Animals Eat Other Animals Before the Fall?

[germys9]

Actually, the Church does not have a definitive teaching on this.

Your own signature logically contradicts your answer. Plants are living beings. Therefore, animals that eat only plants still “kill” a living being. There would still be death. The only logically consistent view you can hold if you claim there was absolutely no death before the fall is that animals did not eat or ate non-living beings such as rocks.

If you read the Genesis account carefully, Adam and Eve were not necessarily created immortal (Genesis 3:22).

That is no definitive teaching on whether animals ate each other before the fall.

1008 Death is a consequence of sin. The Church’s Magisterium, as authentic interpreter of the affirmations of Scripture and Tradition, teaches that death entered the world on account of man’s sin.571 Even though man’s nature is mortal God had destined him not to die. Death was therefore contrary to the plans of God the Creator and entered the world as a consequence of sin.572 “Bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned” is thus “the last enemy” of man left to be conquered.573

And the Catechism quote is referring to man. The fact that we were created mortal shows us that animals were too. God destined man not to die as a gift. Of course, after the fall the gift was taken away. It is not logically necessary to assume that animals were ever offered this gift. Therefore, it is reasonably to conclude that they died before the fall, which means death was possible, which means there is no reason to believe they acted contrary to their nature as created by God. Therefore some animals ate other animals.

 

[edwest2]

They must have.

At the very, very, very, very earliest, the Fall could conceivably have happened around 7 Million BC, and is probably far more recent (circa 100,000 BC). Meanwhile, we have strong evidence favoring carnivorous life on Earth throughout the billions of years between the emergence of bacterial life and the rise of lingual, immortally ensouled Man.

Ergo, animals ate other animals before the Fall. For once, science sheds light on a theological question. This happens much more rarely than Science would like to think, but it does happen from time to time.

EDIT: It is worth clarifying that immortally ensouled humans did not live in death or sin before the Fall. Hence the quotations Luke65 references in his signature.

Animals eating other animals is not a disorder in the state of nature. God did not design natural beings, without immortal souls, to be immortal in the flesh. They have always been bound to the world of flesh and death. Humans are remarkable because God created us to be the exceptions to that rule, to hold dominion over this transient world and be permanent within it.

Thus there is no contradiction between the teaching that sin and death entered the world at the Fall and the rather plain fact that death was a reality for natural creatures before the creation of Man.

“no contradiction”? Unless you can cite a peer reviewed, scientific paper with a title like - “Analysis of Claims Made in the Book of Geneisis in the Christian Bible” then all we have here is speculation.

If the Bible is not a science book then please don’t attempt to analyze it without sound scientific data to back up the claim. Science cannot study God, the soul or The Fall. The Catholic Church teaches us that The Fall was an actual historical event and the Church tells us that God created Adam and Eve. Further, God made Eve from Adam’s Side. Unless you can provide a scientific paper that explains all this, I think it would be reasonable to conclude that God can do things only God can do.

God bless,
Ed

 

[twinc]

Actually, the Church does not have a definitive teaching on this.

Your own signature logically contradicts your answer. Plants are living beings. Therefore, animals that eat only plants still “kill” a living being. There would still be death. The only logically consistent view you can hold if you claim there was absolutely no death before the fall is that animals did not eat or ate non-living beings such as rocks.

If you read the Genesis account carefully, Adam and Eve were not necessarily created immortal (Genesis 3:22).

careful eating of plants and berries and fruits and veg and grass does not kill - Genesis.3:22 states that Adam was to be prevented from living forever in misery and seperation from God - twinc

 

[Wowbagger]

“no contradiction”? Unless you can cite a peer reviewed, scientific paper with a title like - “Analysis of Claims Made in the Book of Geneisis in the Christian Bible” then all we have here is speculation.

If the Bible is not a science book then please don’t attempt to analyze it without sound scientific data to back up the claim. Science cannot study God, the soul or The Fall. The Catholic Church teaches us that The Fall was an actual historical event and the Church tells us that God created Adam and Eve. Further, God made Eve from Adam’s Side. Unless you can provide a scientific paper that explains all this, I think it would be reasonable to conclude that God can do things only God can do.

