Did God create animals to live for a while and then die?
- Thread starter Sevenz
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Aaron the Tall
Member
I hesitate to equate any promises about the future Kingdom with what the original creation was like. If the perfect future Kingdom required Jesus' death and rise to kingship to come about, then you couldn't have it at the start of creation. However "good" the original creation was - it wasn't "perfect." Any goodness of the original creation will pale in comparison to the future Kingdom.
yourpoint?
Member
Genesis 1:30, And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
The first animal death we have record of is God making coats for Adam and Eve from animal skins to hide their nakedness which was exposed by sin.. It would be no hard thing for animal life to be resurrected. Those dead animals still exist in some form today somewhere.
musterion
Well-known member
Where's it say this?
Aaron the Tall
Member
The first record of God or Man killing an animal is in that verse - because there is something very significant about that instance. If there was animal death before the fall (which I think there was) - it wouldn't necessarily appear in a verse if it was just the ordinary way of things.
yourpoint?
Member
Do you know what happens when wood burns, when mater decomposes? Nothing ever goes away; it changes form. Can you mention one existing thing that will cease to exist?
yourpoint?
Member
Why do you think there was death before the fall; there could have been.
musterion
Well-known member
Where's it say this?
Hello, and thank you very much for expressing your thoughts relative to the questions I had and the answers I am seeking.
You asked a most important question, and I'm really anxious to hear/see what the person will have to say.
MY PERSONAL THOUGHTS:
It is taught that life in the Garden of Eden was paradisiac, meaning that Adam & Eve lived in a Paradise so that they had ideal conditions and everything they needed to experience the bliss of complete happiness. QUESTION: If the animals did in fact die "before the fall," then how would it be possible for Adam and his family to be completely happy with DEATH being a common occurrence? What person is it that can view even a dead sparrow lying on the ground and not feel a sense of sorrow? What person is it that does not feel grief when witnessing the death of a dog that he or she has bonded with? "The words "death" and "garden of pleasure" are not compatible with one another. There is no pleasure in death or the sight of it. It seems to me that the weight of the debate lies in favor of the animals did NOT die prior to the fall.
Please let me know what you think.
yourpoint?
Member
I agree that what we know as 'death' is mostly a sense of loss or grief. Before the curse, maybe it wasn't so. But I agree with you and one reason I do is because there were no carnivores in the Garden of Eden. Death entered the world through sin, but does that mean that plants didn't die before the curse? What about when they were eaten?
Death as we know it was not in the Garden of Eden before sin entered.
yourpoint?
Member
Aaron the Tall
Member
I can't necessarily point to a Bible verse - but I think there was death out of necessity. Consider the alternative. If animals lived forever, the smallest, quickest reproducing animals like mice would multiply exponentially, and would soon out-compete larger animals for resources. How long before the world would have been covered in mice? Nature needs checks and balances so that everybody survives. I also have a hard time attributing massive "evolution" to the fall. Did whales "evolve" baleen after the fall? Baleen is one of those features that are perfectly designed to feed off other living creatures.
It was likely less than a week from the creation of Adam to the Fall.
No time for any death to occur.
See https://kgov.com/13
yourpoint?
Member
I hear you; however, something happened when Adam ate from the tree, whatever that was, and it affected more than Man.
oatmeal
Well-known member
What God tells us we have the opportunity to learn, what God's word does not tell us, we do not have the opportunity to learn.
Those things that God has not revealed is not available for us to know, that, regarding truth.
Did death exist before the sins of Adam and Eve? It did not for Adam and Eve it seems, for with sin came death.
Did that apply to animals? Certainly, we have no record, as far as I know, in the word of God of animals dying in paradise, the garden of Eden.
If there is such a reference in the word of God, that would be useful to know, if not, so what, are there not bigger issues at hand?
If humans and animals didn't die, the earth would be very crowded and we wouldn't have much to eat? It would be troubling to live with the ancient dinosaurs.
I believe the earth was already evolved, populated and fallen when 2 full grown educated adults, Adam and Eve came down from heaven. Death or translation was/is normal, except for Adam and Eve who, after being outmaneuvered by the "Crafty Beast" and chose to "sin" themselves, lost their own special immortality status, which was sustained by their unique ability to eat from "the tree of life". Sin brought death to Adam and Eve not the entire human race.
The beast was already evil, already fallen people! Cain had good reason to fear people out in the world.
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I would suggest that if there was a time when God intended animals to live forever He must have also intended for them to never have offspring as well, or the planet would have quickly become a vast wasteland of extinct creatures because of the shortage of available food to feed them all.