Was Death Present in the Garden of Eden, before the fall?

[larkin31]

What is being shown is abrupt appearance and then stasis.

That’s not the thread topic.

Are you denying that any animal or plant ever died before homo sapiens were on this planet?

 

[catharina]

Telling you that you were free to either accept or reject empirical evidence was telling you nothing. Of course you are “free” to do either. And now, especially after 60 more years of continuing evidence, we are still “free” to accept or reject that there have been thousands and thousands of species that lived and died before the presence of humans on the planet. But the intellectual ignorance in rejecting that evidence is all the more clear.

It’s kind of funny, IMO, that anyone can become overheated re this topic.
Did you miss my point that:

“… God is not and cannot be excluded as Creator.”?

You define your religion as Agnostic.
Agnosticism is a religion? According to whom?
As a former Protestant, you learned that we are a part of creation.

When did you decide that your new ‘religion’ is agnosticism?
What a cluster of contradictions.

 

[larkin31]

It’s kind of funny, IMO, that anyone can become overheated re this topic.
Did you miss my point that:

“… God is not and cannot be excluded as Creator.”?

You define your religion as Agnostic.
Agnosticism is a religion? According to whom?
As a former Protestant, you learned that we are a part of creation.

When did you decide that your new ‘religion’ is agnosticism?
What a cluster of contradictions.

huh? Which part of this is on the topic of whether any forms of life ever died before humans were on the planet?

 

[catharina]

Telling you that you were free to either accept or reject empirical evidence was telling you nothing. Of course you are “free” to do either. And now, especially after 60 more years of continuing evidence, we are still “free” to accept or reject that there have been thousands and thousands of species that lived and died before the presence of humans on the planet. But the intellectual ignorance in rejecting that evidence is all the more clear.

huh?

Figure out and (present again) what you were attempting to state to me and maybe I’ll answer your question.

We exist as created beings.
Thanks to a Creator.

End of book.

 

[larkin31]

huh?

Figure out and (present again) what you were attempting to state to me and maybe I’ll answer your question.

We exist as created beings.
Thanks to a Creator.

End of book.

Isn’t that actually the start of the Book?

You are aware of what thread you are in?

For pages and pages we have been discussing whether any animals or plants (fauna and flora) died before humans were present (or made by God, however you prefer the creation to be). Are you stating that you don’t care, or that you don’t understand the topic question?

 

[catharina]

I ask this question, because hair is made up of dead cells, and Adam was naming animals, many of which I am sure had hair, as I am sure he had hair. So cells were dying, and multiplying,.

Now you read it, larkin (above).

I certainly do understand the thread
I also understand that believers and non-believers hold differing views on many things.

Do you understand that fact? The ‘separate’ is even stronger between believers and those who have abandoned their faith. How can that fact surpise you or anyone else?

 

[larkin31]

Now you read it, larkin (above).

I certainly do understand the thread
I also understand that believers and non-believers hold differing views on many things.

Do you understand that fact? The ‘separate’ is even stronger between believers and those who have abandoned their faith. How can that fact surpise you or anyone else?

I can’t tell why you won’t answer the question of the thread: Did death come before human creation or not? I KNOW that people have different answers. Which answer is yours?

 

[StAnastasia]

The National Mustard Museum highlights mustards. Good for them.

I love mustard – I’ll have to visit that museum!

BTW, as a first-grader in a Catholic grammar school (1950), I learned that we were free as Catholics to believe in the literal story of Creation -Bible- or in the idea of eventual changes over time -evolutio - but still CREATION.

We are free as Catholics to accept or to reject gravity, plate tectonics, and electricity.

IOW, God is not and cannot be excluded as Creator. Works for me.

Of course not. Who on this forum has argued that evolution excludes God as creator? Of course it doesn’t.

 

[catharina]

I love mustard – I’ll have to visit that museum!

We are free as Catholics to accept or to reject gravity, plate tectonics, and electricity.

Of course not. Who on this forum has argued that evolution excludes God as creator? Of course it doesn’t.

That’s my point.
God is Creator of all - and we, through Jesus and grace,
know God to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Thanks for your stated agreement.

 

[grannymh]

Who on this forum has argued that evolution excludes God as creator? Of course it doesn’t.

For the sake of discussion, let’s remove evolution from that question and modify it a tad. Now we have – Who on this forum excludes God as creator? In real life, given the variety of worldviews, the inherent question has to be answered first – creator of what?

To keep in tune with the title of this thread, the question becomes –
Did God create the Garden Of Eden in the first place?

 

[StAnastasia]

That’s my point. God is Creator of all - and we, through Jesus and grace, know God to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thanks for your stated agreement.

Absolutely!

 

[grannymh]

Larkin31, how large do you assume the acreage of Eden was? According to Genesis 2:8-9 “Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground…” All “kinds” is used by Creationists as shorthand to refer to all species of trees, so presumably the garden of Eden was fairly vast, extending from sea level to at least fiteen thousand feet to accommodate trees of different ecological zones. It also included rain forest, desert, Savannah, temperate forest and tundra.

As for the animals, God “brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.” (Gen. 2:19). All the animals therefore lived in the garden, as Adam had not yet been thrust out of it. If there was grazing and eating going on, surely there was defecation going on as well, and without dung beetles to devour the accumulating manure the ground would have been fairly messy for Adam and Eve to walk on in bare feet. So I think it is safe to assume there were dung beetles in Eden.