Umm… what? I only made one scientific claim in the course of my original post. That claim was: carnivorous behavior in animals is evidenced in the fossil record considerably prior to the rise of Man as a species. If you want a “peer-reviewed, scientific paper” to support that utterly uncontroversial, scientific claim, I can provide thousands. (And so can you! We have an amazing newfangled technology today called “Google,” which can tell you all sorts of awesome cool things about the fossil record!)

I also made one single historical claim: that the Fall (a historical event) happened sometime after the appearance of Man as a species. I put this event in a very, very, very wide date range, and included everything from austrolopithecus to homo sapiens sapiens, because the fact of the matter is we don’t know where along the line Man was ensouled by God and created in His image. However, one way or another, the Fall had to happen after the creation of Man, which means the Fall, as a historical event, happened sometime after 7 million B.C. This, too, is an utterly uncontroversial claim, at least on these boards, because it is exactly what the Church teaches. Moreover, because the Fall was a historical event, which included material causes and effects, it is the proper subject of scientific study, as well as theological and historical study.

The rest of my post was, indeed, speculation – but it was not scientific speculation. It was theological speculation. I attempted, in the best tradition of Catholic philosophical thought, to reconcile Scriptural passages with history and science – i.e. to discern reality. Since faith and reason are in union according to the Church, and since revealed truth and practical truth can never contradict (again, according to the Church), resolving apparent contradictions between revelation and scientific knowledge is a crucial part of Catholic thought.

Your conclusion, on the other hand, that “God can do things only God can do,” is a useless tautology, the sort of trite truism an Evangelical Protestant uses to evade a Thomistic smackdown.

In conclusion, my theology is debatable, but my science is not. You can, of course, question my interpretation of Scripture, but you should bear in mind that, according to the Church, your interpretation of Scripture must conform to the material truths revealed by science. Among these material truths is the fact, which lies beyond reasonable dispute, that animals ate other animals before the fall. Any reasonable interpretation of Scripture must account for this fact.

God bless you, Ed.

Signed W.

 

[edwest2]

Umm… what? I only made one scientific claim in the course of my original post. That claim was: carnivorous behavior in animals is evidenced in the fossil record considerably prior to the rise of Man as a species. If you want a “peer-reviewed, scientific paper” to support that utterly uncontroversial, scientific claim, I can provide thousands. (And so can you! We have an amazing newfangled technology today called “Google,” which can tell you all sorts of awesome cool things about the fossil record!)

I also made one single historical claim: that the Fall (a historical event) happened sometime after the appearance of Man as a species. I put this event in a very, very, very wide date range, and included everything from austrolopithecus to homo sapiens sapiens, because the fact of the matter is we don’t know where along the line Man was ensouled by God and created in His image. However, one way or another, the Fall had to happen after the creation of Man, which means the Fall, as a historical event, happened sometime after 7 million B.C. This, too, is an utterly uncontroversial claim, at least on these boards, because it is exactly what the Church teaches. Moreover, because the Fall was a historical event, which included material causes and effects, it is the proper subject of scientific study, as well as theological and historical study.

The rest of my post was, indeed, speculation – but it was not scientific speculation. It was theological speculation. I attempted, in the best tradition of Catholic philosophical thought, to reconcile Scriptural passages with history and science – i.e. to discern reality. Since faith and reason are in union according to the Church, and since revealed truth and practical truth can never contradict (again, according to the Church), resolving apparent contradictions between revelation and scientific knowledge is a crucial part of Catholic thought.

Your conclusion, on the other hand, that “God can do things only God can do,” is a useless tautology, the sort of trite truism an Evangelical Protestant uses to evade a Thomistic smackdown.

In conclusion, my theology is debatable, but my science is not. You can, of course, question my interpretation of Scripture, but you should bear in mind that, according to the Church, your interpretation of Scripture must conform to the material truths revealed by science. Among these material truths is the fact, which lies beyond reasonable dispute, that animals ate other animals before the fall. Any reasonable interpretation of Scripture must account for this fact.

