The Fall

The Fall

Adam and Eve were created in paradise with everything they needed, living in direct communion with God. Their nature was oriented toward Him, and they were immortal not by their own power, but through participation in divine life.

They were given a single boundary: not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This command was not arbitrary, but expressed their creatureliness, the acknowledgment that they were dependent on God and not gods by nature.

The serpent’s temptation was not merely an invitation to break a rule. It was the lie that they could be "like God" on their own terms, that they could define good and evil for themselves, and that they did not need God in order to be fully alive.

By eating from the tree, Adam and Eve did more than disobey a command. They fundamentally reoriented their will away from God and toward themselves, choosing independence over communion.

The consequences of the Fall were not punishments imposed externally by God, but the natural result of cutting themselves off from the source of life. Severed from God, humanity became subject to corruption, decay, and death.

This death was not only physical, but spiritual. Human nature became disordered, desires were twisted, and the will was weakened and enslaved to sin, resulting in the gradual disintegration of the life humanity was created to live.