# Did God ordain Adam's Fall?



## davenporter

My question has to do with Adam's fall. If he was created morally (and otherwise) able to sin (posse peccare) and able to not sin (posse non peccare), with a full libertarian free will and the power of contrary choice (which is what Augustine seems to have taught), did God merely know that the fall was going to happen and predestine everything else accordingly or did God ordain the fall of man itself?

I tend toward the latter, but I ran into this issue in an argument with some open theist and Arminian friends of mine. (And kind of carefully skirted it in the meantime, but it will probably come up again.) And unfortunately the Arminian is gravitating toward open theism.

Also, what about Adam's free will? How did Adam incline himself toward sin if his will was morally neutral?

Since we cannot say that God is the author of sin, is this the place where we just throw up our hands and say that only God knows?

Any links to other material would be helpful as well. I looked at some older threads on here but they weren't very helpful. Neither was Google.


----------



## davenporter

Thanks, Josh, that's what I figured.

Any thoughts as to where sin came from, or how to respond to the claim that "then Adam only sinned because God made him such that he would sin"?


----------



## sevenzedek

Another way to prove that God ordained the fall is to show that, if Christ died for His sheep and was slain before the foundation of the world, then God knew that Adam would sin and He purposefully and willfully created him anyway.

I know someone who was wrestling with open theism. He seemed to be trying to "get God off the hook" regarding the issue of evil in the world. There was a tension, for, him in the idea that God could be a loving God and still permit evil. To try to show that God is loving, he was trying to show that God did not know the evil actions of men before they were committed—God's knowledge of certain future events is unknown and "open". Of course, there are numerous problems with this approach because it hardly handles the scriptures in an honest way. When I showed my friend that this approach does not do justice to the bible verse on Christ's death and the men who did it, he said that God only ordained certain things to take place, but this doesn't work either because of all the human actions that would have to be carried toward the consummation of such an event. How could God guarantee that anything would happen unless He ordain all things? Does God take chances when He gives a prophecy?


----------



## earl40

davenporter said:


> Thanks, Josh, that's what I figured.
> 
> Any thoughts as to where sin came from, or how to respond to the claim that "then Adam only sinned because God made him such that he would sin"?



I find it interesting that Adam fell _when_ he ate the fruit and not before he ate. In other words, Adam was not tempted from within himself but was tempted from without by Satan. Does this answer why Adam ate knowing that when he did it would be a sin evades us all. There is a post by Rev. Wintzer somewhere that addresses these issues and I wish I could search for them now because it is a fascinating read. Maybe later when I get the time.


----------



## JM

John Gill:

8. Of the Sin and Fall of our First Parents.

2a2b. God predetermined the fall of Adam; this fell under his decree, as all things do that come to pass in the world; there is nothing comes to pass without his determining will, "Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?" (Lam. 3:37), nothing is done, or can be done, God not willing it should be done: that the fall of Adam was by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God is certain; because the sufferings and death of Christ, by which is the redemption of men from that sin, and all others, were ordained before the foundation of the world; and which must have been precarious and uncertain, if Adam’s fall was not by a like decree (Acts 2:23; 4:28; 1 Pet. 1:20), but then neither the foreknowledge of God, nor any decree of God, laid Adam under a necessity of sinning; it is true, there arises from hence a necessity of immutability, that is, that the things God has decreed should unchangeably come to pass, but not a necessity of co-action or force; as Judas and the Jews sinned freely, the one in betraying, the other in putting Christ to death; so Adam sinned freely, without force or compulsion, notwithstanding any decree of God concerning him; so that these do not make God at all chargeable with being the author of his sin; he and he alone was the author of it.


----------



## A5pointer

Is this basically a supra/infra conversation?


----------



## au5t1n

A5pointer said:


> Is this basically a supra/infra conversation?



No. If one doesn't believe that God has ordained all things that come to pass, then one is not a Calvinist of any kind. I would also add that a conception of God in which he only foreknows something in creation but does not foreordain it -- or even in which he foreordains it because he foreknows it, as in the Arminian scheme -- makes God dependent on the creature. God's foreknowledge and his own eternal will are one and the same. He does not learn from the creature or depend on the creature for anything.


----------



## fralo4truth

Viewed from a human perspective, the scheme of salvation was contingent upon Adam's choice of the forbidden fruit. It needed to have been foreordained, otherwise it would not have been certain to occur.

