THE ORIGIN OF OUR FALLENESS

DEUTERONOMY 29:29

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law

(Deuteronomy 29:29).

A few days ago we considered man’s free will. We saw that men are free to do what they want to do, but that because of sin, men do not want to please God. Today we want to expand on these considerations.

Because of our “fallenness” we always freely and willingly follow our desire to reject God and His ways. What we lost in the Fall was the royal liberty of the sons and daughters of God, which liberty is to obey and follow God’s desires for us. Although we are saved, and the Spirit prompts us to obedience, our sinful desires still often overwhelm us and we freely choose to do what is evil and harmful.

What About Adam’s Fall?

How could Adam sin? Augustine tells us, rightly, that Adam had the ability to sin, and that Adam also had the ability not to sin. Given the choice, however, Adam chose sin. How could that be, since Adam had no sin nature prompting him to disobey?

I don’t know, and I’ve never found anyone who does know. People usually just glibly say that Adam chose through his free will, but this misses the point. How could Adam chose evil unless he had some prior disposition toward evil? If he had such a disposition already, he would already have been fallen. If God created Adam with such a disposition, God would be the creator of sin, and that cannot be.

We could push it back to Eve, and then to Satan, but the problem remains: Since Satan was created originally good, how could he have sinned? Every theologian I know of throws up his hands and says that this is one of the most excruciatingly difficult problems in all theology. It is a mystery. It is one of the places where we must bow before the mystery of God’s plan and providence.

CORAM DEO

This question and our inability to answer it—a problem that all Christians, whether Calvinists or Arminians, must face—reminds us of our humility as human creatures. There are some things we do not understand. Let this fact lead you to bow before God, who knows all things, and who has done all things well.

For further study: Isaiah 40:12–14; 55:8–9; Micah 4:11–12

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