Wouldn’t all the people —including those outside the sacred space—be imagers since it is in Genesis 1 that says let us make man on our image?
I resolve this difficulty by believing Adam
And Eve were given rational souls. I don’t see those around them as full metaphysical humans. Loved by God of course as is all of creation, but not fully human. If Adam and Eve received something special in terms of image bearing capacity, that now has spread to all of us, and those outside the garden originally lacked it, I am not sure why you would call them fully human. Man being made in the image of God is an essential point of Genesis 1 to me.
How does what Adam and Even did spread to all humans in your view and what is it that spreads?
Thanks—I think we’re on the same page more than it seemed!
I absolutely agree: the fall itself is linked to a real Adam and Eve, and it undeniably had consequences. My distinction isn’t placed before or during the fall, but after—in the open theological question of the severity and reach of those consequences. That feels like a separate and valid discussion to me.
Precisely which passage claims that humanity was born perfect enough to fall from?
IOW if Adam (and Eve) were perfect, how could they fall? They must have had the capacity to sin otherwise they could not have done it!
Richard
Edit
It would appear that the word “fall” only appears in the title of Genesis 3 which was not in the original text, but added when compiling the Bible. Nowhere in the Garden story does it say that Adam or humanity fell from anything. They were just banished from Eden!
The only place where perfect is mentioned is in Matt 5 which is a command from Jesus to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, yet everyone is claiming that is impossible!
In my reading, Genesis 1:26 happens after evolved humans already exist. Yahweh declares His intent to appoint imagers. Genesis 2 shows the fulfillment: He forms Adam and Eve de novo, then assigns them the priestly vocation to represent Him and extend His invitation to fellowship with the wider human family.
So the “image” here is primarily that representative mandate—not yet applied to humanity broadly. Bearing God’s image means carrying His invitation to relationship, much like “angel” (messenger) describes a role rather than an inherent nature. The role begins with Adam and Eve and continues today as we act as God’s imagers to the lost world, inviting them into fellowship with Jesus. I would love to here your thoughts on this.
Whether or not the word fall appears, Genesis 3 plainly depicts a moral rupture serious enough to warrant judgment and expulsion; it’s hard to see how banishment, curse, and death could be “for nothing.”
Vinnie, I just read your linked document. It was an interesting take on this dilemma and I enjoyed reading it. I would love it if you would read my thoughts on some of the same issues you address. Thanks for engaging in this fascinating discussion with me. Here is the link
The punishment seems to be hard (er) work and vulnerable to suffering. God is clearly not out of the picture because He continually interacts.
The whole concept fails at the first level. If the fall is correct there can be No prophets, no men (women) of God, because the Fall has no exceptions! And its not as if God perfects His workers. Moses fails, David fails, Peter Fails. Where does this idea of original perfection come from? (As a prequel to Original Sin)
I’m not assuming original perfection or total separation from God—only that Genesis 3 narrates a decisive alteration in the human condition that has a beginning. Without that, moral disorder risks becoming an infinite regress rather than something the story can actually account for.
Thanks for the thoughtful pushback, Richard—great points.
You’re right: the word “fall” isn’t in the original Genesis 3 text (it’s later theological shorthand), and the story doesn’t call Adam/Eve “perfect” or describe a plunge from flawlessness. It simply narrates disobedience and banishment.
That said, the traditional idea of a “fall” arises from the stark contrast the text draws between two paths symbolized by the trees:
Continual access to the Tree of Life represented glad loyalty to and dependence on Yahweh—its fruit providing the ongoing renewal that sustained immortality.
The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil offered the opposite path: rejecting fellowship with Yahweh in order to seize autonomy.
In other words, they didn’t sin because they were imperfectly created—they sinned because they freely chose to exchange loyalty to God for loyalty to self.
Forgive me if I was unclear in my post. When I spoke of imputation, I do not mean the imputation of Adam’s guilt to us. Central to the gospel, though, is that those in Christ have their sins transferred to Him and paid in full on the cross, while His perfect righteousness is imputed to us.
I’m with you—I don’t believe Adam’s guilt was passed to us; we are guilty of our own sins. I do believe the fall affected humanity and the earth in ways I don’t fully comprehend. But I see no compelling reason in science or theology to dismiss the reality of the garden, a Genealogical Adam and Eve, or the two trees. In fact, I read them as crucial historical milestones in the Bible’s bigger story (which I explore more in the original essay).
You asked about the two trees: It’s possible they function metaphorically, but I don’t believe they are merely symbolic. The garden narrative provides so many key reference points for the rest of Scripture.
