Before I forget, how do I delete my membership to this forum? This is far too good a site! And I can see myself spending far too much time reading and engaging with such a great bunch of folks, and I’m already feeling guilty!
To answer your question, I think you have to read into it, just like freewill, or the Trinity. I think I’ve demonstrated at the beginning of this thread, in answer to AllenWitmerMiller, that you just can’t get around Gen 1:30: Were there carnivores before the Fall?. So, something must have happened.
May be I can put it another way. Joshua argued that animal death is very good here: Animal Death is Very Good, quoting Job 38:39–41, 39:29–30, Ps. 104:21, 29.
Consider this, you take your wife and toddler son to a safari holiday, and one day, as you’re out walking in the wilds, a lion pounces on your toddler boy, drags him away before you can do anything about it. Will you really praise God and say, praise the Lord, what a mighty and majestic lion! And look how wonderfully the Lord provided food for the lion and his cubs today? The next day, you go for a swim with your wife, and before you know it, a shark comes up and drags your wife down to the depths. Will you really say, Hallelujah, the hungry shark got fed today? This is not an unfamiliar scenario - it happens, and you’ll have to say, according to the interpretation that Animal Death is Very Good, had Adam and Eve had children and grandchildren before the fall, this would have been a perfectly reasonable scenario. I grant that post-fall, this is how animals survive, and that, in God’s providence, it is the best that can be salvaged from a fallen world. However, I struggle to agree with Joshua that it is a picture of very good and what God intended all along. If that were the case, he would have to shout hallelujah for the above.
There’s a reason why Isaiah 11:6-9 reads:
“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. 7 The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. 8 The infant will play near the cobra’s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest. 9 They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
These verses seem to me to be thoroughly compatible with Gen 1:30, and how God intended creation.
Apologies for this, I’d love to have this friendly back and forth, but, as I said, I just get that sense it’s not right for me. Hopefully, someone else will pick up the conversation. But I think I’d better resist the temptation! Many thanks to all who engaged with me. Really appreciated it.