{"id":177926,"date":"2025-12-30T05:00:01","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T10:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/?p=177926"},"modified":"2025-08-20T14:31:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T18:31:17","slug":"ask-a-priest-how-could-all-species-thrive-after-the-flood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/ask-a-priest-how-could-all-species-thrive-after-the-flood\/","title":{"rendered":"“Ask a Priest: How Could All Species Thrive After the Flood?”"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Q: I am unsure of my faith and have started reading the Bible recently. In Genesis 8:17 God tells Noah to \u201cBring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee \u2026 that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.\u201d My question is this: If everything on earth needs to eat in order to breed and grow and carry young, and animals need to either eat plants or animals, then how would all the species of animals survive? Let\u2019s say a lion needed to breed. The lion will eat an elk or another animal and thus, the elk will not have a partner to breed with and won\u2019t be able to \u201cmultiply\u201d like God said for the animals to do. Am I missing something? This doesn\u2019t make sense to me. \u2013 Adam<\/address><\/blockquote>\n

Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC<\/em>:<\/p>\n

It’s good to remember that the Bible has different types, or genres, of writing.<\/p>\n

Some parts are metaphorical, some are symbolic, some are historical but in a stylish way.<\/p>\n

In the case of Genesis 8, we need to be careful not to read it as a newspaper account of what happened. Scripture is much deeper and richer than that.<\/p>\n

The verse about being fruitful and multiplying echoes the words of Genesis 1:28<\/a>, when God blesses the man and the woman. The idea here is that the post-Flood age is a kind of new creation; God is starting over, so to speak, to revive the world.<\/p>\n

This basic idea holds even if, as some commentators speculate, the Flood was a regional phenomenon (in that case, lots of animals elsewhere in the world carried on as normal).<\/p>\n

So, don’t read this Genesis passage in too literalist of a way. Genesis is not a biological textbook; it’s trying to get across a spiritual and theological truth: that God hasn’t given up on mankind and that he can renew the face of the earth.<\/p>\n

To get a good overview of Scripture, check out Father Mike Schmitz’s “Bible in a Year” videos<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I hope that some of this helps. Count on my prayers.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Edward McIlmail, LC","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/485147bd811c2a8642adf1f1806f85f0adef2b00ef8ccabc9b46f8420af19e16?s=96&d=blank&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/485147bd811c2a8642adf1f1806f85f0adef2b00ef8ccabc9b46f8420af19e16?s=96&d=blank&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/485147bd811c2a8642adf1f1806f85f0adef2b00ef8ccabc9b46f8420af19e16?s=96&d=blank&r=g","caption":"Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC"},"description":"Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC, ordained to the priesthood in 2001, taught theology and Scripture at the then Mater Ecclesiae College in Rhode Island and is now a part-time chaplain at Overbrook Academy in Greenville, R.I. He holds degrees from Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Connecticut, the Regina Apostolorum Athenaeum in Rome, and Northwestern University in Illinois. He was an assistant publisher of the National Catholic Register and Faith & Family magazine and an editor of the Zenit news agency\u2019s English edition. He has written for\u00a0SpiritualDirection.com\u00a0and\u00a0ePriest. Fr. McIlmail also worked in spiritual retreats in the Northeast, New England, the Midwest, and the South\u00a0and assisted with mission work in Mexico. Born in Philadelphia, he worked in journalism and was active in the pro-life movement before entering the novitiate of the Legion of Christ in 1992. His contributions to RCSpirituality include responding to\u00a0Ask A Priest\u00a0questions and sharing his insights in our\u00a0Weekly Newsletter.","url":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/author\/emcilmail\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/362"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177926"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=177926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}