Do devout Catholics believe that God did not create death?

It coms from Genesis 2:17 “But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
Death is the result of sin. That’s why the resurrection is so important to most Christians because Jesus overcame death and sin (and shares that with all of creation).
I’m not going to go into a long theological discussion, but this is the answer to your question in a nut shell.

Thanks!

”“But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Isn’t that a metaphor to keep away from evil? If I were hanging out in a garden and heard a strong, authoritative voice saying that without seeing anyone I am quite sure I’d run away from that “tree,”

This is one of the things that makes Christianity so difficult to absorb, @janbb. On the one hand are various fundamentalist sects who believe in the literal word-for-word truth of the Bible (as written on scrolls in ancient Hebrew thousands of years ago, and a lot of it cribbed from even earlier religions, but all of it translated through various languages and now into modern English) and others who believe in “interpretation” of the Book, and in its sense of allegorical wisdom.

Because read word-for-word, one would come away with an understanding that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (assuming the literal existence of such a literal tree) – would be (literally) poisonous.

And on the other hand, various interpretive and other modern versions of Christianity believe in a sort of “living” Bible that means pretty much whatever one (or one’s religious leaders) choose to interpret out of the allegory and symbolism.

And then you get the fun Defense Attorney position of “If they had no idea what death was, could they possibly have understood the meaning of the warning?”

You can tell a 1 year old all day long that the stove is hot, but if they have no concept of “hot” it isn’t much of a deterrent.