Problems for Creationists

Christian creationists contend that suffering and death entered the world after the first sin recorded in Genesis 3. But what about animals–specifically those designed for predation? Doesn’t animal suffering contradict the traditionalist teaching?

Ronald Osborn, in his book Death Before the Fall: Biblical Literalism and the Problem of Animal Suffering, surveys the animal kingdom to critique the literalism of “scientific creationism” and wrestle with questions of divine goodness. A 2015 Fulbright scholar and postdoctoral fellow Wellesley College, Osborn’s ideas are creating quite a stir. Christianity Today called his book, “a full-bore, unflinching assault on literalism in biblical interpretation, particularly in regard to the first chapters in Genesis” and added, “a simple assertion that anybody who believes as Osborn does cannot believe in the Bible will not do.”