The problem of evil, death, and suffering has plagued humanity for millennia. How can a loving, all-powerful God allow such things? Many Christians have proposed scenarios suggesting that suffering helps us truly value goodness, or that our need for redemption demonstrates God’s great love. However, these explanations often fall short. Wouldn’t it be better to never experience sickness at all? And what about animal suffering, like a doe trapped in a forest fire?
These challenging questions have a clear biblical explanation that is often overlooked when Christians disregard the evidence for a young creation perspective. From a biblical creationist viewpoint, the answers to suffering and death lie in three key areas:
- The original perfect creation
- The exercise of human free will
- God’s righteous judgment following sin
Genesis 1:31 states that God declared His creation “very good.” This description implies a state of perfection—a world without the decay and suffering we see today. This perfect state is fundamentally incompatible with the presence of death, disease, and suffering as original features of creation.
The pivotal moment occurs in Genesis 2:17, where God warns Adam: “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
The Hebrew text provides important insights:
- Young’s Literal Translation renders “you shall surely die” as “dying thou dost die,” capturing the Hebrew infinitive absolute that emphasizes both the certainty and the process of death
- The Hebrew word “בְּי֛וֹם” (be-yohm, “in the day”) with its prefix typically refers to an age or time period, indicating the consequences would begin in the age they ate the fruit, not necessarily instantaneously
When Adam and Eve disobeyed, God’s judgment was pronounced in Genesis 3:19: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” This confirmed that physical death entered the world, alongside the spiritual death that had already occurred at the moment of disobedience.
The Bible clearly states that both humans and animals were originally vegetarian:
“And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so.” (Genesis 1:29-30)
This passage reveals a world initially free from predation and animal suffering before the Fall.
An important distinction exists between plant life and animal life. After the Flood, God permitted humans to eat animal flesh: “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood” (Genesis 9:3-4).
The Hebrew term “nephesh chayyah” (living soul) applies to animals and humans, but not to plants, indicating a significant difference in the biblical concept of “life.” This distinction explains why the consumption of plants does not constitute death in the same sense as animal or human death.
The ability to choose between good and evil is fundamental to human nature and dignity. Adam and Eve’s decision to disobey God was a deliberate exercise of free will with profound consequences. This choice introduced sin, death, and suffering into the world, demonstrating the reality and weight of moral responsibility.
God valued human freedom enough to allow the possibility of wrong choices, even knowing the devastating consequences that would follow. This perspective highlights both God’s respect for human agency and the seriousness with which He views our moral decisions.
The biblical creation account directly contradicts the evolutionary narrative, which posits death and competition as essential drivers of biological change. The biblical view presents:
- A “very good” original creation
- The introduction of death after the Fall
- A fundamentally different understanding of Earth’s history
If death existed before Adam’s sin, this would undermine the biblical connection between sin and death, and by extension, the necessity of Christ’s sacrificial death to overcome sin.
The biblical account clearly states that death entered the world through Adam’s sin. 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”
Conclusion
The creation account, coupled with the concepts of free will and God’s judgment, provides a comprehensive explanation for the presence of evil, death, and suffering in our world. While these issues remain complex and deeply personal, the biblical narrative offers a framework for understanding them within the context of:
- God’s original perfect creation
- Humanity’s fall into sin
- God’s redemptive plan
By embracing the creationist perspective, we gain a deeper appreciation for the profound implications of the Fall and the hope offered through God’s promise of restoration. Rather than attempting to reconcile death and suffering as part of God’s original “very good” creation, we recognize them as intruders in a once-perfect world—intruders that will ultimately be defeated through Christ’s redemptive work.