God bless you, Ed.

Signed W.

“truths revealed by science”? Like what? A possible date for ensoulment? That is the type of nonsense created by anti-theists to create a one-size-fits-all Creation. “We’ll let youse guys keep da invisible man and da invisible soul but you gotta agree wid us about da rest.”

timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article1645453.ece

God bless,
Ed

 

[Wowbagger]

Are you proposing that ensoulment of Man may have happened prior to the Creation of Man? That would be a radical theological theory!

Are you proposing that non-human beasts were ensouled, then evolved into Men? This is considerably more plausible, but still a novel theory!

Are you saying that Man may have been created sometime prior to 7,000,000 B.C.? That would be a rather radical scientific and theological theory!

Or are you saying that the Fall may have taken place before the ensoulment of Men, as far back as the beginning of life on Earth? I’m not even sure how I would respond to that theory without hearing a further explanation.

Given premise (1) that there was a Fall, and premise (2) that Man was not created until at least 7,000,000 B.C. (thank you, paleontology!), your conclusion, as far as I can see, must either be one of the above theories, or my theory.

The ensoulment of Man is a historical event, and historical events – even supernatural ones! – can be dated if you can gather enough evidence. We date the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (a supernatural event if ever there was one) to approximately 33 AD (+/- 10 years), thanks to the evidence provided by the testimony of Scripture and the conformity of that timeline to corroborated events throughout the Roman Empire in the first century. We can similarly date ensoulment (and the Fall) to “sometime after the creation of Man,” because that’s what the Bible says and what the Church says. If the creation of Man took place some time after 7,000,000 B.C., which is very, very well corroborated by the fossil record, then the Fall must have happened sometime after 7,000,000 B.C.!

This isn’t theological rocket science, and it isn’t an atheistic attack on the basis of religion. It’s adding one uncontroversial theological fact to one uncontroversial scientific fact, revealing one rather limp historic fact: the ensoulment of Man and the Fall took place sometime between 7,000,000 B.C. (earliest possible date for the rise of Man in the fossil record) and approximately 2000 B.C. (birth of Abram). What am I missing here? And, for the record, Ed, in what year do you think the Fall took place? 3,000 BC? 3 million BC? Could it have taken place in 1986 AD? Or in 18 billion B.C? Or in 2722 AD? Do you at least see the problem with somebody saying that “the Fall took place before the universe was created,” or “The Fall took place fifteen years from now”?

Good night for now.

 

[twinc]

Umm… what? I only made one scientific claim in the course of my original post. That claim was: carnivorous behavior in animals is evidenced in the fossil record considerably prior to the rise of Man as a species. If you want a “peer-reviewed, scientific paper” to support that utterly uncontroversial, scientific claim, I can provide thousands. (And so can you! We have an amazing newfangled technology today called “Google,” which can tell you all sorts of awesome cool things about the fossil record!)

also made one single historical claim: that the Fall (a historical event) happened sometime after the appearance of Man as a species. I put this event in a very, very, very wide date range, and included everything from austrolopithecus to homo sapiens sapiens, because the fact of the matter is we don’t know where along the line Man was ensouled by God and created in His image. However, one way or another, the Fall had to happen after the creation of Man, which means the Fall, as a historical event, happened sometime after 7 million B.C. This, too, is an utterly uncontroversial claim, at least on these boards, because it is exactly what the Church teaches. Moreover, because the Fall was a historical event, which included material causes and effects, it is the proper subject of scientific study, as well as theological and historical study.

The rest of my post was, indeed, speculation – but it was not scientific speculation. It was theological speculation. I attempted, in the best tradition of Catholic philosophical thought, to reconcile Scriptural passages with history and science – i.e. to discern reality. Since faith and reason are in union according to the Church, and since revealed truth and practical truth can never contradict (again, according to the Church), resolving apparent contradictions between revelation and scientific knowledge is a crucial part of Catholic thought.

Your conclusion, on the other hand, that “God can do things only God can do,” is a useless tautology, the sort of trite truism an Evangelical Protestant uses to evade a Thomistic smackdown.

