Did death occur before the Fall?

In a Nutshell

Humans appear very late in the history of life.  The fossil record clearly shows that many creatures died before humans appeared.  In fact, many entire species had already become extinct.  This appears to conflict with Genesis 3, which describes death as a punishment for human sinfulness.  However, the curse of Genesis 3 was that Adam and Eve, not the animals, should die for their disobedience. Therefore, animal death before the Fall is compatible with Christian doctrine.  For humans, Genesis 3 and New Testament passages may be speaking primarily of spiritual death, not physical death.

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In Detail

Animal Death Before the Fall

Humans appear very late in the history of life, and the fossil record clearly shows that many creatures died before humans appeared. In fact, compelling evidence exists that many entire species had already become extinct. The dinosaurs are the most famous example, but there are thousands of others. However, the curse of Genesis 3 was that Adam and Eve, not the animals, should die for their disobedience. Therefore, animal death before the Fall is entirely compatible with Christian doctrine.

New Testament Scriptures about the Fall

The significance of human death before the Fall depends heavily on our interpretation of God’s warning: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat you shall die” (Gen 2:17, NRSV).

One interpretation contends that Adam and Eve experienced spiritual death as a result of their disobedience. In this view, the physical death of humans is not a result of the Fall and could therefore have occurred beforehand. God warned Adam and Eve that they would die “in the day that [they] eat from [the tree]” and yet they did not experience immediate physical death. Significantly, however, they did experience an immediate spiritual death—their perfect relationship with God was now broken.

The New Testament expands this theme, where the spiritual death resulting from Adam’s sin is contrasted with the new spiritual life provided by Jesus’ victory. In Romans 5:15, Paul compares the spiritual death resulting from Adam’s sin with the gift of complete life offered by Jesus.

On the other hand, in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul contrasts and compares Christ and Adam, highlighting Adam’s fall as the cause of physical death for the whole human race. However, the eternal life that Paul says Christ provides is much more than the mere earthly life we experience now. We are left with the impression that Paul must mean something more than simple physical death. If human death did precede the Fall, Paul’s use of Adam’s curse in 1 Corinthians 15 is still perfectly understandable given his cultural context.¹

For reasons like this, a healthy interpretation of Scripture must avoid proof texting, or the habit of creating grand theological structures on single verses of Scripture, or even phrases within verses. 1 Corinthians 15 is the only scripture that can be taken to directly address Adam’s physical death, and even there it does so only by way of illustration for an entirely different message: Christ’s resurrection brings us new life.

A Physical Death

To connect human physical death to the Fall, we must be clear about what it means to be human. It is argued that bearing God’s image is not a matter of our physical appearance but a matter of our capacity to love both God and others, to have dominion over the earth, and to have moral consciousness. We are to image God (see our question on the "Image of God"). In this way we might distinguish between Homo sapiens and the image-bearing creatures that we might call Homo divinus.²

With this critically important distinction, the BioLogos view is thus compatible with the belief that part of Adam’s curse was the onset of physical death for the human race, because the human race in the full Imago Dei really began with Adam. Although many humanlike creatures lived and died before the Fall, these Homo sapiens did not yet bear the image of God. As soon as image-bearing humanity fully emerged, no member of that species experienced death until after the Fall.

Conclusion

BioLogos, despite affirming the generally accepted scientific story of origins as God’s method of creation, also affirms the idea that human death did not occur before the Fall—as long as the definition of fully manifest humanness is not granted until Adam appears.

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