Where did the original sin come from? It may be a little easier to understand how it is that Adam could have sinned being that he was tempted by another agent, Satan. However, it may be more difficult to understand why it is that Satan chose sin. Satan was not tempted by anything or anyone else. Some find it problematic and an argument against free will, that is, that there is no reason why Satan would choose sin from the beginning. Satan had to have been determined to sin. I can understand that it is problematic, or unresting, in understanding the first sin, but I would rather understand the first sin as having its origin from the created being. One of the tenets of soft-libertarianism is that all choices are not causally determined but are internally originated from the agent. Causal relations may influence the soft-libertarian agent, but it does not cause him to do anything. I would rather have the trouble explaining/speculating as to why a sinless free agent chose to sin rather than explain/speculate how a holy and perfect being can cause sin. This is just a thought that came up in discussion earlier.
Satan
Christ was acutely aware of the power, program, and procedures of Satan. Some have tried to suggest that the Lord really did not believe in the reality of Satan but was accommodating the ignorance of the people when He taught about Satan. However, He spoke of Satan on occasions when there was no need to unless He believed Satan actually existed (e.g., Luke 10:18). Our Lord acknowledged Satan as the ruler of the world (John 12:31), the head of his own kingdom (Matthew 12:26), the father of rebellious people (John 12:31), the father of lies (v44), the evil one who opposes the reception of the Gospel (Matthew 13:19), the enemy who sows tares among the good seed (v39), and thus the one who causes people to do these things which he promotes.
The World
Satan’s world stands in opposition to God’s people and promotes Satan’s purposes. So the world system is a source of sin when anyone conforms to it (John 15:18-19).
The Heart
Often the Lord emphasized that what a person does externally is a reflection of what is in his heart (Matthew 15:19)
The Fall of Man
Many regard the account (Genesis 3) as factual, historical truth. “The account of the creation, its commencement, progress, and completion, bears the marks, both in form and substance, of a historical document in which it is intended that we should accept as actual truth, not only the assertion that God created the heavens and the earth, and all that lives and moves in the world, but also the description of the Creation itself in all its stages (C.F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, The Pentateuch [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, n.d.], 1:137).
Other Scriptures validate the historicity of the Fall. Notice I Corinthians 15:21-22 and I Timothy 2:14. But especially observe how Paul presses the historicity of Adam’s sin in Romans 5:12-21. He repeatedly compares it with what Christ did on the cross. Many who understand Genesis 3 to be legend, poem, true myth, or whatever, do not deny the factuality of Christ’s death (though they may not agree on its significance). But Paul’s comparison and contrast in the passage demands either that Adam’s and Christ’s actions be truth or that both be legend or myth. To accept Christ’s death as factual and Adam’s sin as not is, to say the least, straining the passage to the breaking point. This is exactly what Barthians try to do. They not only accept the historicity of Christ’s death, but for them it is the highest point of revelation. Yet they do not accept the account of Genesis 3 as factual, though they do acknowledge the truth and reality of sin. But if, according to that passage, Christ and what He did stand in the realm of fact, then also do Adam and his actions.
- Adam’s Moral Nature
However we describe Adam’s moral nature before the Fall, it is clear that he was without sin. Some say this means a kind of passive holiness in that Adam was innocent of wrong. His holiness was such as to enable him to enjoy complete fellowship with God. Perhaps it is too strong to speak of a positive holiness since Adam was able to choose to sin. I prefer a description like this: Adam possessed unconfirmed (because he had neither passed nor failed the test) creature (because his holiness was not the same as the Creator’s) holiness (because he was more than “innocent”).
Adam had a free will and a mind capable of weighing choices. “Adam, therefore, could have stood if he would, since he fell merely by his own will; but because his will was flexible to either side, and he was not endued with constancy to persevere, therefore he so easily fell. Yet his choice of good and evil was free; and not only so, but his mind and will were possessed of the consummate rectitude, and all his organic parts were rightly disposed to obedience, till, destroying himself, he corrupted all his excellencies” (John Calvin, Institutes, I, XV, 215).
