Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

Adam WAS created perfect. (As the verse cited in the question states, he was made "in the likeness of God.") However, he was also created with free will, and with the ability to choose a course of action. (The fact that he had such freedom is shown by God telling him not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If man had not had the power to choose whether to obey or disobey, it would not have been necessary for God to do that.) 

Without that freedom, man would have been an automaton or a robot. While he might have then been incapable of disobedience, he would also have been incapable of offering genuine free and voluntary love to God. (On a human level, would we value the "love" of someone who had no choice about loving us? It is the freedom of others to give love or to withhold it that causes us to value their love for us.)

As the Christian author and commentator C. S. Lewis said, "Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having."

January 23 2017 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report

Cathy smith

My opinion is that since Adam was the first man, he was perfect and without sin because he did not "inherit" sin through his blood the way we have. The ability to choose sin is not an imperfection--it's Gods perfect design for free will.

June 15 2017 • 2 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report

Nils Jansma Missionary in San Diego California

This is another interesting question that is probably more complicated than one might think. We often read about how Adam and Eve “Rebelled against God.” That thought seems to be in our DNA and yet it is not Scriptural.

There is no place in the Bible that says Adam and Eve rebelled. Their conduct is only used as an example of their disobedience. Paul explains the matter for us at 1 Timothy 2:14, by saying Eve was deceived but Adam was not. What does it mean that Adam was not deceived? It means that he knew that he was going to die somehow that day for eating the forbidden fruit (FF).

Now I ask you, what would have motivated Adam to, in essence, commit suicide? He had absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose if he ate of the FF. His motive, in my opinion, is explained by God Himself. In Genesis 3:17 God says “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;” 

So why would Adam have listened to Eve when He knew she would no longer be with him, maybe even that very day? Adam didn’t plead her case of ignorance because he knew that was not an acceptable excuse for disobedience. Eve had doubted God’s word and chose, of her own free will, to listen to a deceiver. 

You might wonder why Eve doubted God’s word. Maybe it was because she had never actually heard God’s word. It may be that everything she knew about God was told to her by Adam. Why can this be considered? Because her response to the Serpent was not God’s instruction to Adam directly. She included in the prohibition against the FF the command to not even “touch” it. (Genesis 3:3) This may indicate that she received her instructions about the FF from Adam who included the phrase about “touching” as an extra precaution.

Without going into any more details, consider maybe that the Serpent was in the Forbidden Tree and touching the fruit. Also, consider that Eve had never experienced an “animal” talking. If both of these things happened to you under those circumstances, what might you think? 

To end this story, we should again briefly analyses Adam’s response the God. Genesis 3:12 “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” In my opinion, Adam could have followed this “excuse” with the comment “What else did you expect me to do.” Through no fault of his own, he had lost the love of his life and it may be in his mind, life would not be worth living without Eve. 

Instead of Adam’s act being one of defiance, it was in fact, a romantic demonstration of a husbands love for his wife who would not let her face the consequence of her actions alone. It, in my mind, is what a “perfect husband” would do no matter what the consequence. Also, it could be considered as a demonstration of the upmost confidence that God would provide a solution to the situation somehow. Adam’s confidence and trust was not misplaced. God did provide a solution in the person of Himself incarnate, as Jesus Christ.

June 16 2017 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report