To us, the expression, the fall of man is not only a meaningful expression, but theologically sound and an historical fact. Is such an idea defensible? There is the idea that man is on the up and up; that we are evolving into something more sophisticated with each generation. We have come from cave-man to gentleman, from an ignoramus to a professor. People mistake technological advance for human advance. Are we really any better than our forbears? The wars of the 20th century killed more than the wars of any other century.
The Bible says that man started perfect and fell. That men can become better men through Christ. Can anyone imagine a better life than the one Christ lived 2000 years ago? If not, where then is our advancement, and who is the Perfect One we should follow?
It is commonly believed that evolution teaches the rise and rise of man, and the idea of sin entering the world from the original perfect couple lacks scientific and historical evidence. But the question remains, just what sort of proof would we think would reasonable be available? It’s very much akin, say, to arguments concerning the need for proof for Jonah and the great fish:- would we really expect to find, what? A fossilised fish with evidence of a stomach upset caused by the ingestion of a man. Or, maybe the remains of a giant Quik-Eze wrapper? It stands to reason that we should not expect to find any direct empirical evidence for Jonah’s experience, and neither do I think that anyone would search for such. In fact, most historical events have no direct empirical evidence to support them but rest upon testimony only. What sort of evidence would we think would be available to prove the fall of man? Or what experiment could you perform to demonstrate the historicity of the fall? Even if we dug up a fossilised Eve with a fossilised piece of fruit in her mouth next to a fossilised Adam with a slightly faded fig leaf clinging to his pelvic bone, what would that prove? And sin’s presence among men, how do you determine it? Do the remains of an innocent child lack something that is found in the remains of one who was of accountable age? How can we ask science to find some empirical evidence that never did exist, and not finding it, claim it as proof that the fall of man never happened?
What is interesting is the fact that all people I know believe in evil. They talk about man’s inhumanity to man. They agree with Edward Gibbon that History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. Where did wickedness come from? Where did right and wrong come from?
Why do Christians believe in the fall of man? First, God revealed it in Genesis 3. Next, Jesus believed Genesis to be historical (Matt.19:5). Then, Paul talked about Adam (1 Cor. 15) and Eve (2 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:13). Finally, because it makes sense! Why do cosmologists believe in the big bang? They weren’t there but they believe it explains why the galaxies are moving away from each other. Does the fall of man explain sin? Yes. G.K. Chesterton said, Nothing can be more comic than to set so shadowy a thing as the conjectures made by vague anthropologists about primitive man against so solid a thing as the human sense of sin. As A.J. Hoover put it, Eden may be lost to us but sin bumps into us every day.
What other explanation can we come up with to explain the presence of sin? Can we blame it on our supposed evolutionary ancestors because they had tails? Does it do any good to deny the reality of sin? Man has always struggled with his conscience, and either accused or excused his behaviour (Rom. 2:15).
Gen. 3 is such a crucial passage in the Bible. In much the same way that Acts forms a connecting link between the gospels and the epistles, so Gen. 3 links the perfect world of the Garden of Eden with the world as we know it. The chapter provides a link to explain, not only the presence of sin in the world, but also the nature of our physical environment. The world as we know it is different from the Garden of Eden in both behaviour and environment. Not only is man wicked, our world displays unmistakable signs that it is not perfect. Note Gen. 3:17-19 – it shows there is a direct link between the two – note: Cursed is the ground because of you!
Our God-denying society is so soaked in evolutionary dogma that it doesn’t speak of Father God but of Mother Nature. But nature is our sister, not our mother, both of us having been brought into existence by a mighty fiat of our Father God. We can admire her beauty as a brother may that of a sister, but she is not to be worshipped or called ‘Mother’. Note the connection Paul makes between the natural world and man in Rom. 8:19-23: we live is a flawed universe, in bondage to decay, what we would call the second law of thermodynamics which says the universe is running down like a giant clock.
Nature is not anymore perfect than we are, and displays its flaws, not only with the weeds that spring up in your garden, but also with floods, earthquakes, famines, volcanoes, storms etc. that afflict our world.
Voltaire, the French sceptic of the 18th century, was a deist. That is, he denied the Bible and Christ and religion, but believed in a Supreme Being, a First Cause, or Architect of the universe, who had created the great world-machine that functioned perfectly. An event shook his understand of the world. On what is known as All Saint’s Day, Nov.1st, 1755, a violent upheaval of the sea floor somewhere in the Atlantic sent a tsunami rocketing toward Lisbon, Portugal’s capital of 275,000 people. Many were assembled in church buildings as the earthquake struck. In all, 17,000 out of some 20,000 homes were destroyed, along with thirty church buildings. Then fire broke out which raged for 5 or 6 days and which destroyed much of the city. Some 30,000 perished.
The people of the day were greatly disquieted, even as Voltaire, who wrote the novel, Candide, to satirise the idea that this was the best of all possible worlds. Why had God allowed this to happen on such a ‘holy’ day when so many worshippers were assembled in church buildings? Some said it was because the city was wicked. But why did so many priests, nuns, and religious people die? Protestants said that it was God’s judgement upon Catholic crimes against humanity as the headquarters of the Inquisition was destroyed. But why had the brothel district been left standing? Moslems believed it was God’s judgement against infidel Christians, but why had the quake destroyed the Great Mosque of Al-Mansur in Rabat, Morocco?
Truly, as Paul wrote in Rom. 11:33 (appropriating Isa. 40:12ff), How unsearchable His judgements, and His paths beyond tracing out.
This world is no longer a Garden of Eden. It is a flawed universe and until Jesus comes we will expect man to be a problem to himself and others, and nature to be a problem. Man will keep on sinning and natural disasters will keep on occurring.