die? This is a key issue motivating the insistence on a deathless pre-Fall. Some argue that an old Earth or evolution undermines the gospel message “because it puts death [and] suffering before the Fall,”⁷ and “death before man’s sin is an attack on [God’s character].”⁸ If animal death occurred pre-Fall, animal death can no longer be explained with human sin. Thus, at the core, the insistence of no animal death pre-Fall is driven by not just exegesis but a desire to protect God’s character. It serves as a theodicy: God created a perfect world, humans broke it, and therefore humans are to blame for animal death. Even critics of Young Earth Creationism often adopt this logic, positing an angelic fall or backward-reaching effects of sin to explain animal death.

While this defense of God’s goodness is well-intentioned, it is theologically problematic:

1. It does not work.
2. It risks rashly judging God’s creation as bad.
3. It bases faith in God’s goodness on a fragile foundation.

1. Does free-will theodicy work for animal death?

First, explaining animal death with human sin fails to protect God’s character or solve the mystery of death’s existence. As Jenson notes, sin is an impossibility “that nevertheless happened:” sin is what God does not want, and what God does not want is impossible.⁹ If we explain animal death with human sin, one can ask why God allows humans to sin. Why did God design a world where billions of animals die if humans sin? Is creating a perfect world corruptible by a single human action really better than directly creating death? We are back to square one of the problem of evil.

Using sin to justify the evil of animal death does not solve the mystery. It only pushes the problem up one level. Moreover, it actually attacks God’s providence and sovereignty. It assumes that if humans cause something, God is not in control. Placing evil outside God's authority reduces God to a distant bystander, or a power in competition with other powers (like sin and human agency), rather than the sovereign God of all creation.¹⁰

2. Is animal death inherently evil?

Second, because Scripture and theological reflection admit arguments on both sides of whether animal death is inherently evil, confidently asserting it as evil risks rashly judging God’s creation.

Scripture includes both positive and negative references to animal death. Isaiah 11 portrays the eschatological peaceful kingdom with imageries of “wolf [living] with the lamb” and “lion [eating] straw,” implying the removal of predation as good.¹¹ Paul writes, “the last enemy to be destroyed is death.”¹² Although Paul clearly views death negatively, expounders debate whether it refers to human death, biological death, spiritual death, etc. In contrast, Psalm 104 praises God for sustaining predation: “the young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God.”¹³ In Job 38-39, God rhetorically asks, “Who provides for the raven its prey?”¹⁴ If predation is a corruption by human sin, it seems unlikely God would cite his provision for lion, raven, and the eagle whose "young ones suck up blood" as evidence of his sovereign goodness.¹⁵

Theologians also hold different views. Some, like Theophilus of Antioch, assert that predation resulted from the Fall, since animals are not “made [hunters] or venomous from the first.”¹⁶ Others view predation as part of God’s good creation. When speaking of “the spectacle of creation,” Basil the Great praised God not just for creating “the [four] stomachs of ruminating [herbivores],” but also for giving “pointed teeth” to carnivorous animals and giving “short necks [for eating] animals” to “bears, lions, tigers.”¹⁷ Aquinas rejects the view that predators once “lived on herbs” as “unreasonable,” because “the nature of animals was not changed by man's sin.”¹⁸ Augustine keenly observes that we often judge God’s creation “not by their nature, but by their utility,” and deem a creature evil when it hurts us.¹⁹ Augustine states that “viper and little worm,” which produce poison and rot, are created good.²⁰ The Fall caused us to perceive them as evil, like how God’s “righteousness displeases the wicked” or light feels “painful to sore eyes.”²¹, ²² He urges people to carefully investigate the goodness of different creatures instead of “[presuming to find] fault with [God’s creation]” out of our “vanity of human rashness.”²³ Modern theologians like Sonderegger view biological death as a sacrifice, a holy, natural, and perfect end.²⁴

When judging animal death as evil, we are, by extension, denouncing the creation of any mortal creatures, intricate balances of ecological systems, and the fascinating biology of apex predators. By speaking with more certainty than Scripture and tradition, we risk rashly judging God’s creation and elevating ourselves to be judges of God.

3. What is our basis of faith?

Third, anchoring God’s goodness on a deathless pre-Fall is spiritually dangerous and hinders the gospel. Such faith rests on a fragile foundation of a debated interpretation of Scripture, increasingly threatened by scientific discoveries, and already contradicted by countless fossil records and scientific studies. Having God’s goodness dependent on rejecting evidence for or the possibility of pre-Fall death burdens both believers and seekers. A 2011 study found 23% of young ex-Christians cited the “creation-versus-evolution debate” as a reason for deconstruction.²⁵ Moreover, 49% of religious and 47% of non-religious university students indicated that “[one has to] reject [the] existence or influence of a God in order to accept evolution.”²⁶ If we base our faith in God’s goodness in a deathless pre-Fall, we are losing focus on the gospel: God proved his goodness “in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”²⁷

Instead of treating death as a problem to be solved rationally, we should acknowledge that it is a mystery, it causes grief, but God is sovereign over it. Faith demands us taking God at his word and trust in His goodness, not believing in a specific exegesis that makes God look good according to our modern sensibilities. We must hold by faith two truths simultaneously: God is not the author of evil, and God truly rules over all things, including death.²⁸ Our faith in God’s goodness rests not on a deathless pre-Fall, but the gospel: the death and resurrection of Jesus. The gospel is the response to all suffering, death, and evil, and it gives us the firm hope that God can bring good out of all things, including death.

In conclusion, holding to a deathless pre-Fall is not Scripturally or theologically necessary. The Christian hope and God’s goodness lie in Christ’s death and resurrection, not a deathless prehistoric past.