does the interpretation of genesis allow for death and disease of animals before the fall? and if so, did God create diseases directly? what about natural disasters? how do we understand God controling that?
just trying to reconcile something. thanks
The Catholic Church teaches that the bodily immortality of Adam and Eve prior to the Fall was a Preternatural gift. In fact, Adam and Eve had three such gifts: infused knowledge, absence of concupiscence, and bodily immortality. However, these gifts were given to Adam and Eve alone, not to the other earthly creatures, and here’s why: Adam and Eve had spiritual souls.
Why does that matter? It matters because in the pre-fall state, Adam and Eve’s internal order had not been upset. Sin darkens the intellect, thus the loss of infused knowledge. Sin inclines the will toward disorder, thus concupiscence. Sin disorders (the sinner’s) nature, thus bodily death. When we sin, what we do is choose a lesser good
over and above a greater good. This is what we call disorder. Because the nature of sin is an act of disorder, the effect both externally and internally is disorder. Thus, when Adam and Eve sinned, their internal order became disrupted. The perfect mastery of their spirit (intellect and will) over their body was lost, and they spirit became subject to the body. That is to say, concupiscence entered into them, whereby they became inclined to choose lesser goods over and above greater goods (for the appetites and desires of the body are lesser than the appetites and desires of the spirit).
In a pre-fall state, Adam and Eve had both the knowledge (infused) and the means (absence of concupiscence, as well as the presence of True Life, the Holy Spirit in their souls) to protect their bodies from deterioration, wounding, and death. When they sinned, their intellects were darkened, they became subject to concupiscence, and they lost the Wellspring of Life in their souls. This means they began to lose both the knowledge and the means to sustain themselves from sickness, injury and death. The loss of Life in their souls meant the loss of life in their bodies.
Yet, all of this was true of Adam and Eve only, not of animals. This is because animals do not have the capacity to sin, as they do not have spiritual souls. Thus, whether before the Fall or after, there would have been nothing wrong with them doing so. This doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t do so pre-Fall, but that if they did do so, there wouldn’t have been anything wrong with it. Moreover, I would assert that if they did not do so, pre-Fall, this would have been due to some special activity or command on the parts of Adam and Eve to bring such a state about, as the Earth was their dominion.
But it’s unnecessary to suppose that they did so. Indeed, if we are to give any credence to the idea that animals are the way they are (not merely behaviourally, but physically also) because of the providence of God, then reason tells us that God intended animals to be both herbivorous and carnivorous. Consider the following video on trophic cascades:
youtube.com/watch?v=zN7rGr-Ku5Q
As evidenced by the content of the above video, if all animals consumed vegetation only, then the earth would become barren due to over-grazing. You can see how the introduction of just one carnivorous population
caused life in the region to
flourish.
Indeed, throughout nature we can observe the effect of life
out of death. There is a specie of evergreen tree, can’t remember which, whose cones (seeds) only open when exposed to intense heat (forest fire). That is to say, this particular kind of tree only plants new life in the wake of death, so to speak.
The idea that death, as such, is universally a result of human sin is not a Catholic notion. In fact, the Catholic teaching is that human death
alone is the result of human sin. Indeed, if we are to take the rest of our religion even remotely seriously, then we have to understand and accept the notion of the redemptive quality of suffering and death. If we could not see life as arising out of death, then the meaning of Christ’s own suffering and death would be lost. It would not be efficacious if it were not an underlying principle of God’s created world. The image of the pheonix is a true metaphor for life and death in the natural world.
Even when we consume plants, we cause death, for the plants were first alive, and then dead (and by our consumption, give us life). So the idea that being herbivorous before the Fall meant that there was no death
at all is contradictory, since there would be herbal death.
As for micro-organisms, yes they are creatures just as any other, created by God (either directly or indirectly, it doesn’t really make a difference). It would be reasonable to believe they lived prior to the Fall as well as after. The difference would simply be that humanity would not have been subject to their deliterious effects on the body. But that says nothing about animals. Indeed, both natural disasters (such as forest fires) and disease seem to have been part of God’s original plan, perhaps as means to keep populations and over-growth in check in order to maintain stable and flourishing environments. But humans was originally not subject to such controls, but were meant to be maintainers of the Earth themselves, as we were given the Earth to rule (or shepherd).