Ask your friends this question:

Was God relying upon the free-will of Adam to determine whether He would launch a plan of redemption for sinners or not?


----------



## davenporter

Thanks for the point that Adam was tempted from without, that may help in understanding somewhat. But Adam's will would still have been inclined from without: by God toward good, and by Satan toward evil.

In understanding God's predestination of Adam, must we not assume that God is actively predestining that evil will enter the world through sin, but not making Adam such that he is actually evil or inclined toward evil any more than he is inclined toward good? Adam had a fully free choice and could have done either way. I suppose it is impossible to wrap my head around how that is possible with God's foreordination of all that comes to pass.

I hold to an infralapsarian view of predestination, so as God contemplated creation, he contemplated the fall and only then did he predestine some to salvation and some to remain damned, plucking some out of the mass of perdition and leaving others where they justly deserved to be.

I suppose ultimately the issue is over the purpose of creation. Is the ultimate good man's free will or God's? Is it man's glory or God's glory? And as fallen creatures, can we perfectly understand this paradox where God predestines Adam to sin and yet Adam is still fully responsible?


----------



## A5pointer

I am thinking at the bottom of it all. God brings "ALL" to pass to bring glory to himself and his Son Jesus Christ. His predetermined purposes are in accordance with this goal.


----------



## MW

davenporter said:


> I hold to an infralapsarian view of predestination, so as God contemplated creation, he contemplated the fall and only then did he predestine some to salvation and some to remain damned, plucking some out of the mass of perdition and leaving others where they justly deserved to be.



First, God worketh all things after the counsel of His own will, Eph. 1, which must include the fall. Secondly, Christ has been appointed the heir of all things, Col. 1; Heb. 1; hence Adam's dominion was subservient to the glory of Christ, Heb. 2. Thirdly, Adam was a figure of Christ to come, and his representative disobedience and subsequent death served as an antithetical parallel to the representative obedience and life of Christ, Rom. 5; 1 Cor. 15. Fourthly, Christ, the lamb without blemish and without spot, was foreordained before the foundation of the world, 1 Pet. 1, entailing that the sin for which He became a sacrifice must have been a foregone conclusion. Fifthly, God predetermined not only the death of Christ but also the instrumentality of wicked hands, Acts 2, 4. Sixthly, God subjected the creature to vanity in expectation of its deliverance from bondage at the manifestation of the glorious liberty of the children of God who have been predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, Rom. 8. Seventhly, those who stumble at the word of Christ, being disobedient, were appointed thereunto, 1 Pet. 2. These are facts of biblical revelation. Whether an infralapsarian view can adequately account for them is another matter, but there should be no doubt that the Scriptures explicitly teach the fore-ordination of the fall.

Concerning the complex question of how an upright man could fall, it must be remembered that Adam was merely a natural man of the earth, that he was placed under probation with no divine promise of grace to overcome the world, and was exposed to a tempter with the subtle ability to deceive man into thinking that good was evil and evil was good. Some of the complexities of the subject arise because terms are not properly defined. The will only determines a man towards that which the man himself thinks is good. The power of deception does not consist in making a man choose evil as evil, but under the notion that he is choosing what is good for him.


----------



## earl40

http://www.puritanboard.com/f121/fall-58457/

1. Earthliness. Genesis 2 is very clear about man's earthly nature. Man is of the earth, tills the earth, feeds from the earth, and is united in earthly marriage. So although Adam was upright, he nevertheless naturally desired earthly things.

2. Probation. God set a test for Adam in this condition of earthly uprightness, whereby he was required to show himself upright in things pertaining to God. This entailed a positive rejection of a natural desire he would have for an earthly object. That test is in the prohibition to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2:16, 17. The tree in itself was morally indifferent and contained all the appeal of the other trees. Hence the only reason man was to abstain from it was the bare commandment of God.

3. Temptation. We learn from Genesis 3 that there was an exterior factor in the fall consisting in the serpent's subtle speech. By means of this factor the possibility of thinking differently about the creation was introduced to our first parents.

These three factors -- earthliness, probation, and temptation, suffice to account for the fall of man. The desire to eat the tree was natural to man, the probation required man to reject the forbidden object for no other reason than obedience to the commandment of God, and the temptation gave man the opportunity to think about the tree from a perspective other than God's. Neither mystery nor human philosophy is required to explain the fall of man. Divine revelation has declared it.


