Q&A
How did the dinosaurs become extinct if death didn't enter the world until the Fall?
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If we are to believe that the earth wasn’t created in seven literal days but over millions of years, how do we reconcile the theology of death entering the world because of original sin? For example, how could animals such as dinosaurs (some carnivorous) have lived prior to the fall of man and then become extinct if death hadn’t entered into the world until the first man sinned?
Answer
Scripture is talking about human death. Nowhere does it suggest the notion that the animals were created to be immortal. Only humans were given immortal souls. When death entered creation as the result of the fall, it was human death. So the fact that animals may have died before the fall does not conflict with Scripture.
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Does that mean the Catholic Church accepts evolution as the means by which all living things developed? If so, did man also evolve from earlier primates? And when did the first man and woman (created/evolved in the image of God) appear? Which two offspring of the earlier primates became the first humans capable of a “fall”? That would mean God intervened at some point in the evolution of man. Then the earlier primates would also have suffered death – but not a spiritual death because they were soul-less.. If Jesus stated that it was “in the beginning” that God declared them a married/joined couple I wonder if He had in mind their immediate (non-human) parents. Or, were the first two humans really created/formed by God? So many questions if we accept the evolutionary explanation of origins…
By the way, it is noteworthy that there are many depictions (sculptures on temples, etc) of dinosaur-like creatures existing alongside humans.
Does that mean the Catholic Church accepts evolution as the means by which all living things developed? If so, did man also evolve from earlier primates? And when did the first man and woman (created/evolved in the image of God) appear? Which two offspring of the earlier primates became the first humans capable of a “fall”? That would mean God intervened at some point in the evolution of man. Then the earlier primates would also have suffered death – but not a spiritual death because they were soul-less.. If Jesus stated that it was “in the beginning” that God declared them a married/joined couple I wonder if He had in mind their immediate (non-human) parents. Or, were the first two humans really created/formed by God? So many questions if we accept the evolutionary explanation of origins…
By the way, it is noteworthy that there are many depictions (sculptures on temples, etc) of dinosaur-like creatures existing alongside humans.