davo, I suppose you are right about spiritual “death” existing before the Fall—because of Satan’s sin. However, I would argue that Satan’s sin did not give entrance to physical death. As to traumatic physical death and destruction, we don’t see that before the sin of Adam and Eve. As spiritual beings in physical bodies, in a physical environment, it was Adam and Eve who gave entrance to physical death through their sin: “Cursed is the ground because of you.” Gen. 3:17. (So I honestly don’t think that the trees giving up their fruit to be eaten by man, prior to The Fall, would qualify as death in this regard.)
As you probably know from my other posts (for example, “Is God Violent, Or Nonviolent?”), and my ongoing references to the writings of Richard Murray, I am now convinced God was, is, and always will be, nonviolent. God sometimes gets blamed for Satan’s activities in the Bible—because the Scriptures, although divinely inspired, are only part of a never-ending, progressive revelation of the goodness of God.
So unlike Genesis editor Moses, I don’t believe it was God who cursed the ground (Gen. 5:29). Rather, the legalist Satan brought in the curse when man sinned. He is malignant and malicious, always looking to penetrate places where God’s protective hedge has been undermined by sin. He organizes and distributes violence, disaster, and death. Biologically, he has tweaked the genetic code to bring us everything from animals becoming carnivorous to Cystic Fibrosis to Zika. My understanding is that genetic variation is based on the variation in the alleles of genes in a gene pool. However, “genetic drift” leads to the loss of alleles. After Satan brought in his curse, (including damaging radiation), we start seeing the loss of alleles, as well as the shortening of life expectancies. Geologically, he is behind a fossil record of catastrophism, and so-called natural disasters. He is very powerful. He is “the god of this age” (2 Cor 4:4). For now, creation groans.
The Church must not ‘neglect its so great a salvation’ (Heb. 2:3) by passively allowing itself, or the rest of creation, to continue to be victimized by Satan. That death-dealer was defeated at the cross. Heb. 2:14. When the enemy’s added-on “dogma of curses” was nailed to that cross, the Devil was left disarmed. Col. 2:14. (God has never been about cursing, only blessing.) The process of officially evicting Satan begins when the Lamb starts breaking those seals on the title deed (Rev. 6). The coming violence is because Satan vehemently resists his eviction.
Since the time of Adam, the enemy has wanted people to see God as a moral accountant, not a loving, gracious Daddy. Man ate from the forbidden bipolar Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: The Religion Tree; The Morality Tree. But Jesus is the unipolar Tree of Life.
Blessings.