In conclusion, my theology is debatable, but my science is not. You can, of course, question my interpretation of Scripture, but you should bear in mind that, according to the Church, your interpretation of Scripture must conform to the material truths revealed by science. Among these material truths is the fact, which lies beyond reasonable dispute, that animals ate other animals before the fall. Any reasonable interpretation of Scripture must account for this fact.

God bless you, Ed.

Signed W.

firstly the earth is only thousands of years old and not millions or billions,give or take a few millions or billions - if animals evolved as carnivores who provided the meat - bible clearly states herbivores[Gen.1:29-31] and carnivores after the Flood when all fruit and veg etc were no longer freely available until some time after - fossils are a result of the flood and sudden death and quick burial - the Flood was world wide[global]since water finds its own level - twinc

 

[excubitor]

Absolutely they did. The fossil record is replete with carnivorous animals long before the advent of man, as Wowbagger previously noted. It was actually through a “carnivorous” action that single-celled organisms became multicellular organisms.

What you mean is that there is a fossil record which can be interpreted to indicate that carnivores may have existed before men in a particular region.

I think that those who hold to the “all vegetarians before the fall” belief do not understand that our God is a God of order and balance, and the carnivore/herbivore/omnivore set-up that we see in the animal kingdom is precisely the kind of balance that nature would need to have to maintain its diversity of life and a stable global ecosystem. Think rabbits or bugs with no predators…
I don’t believe that physical death came through the fall. Spiritual death and the loss of eternal life with God, yes. But physical death must have been a reality prior to the fall, even for Adam and Eve. I have 3 reasons for believing this: 1) Adam and Eve could have easily accidentally fallen off a cliff. Even perfect genetics would not prevent death in this case. 2) God told Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply”. Multiplication without death leads to an infinite population with finite resources. Again, our God is a God of balance and order. (No, I am not suggesting the current world is overpopulated, I’m merely making a rational point.) 3) Christ and Our Lady were both fully human, fully perfect, and both died. (Of course, it goes without saying that Christ was also fully divine.)

These are all clever arguments but seeing you have no idea what the human body was like before the fall, you have no basis for any such conclusion. Jesus in his resurrected body has flesh and blood and yet this resurrection body certainly is not subject to death.
You have no reason to suppose that Adam and Eve could not have had similar bodies prior to the fall. Certainly God made Adam and Eve to have the ability to procreate, multiply and fill the earth. But again we have simply inadequate knowledge about how God intended to keep the world in ecological balance. The consequence of what you are saying is that God must have created death in order to create an ecologically balanced world. That is simply unsustainable from the scripture which states that death came into the world AFTER the death of Adam.
*Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
*

The notion that God made Adam an eternal being in that he was spiritually not subject to death but was subject to physical death is also equally outrageous. Imagine Adam after he’s fallen from a cliff and is lieing there broken and bleeding or else he is lieing there with his leg torn off by a wild lion on the brink of death and the God says “Don’t worry, you are spiritually alive”.

 

[excubitor]

Here is also an extremely important passage in Romans 8
*20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, 21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. 23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
*

What can we learn from this. First of all the body must be redeemed. Redemption means to restore something to its former state. Here is a theological definition
Theology . to deliver from sin and its consequences by means of a sacrifice offered for the sinner.

This proves that the groaning and travailing that our bodies and that all of the physical creation labours under is a direct consequence of sin. IT WAS NOT LIKE THAT FORMERLY. Also notice it does not say that the creature was created to vanity. It says that it subjected to vanity AGAINST ITS WILL. It also states that the one who subjected it to vanity had a definite plan to deliver it from the bondage to which he subjected it.

So this bondage of corruption is basically the Law of Thermodynamics which talks about Entropy. It is the gradual wearing out and winding down of all energy and life so that our bodies for example get older and more tired and start to lose function and then die altogether and rot into the ground. This is a model for all of creation, the bondage of decay which drags everything down. This I believe is the death that God spoke of when he said “The day you eat of the fruit you will surely die”.

