God does not say Adam was perfect. It says that
he was very good. Now we need to ask the harder
question. What happens if we insist that he was
perfect? Because once you assume perfection at
the beginning, certain pressures begin to build
and they don't stay small. They reach all the
way up into how we talk about God himself. If
Adam was created perfect, fully mature, spiritually
complete, confirmed in righteousness, then his
fall is catastrophic collapse. And once you say
that collapse occurs under divine providence,
you must answer something uncomfortable. Why
create a perfect being who will fall? If history
unfolds exactly as God eternally knew it would,
then was the fall avoidable? Or was it somehow
necessary? You can feel the pressure building
already. If the fall was necessary for redemption,
and redemption was necessary for election, and
election... displays the maximal glory of God,
then evil begins to look instrumental. Not tragic.
Instrumental. And that's where people instinctively
recoil. When I embraced Calvinism, we were attending
a Calvary Chapel church, a church committed strongly
to free will. I told the pastor about my shifting
views. He listened, and then he said something
simple. I could never embrace that, because it
makes God the author of evil. At the time, I
thought he misunderstood Reformed theology. Reformed
theologians do not say that God authors evil.
They draw careful distinctions between decree
and cause, causation. But I understood his instinct.
Because once everything falls under exhaustive
divine decree, once nothing happens outside what
God knowingly and willingly ordains, people ask,
if it could not have unfolded otherwise, how
is God not responsible? That question doesn't
come from rebellion. It comes from moral intuition.
To be honest, I could have heard my five -year
-old son ask me a question like that. But Arminians
are not off the hook. Here's what took me longer
to see. Arminians often accuse Augustinians and
Calvinists of making God the author of evil.
But historically, they are wrestling with the
same dilemma. Because even in Arminian theology,
God creates knowing Adam will fall. God could
have refrained from creating. God could have
created differently. Yet this world comes into
being. So the question remains, why create a
world you know will collapse? At that point,
both systems appeal to mystery. Calvinists say,
God decrees, yet is not morally culpable. How
does that work? It's a mystery. Arminians say,
God foreknows, yet does not determine. And again,
how does that work? It's a mystery. Because in
both cases, God knew, Adam fell, history unfolds
as it does, permission begins to feel like inevitability.
Because both begin with the same anthropology.
Perfect Adam, catastrophic fall, divine foreknowledge.
This disagreement is about mechanics, not the
starting point. Let's simplify free will. For
clarity, here are the broad categories. Libertarian
free will. You could genuinely... have chosen
otherwise. Determinism. All events are ultimately
fixed by prior causes. It's like the domino effect.
Then there's compatibilism. God determines all
things, yet humans act according to their desires
and are responsible. With compatibilism, original
sin and guilt are already assumed. And here's
why. Again, I'll repeat. God determines all things,
yet humans act according to their desires. and
are responsible. Well, how are you responsible?
You're responsible because you sinned with Adam
when he sinned. He's your federal head. He's
your representative. You're present, inevitably,
in Adam. And you act according to your desires.
Well, what are your desires now that you're fallen?
They're all evil. God doesn't let you do all
the evil you would like to do. So he restrains
you with what they call common grace. Common
grace is both a restrictive sort of idea and
the rain falls on the just and the unjust. There's
also a blessing element. God shows kindness to
sinners who will never be redeemed. But he also
keeps them from doing as much wickedness as they
would like to do. Otherwise, the whole world
would be on fire. Compatibilism tries to preserve
sovereignty and responsibility simultaneously.
Jonathan Edwards is famous for this. But if Adam
was perfect, and God decreed the fall, and Adam's
desires unfold exactly as decreed, was there
ever a real possibility of not falling? If not,
probation becomes performance. And again, probation
as this waiting period in Eden that would eventually
perpetuate ongoing existence in communion with
God. And then... evil begins to look and to function
structurally. So what does permission mean? Because
both Western Christianity and Orthodoxy say God
permitted the fall. But that word does not always
mean the same thing. In a decree -based system,
permission is encompassed within the eternal
divine design. Nothing could have unfolded otherwise.
Permission functions inside inevitability. This
tension between responsibility, and freedom,
that people are really blameworthy, and yet,
could they have chosen otherwise? In Orthodox
theology, permission functions differently. God
permits the fall because love cannot be coerced,
because communion must be free, not because catastrophe
is required for greater glory, not because evil
is architecturally necessary, but because freedom
is real. That is a different metaphysical posture.
One integrates evil into the structure. The other
allows evil as tragic rupture. Gottfried Leibniz
argued that this is the best of all possible
worlds. I'll give a short explanation. If God
is perfectly good and rational, he would only
create the best possible reality. I only mention
this because his best of all worlds theodicy,
the explanation for how evil can coexist with
a good God who's all -knowing, all -loving, etc.,
is extremely influential. Many Calvinists hold
to it. He's also a famous mathematician. If God
is perfectly good and rational, he would only
create the best possible reality. Which implies,
if this world contains evil, then evil must somehow
be necessary for the greatest good. This logic
has shaped centuries of thought. It even anticipates
modern multiverse speculation. The idea that
perhaps countless worlds are possible, but this
one is optimal. But notice what happens if that's
true. The fall was not tragic in the deepest
sense. It was optimal. It had to happen. And
if it had to happen, evil is no longer parasitic
and becomes necessary. At this point, theology
often appeals to mystery. And mystery is real.
But sometimes mystery becomes a way of holding
together claims that strain coherence. God ordains
all things. God is not the author of evil. The
fall was necessary for glory. Adam could have
done otherwise. Tension becomes normal, but tension
is not always depth. Sometimes tension signals
that the starting point needs reexamining. The
Eastern tradition avoids this trap by framing
evil differently. Evil is not a created thing.
It has no independent substance. It is parasitic,
like darkness is the absence of light. Like rot
is the corruption of something good. Evil does
not need to be willed. It emerges when communion
is severed. And this connects directly to Christ's
words. I am the vine, you are the branches. Branches
wither when cut off. They do not need to be legally
condemned to die. They die because they are severed
from life. That's an organic model, not primarily
forensic. Now, if Adam was perfect, then his
fall requires explanation at the level of divine
design. I'll repeat that. If Adam was perfect,
then his fall requires explanation at the level
of divine design. But if Adam was very good,
immature, called to grow, then the fall is tragic
derailment, not optimal architecture, not necessary
stage setting. It's tragic. Evil remains parasitic,
not instrumental. Permission retains allowance
of freedom, not inevitability. God does not need
evil. God does not require catastrophe. Communion
was the goal and rupture is the distortion of
communion. If evil must exist for the best possible
world to exist, then it is no longer parasitic.
But if evil is parasitic, If it is distortion
of communion, then it need not be willed for
glory. It need only be permitted because love
is real. Very good. Not perfect. Communion. Not
inevitability. And that difference changes how
we speak about God. Join me next time for part
three. A very good is a long way from perfect.