➤ Evidence of early death on earth
There is ample evidence that the cycle of life-and-death was functioning on earth long before 4000 BC, the time the Bible says sin first entered the world 'through Adam.' (Note: 'through Adam,' not 'because of Adam.' See 1.4.3 for study of Romans 5).
The strongest evidence of long ages of prehistoric death comes from deposits of limestone, coal and oil.
LIMESTONE. Ocean-dwelling organisms such oysters, clams, mussels, and coral have shells that are broken down by waves and settle on the ocean floor where they are compacted over millions of years, creating limestone. As tectonic plates shift, sea bottom is often thrust up as dry land, and limestone is quarried to make concrete and many other products.
COAL. Coal is created from plants and ferns that lived hundreds of millions of years ago in swamp forests. They died and formed layers at the bottom of the swamps. The dead plant material was subjected to high temperatures and pressures that transformed it into peat and then into coal.
OIL. Crude oil is created over millions of years from tiny plants and animals in sea water, called plankton, trapped and buried under many layers of sand and mud. After about 150 million years of heat and pressure, plankton turn into oil and gas in pores of underground rock, like water in a sponge. The rocks fold and form a dome that catches oil and creates an advantageous drilling site.
MORE EVIDENCE. Fossils, DNA and migration tracking are additional evidence of death before Adam sinned. Archaeologists have uncovered thousands of dinosaurs skeletons, some with bones of other creatures in their stomach cavities, showing that they killed both vegetable matter and flesh. Dinosaurs went extinct long before God created humans. See 1.2 for God's order of creation.
Some Christians say that God just made the world to look old right from the beginning ... that limestone, coal and oil were created that way ... that God just planted dinosaurs bones even though such creatures never existed. See 1.2.3 for the critical flaw in the 'apparent age' theory.
➤ Everything dies, even stars
Stars are born when large gas clouds collapse from gravity. The more massive the star, the faster it burns its fuel supply and the shorter its life. The most massive stars burn out and explode after only a few million years. Stars the size of our sun burn out in about 10 billion years. Smaller stars burn out slower.
We now can observe the death of stars – supernovas to black holes – with telescopes catching light emanating from them millions of years ago, long before Adam's sin. There is no indication in the Bible, or by common sense, that death of stars throughout the vast solar system is caused by someone's sin. Everything God created in our universe has always been subject to death, whether large or small, whether long life or short life.
➤ Death is essential for life
God's plan is slow topographical, climatological and physiological changes and the adaptation and improvement of life forms to those changes. Death is essential for this process.
Death prevents suffocation from over-crowding and clears the way for new and better life ... ultimately leading to God's offer of eternal life for humans.
Imagine the Garden of Eden, for example, if it were perfect (from our point of view) and nothing ever died. Over time, with unrestricted growth and multiplication, the Garden would eventually have become so overgrown with vegetation, animals and insects that people's movements would become so restricted, and their lives so imperiled, that they would not be able to reach the Tree of Life. (Unless they cut down trees, branches and vines, but that would cause death, and then the Garden would no longer be a no-death paradise.)
'Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground – trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food ... And the Lord God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ...'' (Genesis 2:8-9, 16-17)
Adam had a normal human body and needed food to survive. But eating food as God directed is death to the food and incompatible with a no-death paradise.
So some Christians back off a bit and say that they mean no-death only with regard to humans.
But there's a problem with that limited view, too: Christians who believe that there was no human death on earth before Adam sinned are usually the ones who also believe that God created the entire universe in six 24-hour days and that Adam was the first human on earth ... which means that no one had ever lived or died before Adam sinned ... therefore, Adam's sin did nothing to actually change physical life and death on earth. Adam's sin did not wreck a perfect paradise.
➤ Humans assigned to rule the earth
In Genesis 1, when God created the first human beings, he said: 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.' (Genesis 1:28)
There would be no need for people to subdue and rule over the earth if the earth's state was absolute perfection without any death and change.
➤ Adam assigned to work the Garden
'Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.' (Genesis 4:10-17)
If the Garden of Eden were a perfect paradise without death before Adam sinned, God would not have wanted someone to 'work' it and 'take care' of it. Obviously, the life-and-death cycle was operative even before Adam sinned, otherwise there would be no need for work and care.
➤ Adam understood death
'... you must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when eat of it you will surely die.' (Genesis 2:17)
It would make no sense for God to warn Adam (before he sinned) that the penalty for disobedience is death if no death on earth had ever yet occurred. That concept would have been totally incomprehensible to Adam unless he had already observed death outside with other people before being placed in the Garden.
➤ Adam's punishment was not death
'Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.' (Genesis 3:17-19)
Adam's punishment was hard work and painful toil in ground with thorns and thistles, a sentence that Adam could not have understood if everything had been perfect up to that time.
Adam's punishment was not death but rather denial of eternal life which had been offered. Adam as a person – not as humanity– no longer had access to the tree of life and would now have to work and die like everyone else.
Certainly if the punishment for Adam's sin were death to every living thing on earth for all time forward – a monumental horrific punishment – we would expect God to say so clearly through His living word (Jesus) and written word (Bible).
Furthermore, it is inconceivable that a loving and just God could give punishment of that severity and global magnitude – to all people everywhere for all time – because of the first offense of a single person. That would clearly be contrary to His own character attributes of love and justice.
