The Falleness of Nature

[FossilResin]

To my understanding, Satan’s fall and the beginnings of sin affected not only human behavioral inclinations but also corrupted the perfection of all of nature. Given that we have prehistoric evidence of violent predation and the suffering of sentient creatures dating back hundreds of millions of years, this necessarily causes problems for the claim that Adam and Eve were the literal actual historical source of evil entering the world. The only claim about sin’s affect on nature that can hold water when compared to this evidence of nature’s bloody track record would be to say that it was Satan’s rebellion in heaven that was the cause of all the bloodshed, not Adam and Eve’s hominid disobedience.

I want a better understanding of the corruption of nature and what the field of faithful Catholic theology thinks that nature’s original, uncorrupted state would look like.

 

[Vico]

The fallen angels, called demons, are permitted to tempt and afflict the children of men. Their power is limited and only God can do miracles (miracles are outside of the created order).

Three evils are defined:

• so called metaphysical evil contributes to the goodness of creation, as God sometimes inflicts evil as punishment to maintain the just order of the universe,
• moral evil - does not include actions solely from ignorance,
• physical evil.

Catholic Encyclopedia

Metaphysical evil is the limitation by one another of various component parts of the natural world. …

By moral evil are understood the deviation of human volition from the prescriptions of the moral order and the action which results from that deviation.
…
Physical evil includes all that causes harm to man, whether by bodily injury, by thwarting his natural desires, or by preventing the full development of his powers, either in the order of nature directly, or through the various social conditions under which mankind naturally exists.
…
Moral and physical evil are due to the fall of man, but all evil is overruled by God to a good purpose.

Sharpe, A. (1909). Evil. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05649a.htm

 

[The27thPsalm]

This article may help you in understanding: Is Creation in a Fallen State? | the reproach of Christ