What to do With Pre-fall Animal Death?

What to do with pre-fall animal death? Evolutionary Creationism

Introduction

I have argued that the scriptures teach death before the fall, and the term "very good" does not mean perfect but rather beautiful and functional. This article is a sequel to those. I will propose some possible theodicies explaining the animal death that transpired before the fall of the specially created creatures. 

A quick note 

Before we get into the two theodicies, I want to make a quick point. Theologically, the suffering of animals is not as significant as the suffering of humans. The reason is that God created humans in his image, nothing else (Gen 1:26-30). This is the theological reason why murder is wrong (Gen 9:6). It is written, “With it {The tongue} we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people made in God’s image” (NET, Brackets mine). Moo (2021), commenting on this verse, says, “... What makes cursing especially evil is that the one whom we pronounce damned has been made in Gods image… Reflecting common Jewish tradition” (P. 163). None of this applies to animals. There are reasons to care for other creatures (thatchristiannerd, 2024; Prov 12:10), but it is not as significant. We image God on earth. Animals do not. That said, here are some possible theodicies for dealing with animal suffering. 

Fallen Beings 

It is written, 

"And the Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.” Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job?" (Job 1:7).

The fallen angel theodices discuss the relation between spiritual beings and evil. The theodicy is articulated differently by different people (Ortlund, 2023a). In this case, I mean some of the corruption of the animal world is to be blamed on fallen spiritual beings. One of the premiere cases of this can be seen in Job. The text tells us that the satan figure is the one who killed Job's animals and controlled natural forces (1:16-19). As I have argued, a spiritual being blamed for Jobs' suffering (Thatchristiannerd, 2024). 

Many people in Jewish and Christian traditions believed that angels affected the physical world. Specifically about animals, texts like the Book of Giants tell us angels breed with animals, creating monsters and corrupting nature (GSL, N.d.). It was common for Christians to believe in the Enoch fallen angel theodicy, by which angels mated with women to produce giants and corrupted nature (intertextual bible, n.d.). That view was undisputed until the middle of the third century (Bradshaw, 1998). Christians often believed that angels were part of the creation and had rule over it, thus they could corrupt or uncorrupt it based on their rule (Ortlund, 2023a). Based on these assessments, we could argue that spiritual beings can and have negatively affected the natural world. 

Good Death 

It is written, “The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God… How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures” (Ps 104:21 and 24, NIV). This passage of the psalm gives evidence of the wisdom and sovereignty of God by pointing to a carnivorous animal, an animal that kills and eats meat to survive. To heighten the point, the author later says, “All creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time” (v27). Given these verses and more (Ps 147:9), one could argue that killing to survive in the animal kingdom is not bad in and of itself. 

This was also the argument of many church fathers. Dr. Ortlund (2023b) discusses Augustine's view of animal death and says, “Augustine defended animal death before the fall… He almost sort of glories in it” (22:22-22:28). Ortlund argues that Augustine did so because there is a beauty to animals passing from existence to non-existence. According to him, Augustine thought the only reason why we surmise animal death is evil is because we only see the world in part, not in the whole as God does. Basil and later Thomas Aquinas affirm the same view, warning people not to make improper judgments about the character of God based on the fact that he produced this (Ortlund, 2023b). 

Conclusion

To conclude, fallen angels and good death theodicies are available for Christians. The two work from biblical and theological frameworks. Other views are on offer for the Christian, this is not a dichotomy. I find that these two have biblical support and fit within church tradition. Either way, the goal of the last article and this one is to show that God should not be accused of evil like so many YECs do for allowing (even commanding) animal death before the fall. I think this has been successfully demonstrated based on these articles. 

What is the subsequent article topic? Well, part of the reason why I spent the last three articles talking about death was because death is required for evolution to take place. Not that I was moved by science first (again it was biblical observations first for me), but it is still a prerequisite. Another biblical reason why I left YEC and another reason to hold to evolution is the existence of a “pre-adamic race”. So why not discuss that next?

Sources:

Bradshaw, I. R. (1998). Creationism and the early church. From https://www.robibradshaw.com/chapter5.htm 

GSL (n.d.). The dead sea scrolls: Book of giants. Retrieved from http://www.gnosis.org/library/dss/dss_book_of_giants.htm 

Image by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Intertextual. Bible | biblical intertextuality | 1 enoch 19:1 | Justin Martyr second apology 5. (n.d.). Retrieved July 5, 2024, from https://intertextual.bible/text/1-enoch-19.1-justin-martyr-second-apology-5 

Moo, J. D. (2021). The Letter of James: Vol. Second edition. IVP. 

Ortlund, G. (2023a). Did Satan’s fall corrupt nature? Truth Unites. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0G-3eFHeq8 

Ortlund, G. (2023b). Would Augustine embrace evolution? Truth Unites. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPELTZT_e9U

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