Wasn’t The Curse And Death A Good Thing To Keep The Earth From Being Overpopulated?
Bodie Hodge, M.Sc., B.Sc., PEI
Biblical Authority Ministries, March 9, 2026 (Donate)
God knew Adam and the Woman would sin as God knows the
future, which is why He already had a plan in place to redeem fallen man. The
first prophecy of Christ is Genesis 3:15 being the seed of a woman/virgin
birth. If you look closely at Genesis 2:17, it shows that God foreknew that
mankind would sin— “for in the day you eat of it”. It doesn’t say “if” you eat of it.
Human Overpopulation?
But hypothetically, let’s say that that sin did not happen—no
sin, human population abounded, and filled the earth. Pay close attention to
what God said: “fill” the earth, not “overpopulate” it (note: replenish used to mean “fill” in the
days when the KJV was translated, not “refill” as it does today).
The command was to populate until the earth was full, and
then it makes sense that reproduction was likely to cease. Similar statements
govern sea creature (Genesis 1:22).
Consider if someone asked me to fill up a glass of water
for them. Would I fill it and keep putting water in it and let it overflow,
overflow and overflow? No, I would fill it and not overflow it.
The word “fill” basically places limits on them right from
the start. So, it is good to be wary of uniformitarian assumptions and use
caution when trying to translate them into the future. Nonetheless, if Adam and
Eve didn’t sin (nor anyone else), then there is no reason to assume God wouldn’t
have said “stop reproducing” once they would have filled the earth.
God can and does change some civil rules to man from time
to time—originally, we could only be vegetarian (Genesis 1:29), but after the Flood,
God gave man permission to eat meat (Genesis 9:3). There used to be rigorous
sacrificial laws, but now they are done away with due to Christ’s perfect sacrifice
and so on. But such things are in a sin-curse world.
In a sin-cursed world, I’m not sure what God will do if the
earth’s population begins to get full, which at this point is still a long way
off. It is possible that He will command man to stop reproducing. But in a sin-cursed
world where death currently reigns, it may not take long for the population to reduce
again anyway. Sadly, sinful acts like abortion and murder and the blood
spilled in the name of evolution (Nazis, Stalin, etc.) in the past century have
made a dent in the population.
Another possibility is that this sin-cursed world doesn’t
make it that far. We are told that one day there will be a new heavens and a
new earth. Interesting to think about…
Regardless in this sin-cursed world after the Flood, Genesis
9:1 and Genesis 9:8 also reaffirm that man was to reproduce and multiply and fill
the earth as well.
The idea of overpopulation comes from uniformitarianism
and projecting this into the future. Uniformitarianism has failed in the fields
of geology and radiometric dating while looking at the past; and so on, so this
should throw up a red flag.
Regardless, God still knew what man was going to do (sin
resulting in death) and knew that the future path wasn’t going in that
direction. To deny this would be to deny that God knows the future, and that
isn’t the God of the Bible who often tells the end from the beginning (Isaiah
46:10).
Animal Overpopulation?
From Genesis 1:22 and Genesis 1:28, we can infer that man
and sea creatures may have had lower initial populations, to have plenty of
room to multiply. With humans, there were only two people to start with: Adam
and the Woman (later named Eve).
Birds were to multiply but
not commanded to fill the earth so it seems they may never have filled the
earth before their reproduction would have ceased in a perfect world. But they
had room to multiply too. Regardless, sin entered so such what if questions are
merely for speculation.
Land animals were not commanded to multiply or fill the
earth in Genesis 1. I would humbly suggest that this infers that land animals
were created in more abundance, with little or no necessity to have to
reproduce in great quantities in the initial perfect creation. After sin
though, the necessity was required, since death began reigning in animals with
the first recorded death of an animal to cover Adam and the Woman’s sin (coats
of skins in Genesis 3:21).
Later in the Bible, we find that land animals, on the
But again, these land animals were not told to fill the earth, but at this point they are in a sin-cursed world were death reigns, so an upper limit may have been unnecessary anyway.
I hope these thoughts helps us realize that, contrary to much
hype in the modern secular world, reproduction in man an animals is still a
good thing and commanded by God.
Bodie Hodge, Ken
Ham's son in law, has been an apologist defending 6-day creation and opposing
evolution since 1998. He spent 21 years working at Answers in Genesis as
a speaker, writer, and researcher as well as a founding news anchor for Answers
News. He was also head of the Oversight Council.
Bodie
launched Biblical Authority Ministries in 2015 as a personal
website and it was organized officially in 2025 as a 501(c)(3). He has spoken
on multiple continents and hosts of US states in churches, colleges, and
universities. He is married with four children.
Mr. Hodge earned a
Bachelor and Master of Science degrees from Southern Illinois University at
Carbondale (SIUC). Then he taught at SIUC for a couple of years as a
Visiting Instructor teaching all levels of undergraduate engineering and
running a materials lab and a CAD lab. He did research on advanced ceramic
materials to develop a new method of production of titanium diboride with a
grant from Lockheed Martin. He worked as a Test Engineer for Caterpillar,
Inc., prior to entering full-time ministry.
His love of science was coupled with a love of history, philosophy, and theology. For about one year of his life, Bodie was editing and updating a theological, historical, and scientific dictionary/encyclopedia for AI use and training. Mr. Hodge has over 25 years of experience in writing, speaking and researching in these fields. Originally at Answers in Genesis; Edited; Republished by permission.
