Coffee, Code and Candor

Concerning the question of whether plants died before the fall of man:

The argument is along the lines that since plants were for food for man before the fall, we know plants were decaying and “dying” at that time. Clearly they weren’t being consumed in their created state and remaining that way. Thus death existed before the fall of man, at least for plants. And if for plants, then how do we know that it didn’t exist for animals, too? Perhaps it was only man that died from the fall.

I don’t believe this is correct.

In the creation account, plants and animals are created on different days and with very different characteristics. No mention is made of plants being living creatures or things in which is the breath of life, as the animals are described. “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit true yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.” (Gen.1:11). The sea creatures and fowls and land creatures are all described as having life (Gen.1:20-21,24-25). To make this even more plain, God said the plants were to be for food for man “and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life.” (Gen.1:30) There is here an implied distinction between plants and living things.

In Genesis 6:17, God said that he would bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. Noah was told to bring of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort, of fowls and of cattle, of every creeping thing after his kind (Gen.6:19-20) into the ark to be saved from the destruction of the flood which was to destroy all flesh. Plant were to be brought also, but not to be saved from destruction: they were to be brought for food (Gen.6:21). So there is here, as in Genesis 1, a distinction made between plants and living creatures.

Skeptics might say that plants are creeping things, and in some cases they may be right from a purely scientific perspective, however it is clear that plants are not among the creeping things as God defines them in Genesis 1 and Genesis 6. Skeptics might also say that plants are living, but they are not living in the way that God describes life in the Bible. They do not have blood and they do not breathe air (at least not in the same way the living creatures do).

Plants were made for food, to be consumed. They are not considered flesh and they are not considered living, breathing creatures. The Bible shows this and honest science would admit this as well.