More on Death Before Sin

A few weeks back I had an interesting discussion with several of my readers about the concept of death before sin as it pertains to the question of theistic evolution. Catholic theology teaches that death came into the world through the sin of Adam, and that death originates from sin. There are two ways to take this truth. First, one can take it in the absolute sense, as I do, which would mean that before Adam sinned there was no death of any kind; no animals died, no plants died, nothing experienced death whatsoever, and that when the first man experienced the death brought on by sin, not only the human race but all creation, of which he was the head, was brought under death as well. Or one could interpret it in a restrictive sense: that the death that Adam's sin brought about was human death only, and that prior to the Fall everything else in the world was still dying as they do today - animals were still eating each other, plants still dying, and everything going on according to the cycles of nature we currently witness, with the exception of an immortal man in the midst of it.

Both of these positions, as far as I can tell, are perfectly acceptable, their only real difference being that the restrictive interpretation allows for the possibility of theisticly directed evolution to have occured, while the former absolute interpretation does not.

This Sunday in the NO readings we heard from Wisdom 2:23-24 which had this to say about death:

For God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him. But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who are in his possession experience it.

This verse has the same difficulties as the other verses (Rom. 5:12, 1 Cor. 15:21), in that it simply says that death, generically, came through sin, without making any distinction as to whether it refers to human death or death in general. Though the general word "death" is used without qualification, the surrounding context lets us know that it is emphasizing the reality of human death specifically.

Rabbinic tradition at least seems to have viewed Adam's fall as the source of death for all creation, not just the human race, so that, as the rabbis taught in the Talmud (Sanh. viii. 4-9):

Why was only a single specimen of man created first? To teach us that he who destroys a single soul destroys a whole world and that he who saves a single soul saves a whole world.

I'm not pretending to prove my position by appealing to the Jewish Talmud, which is in so many other ways a despicable book to Christians by virtue of its many blasphemies, but I think it does show at least a historical witness that some of the earliest commentators on Genesis saw the corruption of not only man but the whole world as bound up in Adam's Fall.

St. Augustine, when treating of the question of death is mainly concerned with refuting the errors of Pelagius, who said that Adam incurred death only for himself, dedicates most of his writing on the topic to human death alone, which he of course says is a result of sin. I found an interesting passage from City of God Book XIII.6 in which he reflects that death afflicts the good and the evil alike, but that even for the good the experience of death is never good:

Wherefore, as regards bodily death, that is, the separation of the soul from the body, it is good unto none while it is being endured by those whom we say are in the article of death. For the very violence with which body and soul are wrenched asunder, which in the living had been conjoined and closely intertwined, brings with it a harsh experience, jarring horridly on nature so long as it continues, till there comes a total loss of sensation, which arose from the very interpenetration of spirit and flesh. And all this anguish is sometimes forestalled by one stroke of the body or sudden flitting of the soul, the swiftness of which prevents it from being felt.

While I assume he is talking about human death, since he mentions the soul and later on talks about the sin of Adam later in the chapter, he makes an interesting point here: death is "good unto none." The experience of dying is "harsh" and jars the nature of a thing horribly. If it is never good, or "good unto none," then would it make sense to say that God, who created all things "good" and "very good", willed as part of His creation that anything should of its own nature be subject to an experience which is so harsh and jarring upon that nature?

St. Augustine goes on in chapter 17 of the same book to assert that it is possible for God to render anything, even animals, to be immortal if He so pleases:

But earth, say they, must return to earth, out of which the terrestrial bodies of the animals have been taken. For this, they say, is the reason of the necessity of their death and dissolution, and this the manner of their restoration to the solid and eternal earth whence they came...What, then, hinders God from ordaining the same of terrestrial bodies? And since, indeed, Plato acknowledges that God can prevent things that are born from dying, and things that are joined from being sundered, and things that are composed from being dissolved, and can ordain that the souls once allotted to their bodies should never abandon them, but enjoy along with them immortality and everlasting bliss, why may He not also effect that terrestrial bodies die not? Is God powerless to do everything that is special to the Christian's creed, but powerful to effect everything the Platonists desire?

Although Augustine is of course using this point to frame an argument in favor of the Resurrection of man, he is making an important speculative argument that there is no reason to assume that God couldn't hold any terrestrial body in a state of immortality, even an animal, if He so wanted to. We also have to keep in mind that when he says "animal", he is referring to man and beast together, anything that is animated. I also cite this passage because he is reminding us that there is nothing inherent in the nature of animals or lesser beings that makes their death a necessity. Therefore, it is not against reason to postulate that animlas before the Fall enjoyed an existence of earthly immortality.

I am not presenting a cogent argument in this post, but merely thinking out loud. I still maintain that there was no death before the first sin, but I am open to other ideas. I don't base my rejection of evolution on this fact alone, but I do think that postulating millions of years of animal death before the creation of an immortal man, who enjoys his immortality only briefly before falling from it, is not as satisfying as believing in a unified vision of a glorified and immortal creation, with man at its head, which fell in a domino-like effect with man: Adam rebelled against God, man's lower passions revolted against him, the natural world under man rebelled against his leadership and everything was subject to "futility" (Rom. 8:20). This, to me, makes better sense of St. Paul's statement in Romans 8:19-22:

For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now.

If creation is awaiting its freedom from slavery and corruption, we have to assume that it is therefore corrupted or fallen in someway, and if it is fallen or corrupted, I think we can safely assume that its corruption consists in its subjection to death. Is there ever any other implication for terms such as "corruption" in Scripture when discussing sin? (e.g., Psalm 16:10, 55:23). This is why when man is ultimately redeemed and the children of God enjoy the Resurrection, the world itself will experience a kind of resurrection to life along with us - if it awaits our glorification because within it is found its own glorification, doesn't it stand to reason that our fall is the reason for its subjection to death and futility?