StAnastasia

“So I think it is safe to assume there were dung beetles in Eden.” – from Post 39. You also mentioned Adam and then “… since the ground would have been fairly messy for Adam and Eve to walk on in bare feet.”

Would you mind giving your own reasoning about all this?

 

[OraLabora]

CCC 1008 - ‘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.’

Maybe I missed this through all 211 posts.

The above is true. However this refers to death of the soul. There’s a difference between physical death, and death of the soul. Of course, prior to the fall, physical death was still possible but likely involved a painless passage to eternal life in heaven, no purgatory, no hell. Man’s soul could not die because he had not yet sinned against God, but the physical laws of thermodynamics would ensure that physical life was not eternal. God did not invent thermodynamics after Man sinned.

When Man fell, the possibility of death of the soul entered into the world. The act of rejecting God, and thus rejecting eternal life, redefined the meaning of death to us.

 

[grannymh]

It may be that God reckoned the consequences of sin as a matter of reverse causality backwards from the time humans evolved moral consciousness. In any case, we know that death has been around since the beginning of life on earth, 3.5 billion years ago. The fossil record holds extensive evidence of predation and death. Whether dinosaurs suffered pain when being devoured depends on what kind of central nervous system they had.

Leaving for the remote backwoods – back on Sunday night.

StAnastasia

Excuse me. Are you implying that human moral consciousness caused bodily death?

 

[grannymh]

Maybe I missed this through all 211 posts.

The above is true. However this refers to death of the soul. There’s a difference between physical death, and death of the soul. Of course, prior to the fall, physical death was still possible but likely involved a painless passage to eternal life in heaven, no purgatory, no hell. Man’s soul could not die because he had not yet sinned against God, but the physical laws of thermodynamics would ensure that physical life was not eternal. God did not invent thermodynamics after Man sinned.

When Man fell, the possibility of death of the soul entered into the world. The act of rejecting God, and thus rejecting eternal life, redefined the meaning of death to us.

The last line of the quoted CCC 1008 is “Bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned” is thus “the last enemy” of man left to be conquered.

This paragraph does not refer to the death of the soul. In fact, man’s spiritual soul is immaterial, immortal, and lives forever. There is no possibility for death of the spiritual soul of a human person.

Blessings,
granny

Isaiah 55: 6-9

 

[StAnastasia]

“So I think it is safe to assume there were dung beetles in Eden.” – from Post 39. You also mentioned Adam and then “… since the ground would have been fairly messy for Adam and Eve to walk on in bare feet.”

Would you mind giving your own reasoning about all this?

Sure, Granny! If we interpret Genesis literally, there were millions and millions of animals in the Garden of Eden – walking, flying, swimming, crawling, eating, and depositing their dung. Adam and Eve were naked, presumably including their feet. It would have been difficult for them not to step in dung once in a while. There would also have been dung beetles consuming the dung, and thereby cleaning up the forest floor.

StAnastasia

 

[StAnastasia]

Excuse me. Are you implying that human moral consciousness caused bodily death?

Not at all.

 

[grannymh]

Sure, Granny! If we interpret Genesis literally, there were millions and millions of animals in the Garden of Eden – walking, flying, swimming, crawling, eating, and depositing their dung. Adam and Eve were naked, presumably including their feet. It would have been difficult for them not to step in dung once in a while. There would also have been dung beetles consuming the dung, and thereby cleaning up the forest floor.

StAnastasia

If we interpret Genesis literally ???
Catholic theologians in accord with the Catholic Church do not have to take a literal census of the animals in the world in order to understand Divine Revelation regarding the relationship of the first human being with our Creator. Catholic theologians understand that figurative language was used to describe the very real event of original sin which took place at the very beginning of the human history.

Catholic theologians in accord with the Catholic Church recognize that the original severing of the relationship between the first human and our Creator affected the human nature of all the descendents from the first, two, sole parents of the human species.

Blessings,
granny

Our first parent Adam was the apple of God’s eye.
(example of reality and figurative language)

 

[buffalo]

Sure, Granny! If we interpret Genesis literally, there were millions and millions of animals in the Garden of Eden – walking, flying, swimming, crawling, eating, and depositing their dung. Adam and Eve were naked, presumably including their feet. It would have been difficult for them not to step in dung once in a while. There would also have been dung beetles consuming the dung, and thereby cleaning up the forest floor.

StAnastasia

Where does it say that?

 

[grannymh]

It may be that God reckoned the consequences of sin as a matter of reverse causality backwards from the time humans evolved moral consciousness. In any case, we know that death has been around since the beginning of life on earth, 3.5 billion years ago. The fossil record holds extensive evidence of predation and death. Whether dinosaurs suffered pain when being devoured depends on what kind of central nervous system they had.
StAnastasia

I know that this sounds distasteful, but post 50 hints that almost-humans produced moral consciousness. Almost-humans do not have spiritual souls. So where else would moral consciousness come from when all that exists is a lump of matter known as the anatomy which eventually decomposes or becomes fossilized?

Catholicism recognizes our human nature as being an unique unification of spiritual/material called to share in God’s life through knowledge and love. If human beings are just lumps of this or that waiting for death in or out of the Garden of Eden, where does God the Creator fit in.

Saying that God is the Creator of all no longer applies when He is denied participation in the creation of human beings.

Blessings,
granny

“The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?”
from the poem “Christmas” by George Herbert