The scripture here quite brilliantly uses the metaphor of childbirth to describe this process. It hearkens back to the sin in the Garden of Eden where God said to Eve “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children”.
This affliction of sorrow and travail which was visited upon her and upon all women since effects the entire universe. Notice also that Eve’s conception was greatly increased, so clearly God’s originally intention was that she should have far fewer children and no infant mortality.

So if we read the Genesis account along with this passage in Romans a clear picture emerges.
God created a perfect, wonderful earth that was of an everlasting nature but that when Adam sinned a cosmic, universal and shattering event occurred rending the entire fabric of the natural world. God subjected the everlasting physical creation to entropy, death and decay. The first man to reverse this injury to all creation was the firstfruits Jesus Christ. Then each man in his order, and finally, AFTER the glorious manifestation of the Sons of God the entire creation will be restored to its former glory (and even greater glory) with the manifestation of the New Heavens and the New Earth.

We see this on a macro scale. Just like a grain of wheat when planted in the ground must die so that new life may burst from the earth, so too this earth and heaven which God made so perfect, died. At the moment it struggles in the ground but it will burst forth again in all glory into the newness of Life which is the New Heavens and the New Earth. So the entire creation follows the pattern of the sons of God just as it states here in Romans.

 

[excubitor]

firstly the earth is only thousands of years old and not millions or billions,give or take a few millions or billions - if animals evolved as carnivores who provided the meat - bible clearly states herbivores[Gen.1:29-31] and carnivores after the Flood when all fruit and veg etc were no longer freely available until some time after - fossils are a result of the flood and sudden death and quick burial - the Flood was world wide[global]since water finds its own level - twinc

Yes you are absolutely correct. The Bible specifically states that the animals were all created to eat green plant life.
*Gen 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, [2] I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
*

 

[excubitor]

That is no definitive teaching on whether animals ate each other before the fall.

1008 Death is a consequence of sin. The Church’s Magisterium, as authentic interpreter of the affirmations of Scripture and Tradition, teaches that death entered the world on account of man’s sin.571 Even though man’s nature is mortal God had destined him not to die. Death was therefore contrary to the plans of God the Creator and entered the world as a consequence of sin.572 “Bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned” is thus “the last enemy” of man left to be conquered.573

And the Catechism quote is referring to man. The fact that we were created mortal shows us that animals were too. God destined man not to die as a gift. Of course, after the fall the gift was taken away. It is not logically necessary to assume that animals were ever offered this gift. Therefore, it is reasonably to conclude that they died before the fall, which means death was possible, which means there is no reason to believe they acted contrary to their nature as created by God. Therefore some animals ate other animals.

How these passages from the Catechism can be reconciled to Evolution is completely beyond my imagination. When man was created he was clearly in a kind of stasis which the catechism calls mortality. Clearly this is the best they could do for want of a better term. Because mankind was not yet subject to death because he was subjected to death AFTER the fall. However it seems that for mankind to have eternal life then he was required to eat of the tree of Life in order to completely avoid death and live for ever.

You say that it is not logically necessary to assume that animals were not granted this gift of not having to die. But then by the same token it is not logically necessary to assume that they were not. In my recent post I showed how the entire creation was subjected to death as a consequence of sin. My logic here is that because the entire creation is delivered from its groaning AFTER the glorious manifestation of the sons of God, then it is reasonable to conclude that it was subjected to this groaning AFTER the fall, so that the fate of the entire universe follows the fate of mankind.

 

[twinc]

How these passages from the Catechism can be reconciled to Evolution is completely beyond my imagination. When man was created he was clearly in a kind of stasis which the catechism calls mortality. Clearly this is the best they could do for want of a better term. Because mankind was not yet subject to death because he was subjected to death AFTER the fall. However it seems that for mankind to have eternal life then he was required to eat of the tree of Life in order to completely avoid death and live for ever.

You say that it is not logically necessary to assume that animals were not granted this gift of not having to die. But then by the same token it is not logically necessary to assume that they were not. In my recent post I showed how the entire creation was subjected to death as a consequence of sin. My logic here is that because the entire creation is delivered from its groaning AFTER the glorious manifestation of the sons of God, then it is reasonable to conclude that it was subjected to this groaning AFTER the fall, so that the fate of the entire universe follows the fate of mankind.

