The idea that human beings experienced at the beginning of their existence a “golden age” or a “paradise,” in which there was no suffering or evil of any kind, appears to be incompatible with the scientific findings of our time.5 The appearance of homo sapiens took place in the midst and as a consequence of a fierce struggle of survival among the various species, involving them in suffering and death. Death, both as a result of killing and a matter of senescence, was already there when the human being appeared; it was not introduced at the fall.