Here’s how I see them: The Tree of Life represented glad loyalty to and dependence on Yahweh—its fruit providing the ongoing renewal that sustained immortality. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil offered the opposite path: a conscious rejection of fellowship with Yahweh in order to seize autonomy. In other words, they freely chose to exchange loyalty to God for loyalty to self.
Does that help clarify my thinking? I’d love to hear more of yours
I didn’t report you or flag your post which I read. I actually have you on ignore but I toggle the hidden reply once in a while. FOMO is real.
With that being said, I understand why others flagged your post. This forum is not a place to constantly have to defend Christianity 101 from skeptics or to have it bashed by outsiders.
I wasn’t an outsider for 50 years. And Thomism is not Christianity 101. Unfortunately justifying Genesis [at the one end and Jesus’ all too natural [genius] grandiose suicide at the other] is.
My favorite method of navigating around the issue of Original Sin is
the one widely held by millions of Eastern Orthodox Christians for
centuries and centuries (except for the Russian Orthodox) - - with
no known harmful affects!:
Infants are not tainted by an Original Sin, but being humans it is inevitable
that virtually all humans will sin now and then once achieving moral agency.
God intended this process because it provides humanity with a way of
plying human will against sin … in ways valuable to God, but greatly inexplicable
to humans at large.
According to Biblical lore, even angels share these inclinations (though presumably
fewer) with humans.
What you wrote shows how difficult it is for us modern believers to unite the ancient way of telling stories with our ‘traditional’ (or modern) interpretations that have been fed to us since childhood. I am not free of that myself as I still try to grasp what is the most truthful way to interpret Genesis 1-11.
Everything is possible for God. That does not mean that all possibilities are such that God would choose to implement, for various reasons.
A talking snake, a tree with fruits that gave knowledge of good and evil, a tree with fruits that gave eternal life, God walking in the Garden and searching A&E - all are theoretically possible for God but are there reasons to believe that they are realistic material descriptions of what was or happened in the Garden?
If we skip the modern worldview of YEC and related groups, I do not see any reasons to believe that the story is describing realistically such material objects. As you wrote, the trees represent something but there are no hard reasons - outside of some doctrinal claims that ‘you must believe this’ - to believe that they are something else than metaphorical (/mythologized) pictures of something that was part of the teaching. That kind of mental picturing would have been a completely accepted way to tell truths in the ancient way of thinking.
So I think there was literal first couple that fell but Genesis 1-11 is extremely steeped in ancient mythology. If I read any other story with a man named man, a woman named woman who was created from the man’s side, a tree of good and evil and a tree of immortality (or a fountain of youth for that matter), an anthropomorphic God walking in garden and before that parading all the animals before the man to find a suitable mate, a snake talking and later on no longer walking, a couple who did not know good and evil being accountable for taking forbidden fruit, it’s hard to see this as historical narration.
I would tend to follow Walton in proposition 13 of The Lost World of Adam and Eve:
In Genesis, the trees are understood best in the context of sacred space rather than as isolated trees that happen to be in a garden. Whether interpreters consider them real, physical, floral specimens with the ability to bestow benefits to those who partake, figurative symbols of divine gifts, mythological motifs, or anything else, we must not miss the theological and textual significance that they have. Whether they confer or represent, they provide what is only God’s to give. He is the source of life, which is given by him and found in his presence (Deut 30:11-20). He is the center of order, and wisdom is the ability to discern order. Rela- tionship with God is the beginning of wisdom (Job 28:28; Prov 1:7). Consequently, we make a mistake to think that this is simply about magical trees in a garden paradise. It is about the presence of God on earth and what relationship with him makes available.38
At one level, we can simply say they are whatever the Bible considers them to be (even if we cannot decide for certain), because whether they are literal or not, we know their significance. In this way, we commit to taking the Bible seriously and fulfilling the demands of our com- mitment to the truthfulness of Scripture. If the text chooses to use metaphorical symbols, it is free to do so, and we would be remiss to read them any other way. Alternatively, if God chose to endow fruit trees with the wherewithal to confer the life and wisdom that comes from him, we cannot say that it is impossible. God chose Samson’s hair to provide him with strength, but strength came from God, not from hair. Whether the trees are literal or figurative, the basic point remains: life is gained in the presence of God, and wisdom is his gift (not to be taken on one’s own). God is the source and center of wisdom—not us. Regardless of our literary interpretation, the theology must be maintained: life and wisdom are the gifts of God, and human representatives incurred guilt for all of us by grasping the latter illegitimately and therefore losing the former. As discussed in chapter eleven, I believe that the biblical material makes the most sense when sin’s entry is seen as punctiliar rather than the result of a gradual process.
Though I think I would take exception to the part where he says “human representatives incurred guilt for all of us.” I think the rest of his discussion is pretty sound though I suspect some might take exception to his definition of “taking the Bible seriously.”