God and death just do not compute for God is life - to see and understand and accept this one needs wisdom - so see Wisdom 1:12-16 - Catholics have no excuse for not knowing this as this appears only in Catholic bibles - twinc

 

[germys9]

I’m really surprised to see there are many Catholics that think animals did not eat each other before the fall.

Fortunately, this is an area in which the Church allows differing views. For all those who agree with me that animals did in fact eat each other before the fall, at least we have Aquinas on our side!

 

[edwest2]

I’m really surprised to see there are many Catholics that think animals did not eat each other before the fall.

Fortunately, this is an area in which the Church allows differing views. For all those who agree with me that animals did in fact eat each other before the fall, at least we have Aquinas on our side!

Why are you surprised? And what did Aquinas say?

God bless,
Ed

 

[germys9]

Why are you surprised? And what did Aquinas say?

God bless,
Ed

I’m not sure why I am surprised. I guess I should expect different opinions when there is room to disagree.

In Summa Theologica, First Part, Question 97, Aquinas echoed Augustine and said,

“Thirdly, a thing may be incorruptible on the part of its efficient cause; in this sense man was incorruptible and immortal in the state of innocence. For, as Augustine says (QQ. Vet. et Nov. Test. qu. 19 [Work of an anonymous author, among the supposititious works of http://forums.catholic-questions.org/../cathen/02084a.htm”]St. Augustine): “God made man immortal as long as he did not sin; so that he might achieve for himself life or death.” For man’s body was indissoluble not by reason of any intrinsic vigor of immortality, but by reason of a supernatural force given by God to the soul, whereby it was enabled to preserve the body from all corruption so long as it remained itself subject to God. This entirely agrees with reason; for since the rational soul surpasses the capacity of corporeal matter, as above explained (76, 1), it was most properly endowed at the beginning with the power of preserving the body in a manner surpassing the capacity of corporeal matter.”

One of the main objections (to animals eating each other before the fall) that I saw in this thread was that there was absolutely no death before the fall. What I am inferring is that animals did not possess the “supernatural force in the soul” from God before or after the fall. Therefore, they never possessed immortality. Therefore, animals died before the fall.

Based on Aquinas’ argument, I could also infer that animals would have only been given immortality if they had a rational soul. I doubt anyone wants to go that far…

I guess we have Augustine and Aquinas on our side!

 

[Wowbagger]

Much as I would love to get into an discussion about how the entire miles-deep, insanely rich, carbon-dated fossil record could have come into existence entirely within a 150-day period in the 3900’s BC, evolution arguments are currently banned. So I’ll have to leave that be.

Moreover, it sounds as though the entire anti-perternatural carnivore camp (including edwest?) is also anti-evolution, and is based entirely on anti-evolutionism and the overinterpretation of Scriptural passages to support that opinion. Because of the ban, I can’t argue the point, and so I must gracefully retire.

 

[edwest2]

Much as I would love to get into an discussion about how the entire miles-deep, insanely rich, carbon-dated fossil record could have come into existence entirely within a 150-day period in the 3900’s BC, evolution arguments are currently banned. So I’ll have to leave that be.

Moreover, it sounds as though the entire anti-perternatural carnivore camp (including edwest?) is also anti-evolution, and is based entirely on anti-evolutionism and the overinterpretation of Scriptural passages to support that opinion. Because of the ban, I can’t argue the point, and so I must gracefully retire.

Perhaps, one day, I will learn why this subject is so important to be brought up here so often.

God bless,
Ed

 

[Big_Dummy]

If you take the seven day creation account literally, I am not sure an animal even got hunrgy before the fall to find out.

Besides, when were Sharks created? I can’t picture one munching on a salad.

 

[TommyWommy]

If you take the seven day creation account literally, I am not sure an animal even got hunrgy before the fall to find out.

Besides, when were Sharks created? I can’t picture one munching on a salad.

Seaweed! Yum yum!

 

[rossum]

Seaweed! Yum yum!

Mmmm, broccoli…

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