When Carnivory Began

To hear believers in universal common descent tell it, animals killing and eating each other has always been around. T. rex would see another dinosaur and they would fight. Lions constantly on the prowl, killing whenever possible. But nobody knows the dispositions of dinosaurs and lions only kill when it is necessary.

Biblical creationists presuppose that the Bible is true and authoritative. They say that just after creation week, everything got along and had a vegetarian diet. Animals began putting other animals on their menus at some point.

Lion eating, Pexels / jiju joy

There is some disagreement among Christians and biblical creationists about when carnivory entered the picture. Some think it did not exist until after God gave humanity permission to eat meat after the Flood, others say carnivory started at the Fall of man. While Scripture is the final authority, science is useful here to help clarify things. What follows is the position of CMI, but I think it is common to the major creationist organizations.

Diana W. from Canada is a fan of our Creation magazine, but had an objection to a Focus item that we used to support CMI’s position that animals were carnivorous before the Flood. Humans on the other hand were not given permission to eat animals until after the Flood (Genesis 9:3). The response by Dr Jonathan Sarfati explains why we believe this, the primacy of biblical propositions and the secondary role of science where the Bible is silent.

You can gnaw on the rest of the article at "When did animals become carnivorous?"