03. The Temptation and the Fall

CHAPTER III The Temptation and the Fall Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden. -Milton. THE TEMPTATION

Whether we accept the theory that Satan is a fallen angel or account for the existence of evil beings in some other way, we must admit, if we accredit the Genetic narrative, that there existed at the time of man’s creation, or soon afterward, an evil intelligence. The story of how our first progenitors were tempted by this evil one through the instrumentality of the serpent is too familiar to demand a detailed repetition here, and too evident from the third chapter of Genesis to need further proof. Even in the literature of many heathen nations is found a narrative similar to the Mosaic account of the temptation and fall. It is probable, however, that these Gentile traditions were derived originally from the Hebrew narrative.

God was in no way responsible for man’s temptation. As we have before seen, the alternative between good and evil was a necessity to the free moral agency of man; for had there been no alternative and man had been incapable of the power of choice, he would have been an automaton, a mere machine. Man’s superior intelligence made it possible for Satan to direct his attention to the wrong and to awaken in him a desire for knowledge. The possibility of man’s temptation, like the possibility of his fall, was an inevitable consequence of man’s necessary constitution. The possibility of temptation was not an injustice to man, for it must be conceded that to resist temptation was within his power. Moreover, man occupied a vantageground against temptation and sin on account of the holiness of his nature and the privilege of association with God. This, again, places the entire responsibility of yielding to temptation upon man. Besides the positive advantages possessed by man, he had been warned of, and evidently understood, the consequences of yielding to temptation and sin; for God had said, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." THE FALL The holiness of man did not exempt him from the possibility of falling. That primitive man, in spite of the holiness of his being, fell from his first moral state, is the testimony alike of human experience and of revealed truth. As we have before noticed, the law was consequent upon man’s necessary constitution. Man’s happiness and obedience were a divine preference; therefore God was in no way responsible for the sin of our first parents. Primitive disobedience was plainly an act of man’s free choice committed against the pleasure and the warning of God and with a full knowledge both of the consequences of disobedience and of the reward of happiness. The penalty of disobedience was plainly stated in the law, which, as we have before proved, both Adam and Eve clearly understood. The reward of continued obedience must have been clear from man’s Edenic experience before the fall. In the light of all these facts, no reasonable mind can evade the conclusion that the responsibility for the fall rested wholly with man. The fall of man was not, as some suppose, a divine permission as a ground for subsequent redemption. The theory that God did so permit the fall is clearly set forth by Dr. Miley in the following words: " God Permitted the fall of man that he might provide a redemption for the race so ruined, and through his infinite grace and love bring a far greater good to the moral universe, and especially to the human race." Paul, viewing the question, would doubtless say, "Shall we do evil that good may come? God forbid." Dr. Miley continues as follows:

"The theory must thus appear in open contrariety to the divine holiness. This result discredits it; for not even the love of God must be glorified at the expense of his holiness. Nor is it within the grasp of human thought that sin, the greatest evil, can be necessary to the greatest good of the moral universe. It is still true that an immeasureable good will arise from the atonement in Christ; but it is not the sense of Scripture that the fall was any part of a providential economy for the sake of that good. The Scriptures glorify the love of God in the redemption of the world, but ever as a love of compassion for a sinful and perishing world, not as an anterior benevolence which must accept moral evil as the necessary condition of its richest blessings. "

Since the doctrine that the fall was a divine permission as a ground for subsequent redemption is contrary to the infinite holiness of God and has no support in the Scriptures, we must discard it as a mere human theory, and adhere to what the Scriptures most certainly teach: that the fall resulted from the free choice of intelligent beings endowed with power to obey or to disobey, and that no responsibility whatever attaches to God on account of the fall.