If death occurred before Adam sinned the total gospel is negated, including our hope of the resurrection. The evolutionary method involving violence, pain and death is totally out of keeping with the character of God as revealed in Scripture. Our God is a God of joy, peace and love. He destroyed the earth at the time of Noah because it was filled with violence. It is noteworthy that it was the violence of animals as well as man that God deplored.
Atheistic evolutionists have difficulty accounting for altruism.
Theistic evolutionists have a problem too. If God used the evolutionary method, then He is the author of pain and suffering and evil. God becomes a devil. Only an initially perfect world, created by a loving God but ruined by the entrance of sin can account for both the good and evil which we find around us. The origin of many basic doctrines can be traced to the first chapters of Genesis.