Death Existed Before The Fall

"Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned . . ."
--Romans 5:12


The issue of the condition of the world before the Fall can be ignored by preachers and Christians due to its proximity to controversies about Genesis, theistic evolution, and origins in general.  But I've noticed that some Christians either directly claim or strongly imply that before the infamous Fall there was no such thing as death whatsoever.  This is a wildly inaccurate belief that fails to acknowledge obvious truths about reality.

Only this morning I shared a stimulating conversation with several Christians about this matter, with one of the discussion members expressing skepticism about the idea that animal death occurred before humanity's expulsion from Eden.  I will summarize the explanation I provided in response below.

The Bible clearly teaches that human death did not exist prior to the Fall.  Romans 5:12, which I quoted at the top of this post, proves this, but neither the Bible nor science allows for an Edenic universe without any death at all.  Before sin, which carries an inevitable death sentence (Romans 6:23), humans would have lived without the threat of death in the greatest terrestrial pleasure and comfort imaginable.  But, as I said, this does not mean that the same is true about any other life forms (attempts to argue otherwise will have to resort to a non sequitur fallacy or the fallacy of composition).  This truth has many opponents.

There are those who, for instance, insist that the teeth of carnivorous dinosaurs seem capable of serving as great devices for chewing plants, thus nullifying the need for God to have created such creatures as carnivores.  There are some who assert that God would never include death as part of the initial creation order because such a state is not good.  All of these defenses of a death-free Eden cannot be justified Biblically or otherwise.  Whether dinosaurs we classify as carnivores had sharp teeth originally intended to eat plants (as some creationists argue) or not, even if every living organism on the planet was an herbivore, the death of non-human creatures was still unavoidably necessary.  If eating was a mandatory part of life for any organism, then death of non-humans was a mandatory part of existence in a creation that God declared "very good" (Genesis 1:31).  This may contradict the feelings or presuppositions of some, but neither feelings nor presuppositions were ever reliable indicators of something's veracity.

 

Death in the plant kingdom is absolutely necessary before or after the Fall
in order for any living creature to eat.  Death in the animal kingdom before
the Fall is not an impossible notion, although this subject is often avoided
by Christians and pastors at the popular level.

So far I've proven that the Bible teaches the complete absence of human death pre-Fall and that at least plants must die in a world where any creature at all needs to eat.  Neither point is contradicted by the possibility of pre-Fall animal death as well--even animal death caused by predatory animals.  It is entirely logically possible for a world to exist where animals kill plants and other animals yet do not attack or slay humans.  Some may view this as undesirable or even not how Eden should be, yet no one's preferences or feelings have any effect on changing how things are.

If any organism needed to eat before the Fall, then non--human death of some sort was an indispensable requirement for a world without sin and the effects on nature and life that followed.  Christian apologists need to be capable of proving this point to both Christian and secular audiences so that basic Biblical and scientific errors are avoided.