Let's begin at the beginning. There is a phrase
in Genesis that we rarely stop to question. Very
good. After creating humanity, God looks at everything
he has made and declares that it was very good.
Not perfect. Not complete. We often imagine Adam
and Eve as perfect beings, but scripture never
actually says that. And I want to suggest that
almost everything in Western theology depends
on whether we hear Genesis correctly. Because
if you start with perfection, you build one kind
of story. If you start with very good, you build
another. If humanity is created with potential,
then growth is assumed. Potential implies movement.
Potential implies development. Potential implies
that the present state is not the final state.
Now, pause and think. If Adam was created already
fully mature, fully righteous, spiritually complete,
what was his life like? Was he becoming anything?
Did he have a trajectory? If there's no potential
for growth, then Adam's purpose becomes static,
maintenance, preservation, existence without
development. And I think this explains something
else. Many Christians imagine heaven as static.
You arrive, you're perfected, and then you remain
in fixed bliss forever. Where's the deepening,
the ascent, the movement? Why? We imagine Eden
that way. If the beginning was static perfection,
the end must also be static perfection. But what
if that assumption is wrong? See, Eden was a
beginning, not the end. That means that the world
outside Eden is not yet Eden. It is supposed
to become Eden. That assumes expansion. That
assumes growth. That assumes sacred space is
meant to spread outward. But if Adam had no potential,
then what exactly was he called to subdue? If
he was already perfect in a finished sense, what
was he cultivating? The command itself implies
movement. Eden is not the final state. It's the
starting point. And once you look for it, the
imagery of growth and ascent is everywhere. Jacob
sees a ladder stretching from heaven to earth.
Angels ascend and descend. There's movement between
realms. Later, Christ identifies himself with
that ladder. The angels of God are ascending
and descending upon the Son of Man. That is not
static imagery. That is communion. That is participation.
Humanity invited upward. The temple itself is
built on a mountain. You ascend to worship. You
literally move up. The Psalms are songs of ascent.
Israel's journey is movement, not maintenance.
Exodus is not merely escape, it is formation,
it is becoming. Paul says that we are being transformed
from glory to glory. The Bible reads like a story
moving upward, not preserving something frozen.
The church fathers often described Adam as a
child. Saint Irenaeus writes, Man was a child,
not yet having his understanding perfected. a
child, not ruined perfection, not shattered metaphysical
brilliance, a child. Children are not perfect,
but they are very good. They are growing. That
language matters because it frames Eden as formation,
not finished glory destroyed. The fathers also
did not teach that Adam was inherently immortal
by nature. The fathers did not teach that Adam
was inherently immortal by nature. That point
is extremely important. Saint Athanasius says
that humanity was by nature mortal, yet capable
of remaining incorrupt through communion with
God. By nature mortal, by communion capable of
immortality. Immortality was not automatic, it
was relational. The tree of life was not decoration,
it signified dependence, communion, contingency,
participation. Life flows from union. Separation
results in corruption. That is a very different
picture from inherited guilt. When Augustine
confronts Pelagius, the emphasis shifts. Humanity
becomes not merely mortal, but condemned. And
once condemnation becomes the starting point,
salvation becomes primarily legal pardon. If
the problem is inherited guilt, then the cure
becomes acquittal. That logic is internally consistent,
but it is built on a specific anthropology. Earlier
fathers emphasized corruption and death. Augustine
emphasizes guilt, and that shift reverberated
through Western theology. Now, Reformed covenant
theology formalizes this structure. Adam stands
in a probationary covenant, the covenant of works.
He acts as humanity's federal head. Ask, why
would a perfect being need probation? Probation
implies growth. It implies something not yet
secured. Honestly, I do not even like the word
probation here. Christ says, abide in me. That
is relational language, not courtroom language.
The Edenic vision seems less like passing a legal
test and more like deepening communion. If Adam
is already perfect, then what exactly is being
confirmed? The very existence of probation. suggests
immaturity, movement, and potential. Adam was
very good, but not yet consummated. If you think
in terms of temple imagery, this framework makes
far more sense. We are temples of the Holy Spirit,
but temples are meant to deepen, to expand, to
become places where divine life radiates outward.
Humanity becomes sacred space like Eden, and
then spreads that life outward into creation.
Temple formation makes sense. Courtroom Probation
makes less sense if perfection is already assumed.
Now, things become more complicated because Calvin
writes that nothing happens apart from divine
decree. So, if the fall becomes necessary for
election, and election becomes necessary for
the maximal display of divine glory, then history
starts to feel inevitable. It begins to look
as though this exact world had to exist. And
if this world could not have been otherwise,
then what happens to freedom? Does God have freedom?
Do we? And this is where Eastern Orthodox theology
introduces something extremely important, the
essence -energies distinction. God's essence
is who God is in himself, his innermost reality,
transcendent, beyond comprehension. But God's
energies are how he acts, how he creates, sustains,
how he saves. Think of the sun. You cannot approach
its core, but you truly... experience its light
and warmth. The light is not the essence. It
is the activity. God's existence is necessary.
God must be God. But creation is free. God did
not have to create. The fall was not necessary.
Redemption was not inevitable. These are expressions
of divine freedom. But if God's will collapses
into his essence, then willing creation becomes
necessary. And if creation becomes necessary,
freedom begins. disappearing. Everything starts
to look deterministic, whether we admit it or
not. This is why creation from nothing matters
so deeply. Creation is not eternal. It is not
necessary. It is free. The fathers insist on
this repeatedly. Saint Basil says creation was
not of necessity but of will. Saint Athanasius
says God was not compelled to create. History
is relational, not inevitable. Someone might
say, I do not believe in original sin. I'd I
don't believe in total depravity. I believe in
Jesus. I invited Jesus into my heart. But if
salvation is fundamentally understood as moving
from hellbound to heavenbound, and if humanity
is assumed to begin condemned, then the inherited
guilt framework is already underneath the system.
It is so deeply embedded in the modern imagination.
Even when people reject the labels, the structure
often remains. Without inherited guilt, the entire
heaven versus hell from birth framework starts
collapsing. So what's the alternative? Healing,
resurrection, participation, communion, not merely
acquittal. This is why Eastern Christianity approaches
infants differently. Infants are baptized. They
are charismated. They receive communion, not
because they are acquitted criminals, but because
they need life. That difference flows from an
entirely different anthropology. not probation,
freedom, not inevitability. And that difference
changes everything.