- The Test
Ultimately the test was whether Adam and Eve would obey God or not. The particular way they could prove that was by not eating the fruit of one of the trees in the Garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In one sense it was a minor prohibition in comparison with the many trees in the Garden from which they could eat the fruits. In another sense it was a major matter, since this was the specific way they could show their obedience or disobedience to God. By way of contrast, how many ways can we show our obedience or disobedience to God in the course of a single day?
- The Tempter
Satan wisely used a creature Eve was acquainted with instead of appearing as himself, something that would likely have altered her to the unusual and put her on guard. Satan used an actual serpent since the serpent was well as Satan were cursed after the fall. For some reason Eve was not alarmed that the serpent spoke with her. “The tempter addresses himself to the woman, probably [because]… the woman had not personally received the prohibition from God, as Adam had; cf. verses 16-17” (Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology {Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948], p. 45).
- The Temptation
A counterfeit, of course, attempts to come as close to the genuine article as possible, while leave something costly out (Satan’s counterfeit). A master counterfeiter, Satan had previously aspired to be like God, not unlike God (Isaiah 14:14). Now he approached Eve with the suggestion that his plan was like God’s but without the restriction of total obedience. When approached with the question whether God had placed any tree in the Garden off-limits, Eve quickly affirmed that she and Adam could eat of all the trees of the Garden except one. And that exception seems to come to her mind almost as an afterthought. Satan had hinted at the possibility that God had placed too-sweeping restrictions on them, and Eve began to entertain that thought.
Then Satan proceeded to offer his own plan which did not have that restriction. “The woman acts on the supposition that God’s intent is unfriendly, whilst Satan is animated with the desire to promote her wellbeing” (Vos, Biblical Theology, p. 47). Satan was attempting to counterfeit the goodness of God.
Satan’s temptation may be viewed in the form of a syllogism. The major premise was that the restrictions were not good. The minor premise was that God’s plan included a restriction. The conclusion then was that God’s plan was not good. On the other hand, Satan’s plan did not include any restriction; therefore, it was good. The validity of the conclusion depends on the truth of the major premise, which in this case is not true. Restrictions are not necessarily wrong or undesirable. Indeed, the restriction placed on Adam and Eve in the Garden was good in that it provided the principle way they could show their obedience to the will of God. Satan’s counterfeit plan did away with that restriction and offered the false hope that if Eve ate the forbidden fruit she could be like God.
Eve’s rationalization of what she was about to do may have been along these lines. As she examined Satan’s proposition, she reasoned that the fruit would be good to eat, and providing good things for Adam was on of her wifely responsibilities. Further, why would God withhold the fruit which was beautiful to the eyes, since He made so many other beautiful things for them to enjoy? And, of course, God would certainly want them to be wise. Therefore, it would be desirable, even necessary, to eat this fruit. Gone from her mind was God’s express command not to eat it. Quickly forgotten were all the blessings He had provided. Eve’s mind seemed only to be filled with her rationalizations—the fruit would give physical sustenance; it would cultivate their aesthetic tastes, and it would add to their wisdom. Having justified what she was about to do, she took fruit from the tree and ate it.
(Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology, 1981)
Another analogy to consider:
A two year-old child had been instructed not touch the hot stove for the child’s on benefit from the parent. The parent tells the child that if he touches the hot stove their will be consequences, both long term (burn) and immediate (disobedience). The child touches the hot stove and must face the consequences. It is not that parents fault the child for touching the stove in a sense one way or another, that child would have never known how what it really means to be obedient. This can be analogous to eating the fruit by Adam and Eve with long term consequence (separation from God) and immediate consequences (disobedience).
To claim God created sin by the existence of a possibility to would be on the bounds of blasphemy and an ontological contradiction of God. Just as man brought sin into this world (Romans 5:12; John 8:23); mankind by human nature become subjects of wrath (Ephesians 2:2-3) and by God’s grace alone (Ephesians 2:8-10) can we have salvation through Christ (John 3:16). So instead of seeking justification by God as to why sin exists, we should be seeking justification because of the sin before God (Romans 1:19-32; Romans 3:23).