----------



## MarieP

davenporter said:


> "then Adam only sinned because God made him such that he would sin



"Truly, this only I have found: That God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes" Ecclesiastes 7::29


----------



## earl40

MarieP said:


> davenporter said:
> 
> 
> 
> "then Adam only sinned because God made him such that he would sin
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "Truly, this only I have found: That God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes" Ecclesiastes 7::29
Click to expand...


Though the first part "That God made man upright" maybe indeed pertain to Adam I think the second "but they have sought out many schemes" referes to fallen man, maybe not. For we know Adam and his fall and temptation did not come from within, so far as him being created with a sinful nature which would predicate him seeking out to sin.


----------



## MarieP

earl40 said:


> For we know Adam and his fall and temptation did not come from within, so far as him being created with a sinful nature which would predicate him seeking out to sin.



According to Thomas Boston's "Human Nature in Its Fourfold State," both Pre-Fallen Man and Reborn Man are able to not sin and are able to sin. Yet we have no problem with saying that we are responsible for our sin even as a new creation in Christ. (I know there are obvious differences between the two states, but that's a whole other discussion!)

James 1
12 Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.


----------



## earl40

MarieP said:


> According to Thomas Boston's "Human Nature in Its Fourfold State," both Pre-Fallen Man and Reborn Man are able to not sin and are able to sin. Yet we have no problem with saying that we are responsible for our sin even as a new creation in Christ. (I know there are obvious differences between the two states, but that's a whole other discussion!)
> 
> James 1
> 12 Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.



We just had that whole discussion and like Jesus I do not think Adam was drawn from within to sin. 

http://www.puritanboard.com/f15/dare-we-connect-james-1-14-hebrews-4-15-a-78539/


----------



## Afterthought

armourbearer said:


> Some of the complexities of the subject arise because terms are not properly defined. The will only determines a man towards that which the man himself thinks is good. The power of deception does not consist in making a man choose evil as evil, but under the notion that he is choosing what is good for him.


If that is the case, how can we say man has an evil heart? Since he is (still? If this is only for pre-Fall man, then my objection falls flat.) only choosing what he thinks is good for him, how is his heart evil or how does he have actually evil desires? It would seem that all his sin consists in ignorance of what is truly good, and that he has truly good desires (that is, he desires to do what is good), if the will always inclines one to what seems to be good such that evil is only chosen because of deception.


----------



## MW

Afterthought said:


> If that is the case, how can we say man has an evil heart?



We can affirm man has an evil heart in the same sense in which Scripture affirms it: " And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that *every imagination of the thoughts* of his heart was only evil continually." "The heart is *deceitful above all things*, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

The deception lies in making man the end of his own actions. Because the orientation is false, every action, even that which outwardly conforms to God's law, is evil. Before Paul was converted he was blameless concerning the law and believed that he ought to do many things against the name of Jesus. A clock that is mechanically sound but set to the wrong time will always give the wrong time; likewise a man might carry out all his convictions according to the way he was intended to psychologically function and yet be completely sinful in all his actions because he is carrying out his convictions for sinful motives.


----------



## Afterthought

Thank you! I had always wondered how an "inclination to good" position might work with that. It seems Plato was onto something but missed the mark on a few crucial details. Do you have any sources you can think of that discuss this view of the will in more detail?


----------



## newcreature

This may be an oversimplification, but here goes:

Man's nature is sinful and without grace man will always choose sin over good. God did not grant Adam the grace to resist the sin of eating the fruit, thereby knowing and allowing him to take the fruit God did ordain the fall for His own glory so that He could redeem man through the blood of Christ. 

Is this accurate?


----------



## MW

Afterthought said:


> Do you have any sources you can think of that discuss this view of the will in more detail?



If possible, see Turretin's Institutes, ninth topic, seventh question, but especially tenth topic, first and second questions (vol. 1 of P&R edition), and note especially the definition of the will as rational appetite. More extensive treatment can be found in van Asselt's Reformed Thought on Freedom.


----------



## davenporter

newcreature said:


> This may be an oversimplification, but here goes:
> 
> Man's nature is sinful and without grace man will always choose sin over good. God did not grant Adam the grace to resist the sin of eating the fruit, thereby knowing and allowing him to take the fruit God did ordain the fall for His own glory so that He could redeem man through the blood of Christ.
> 
> Is this accurate?



We're talking about the prelapsarian state, which means before the fall of man. Augustine taught that the prelapsarian will was able to sin and able to not sin, and therefore he was just as capable of continuing in righteousness as he was of choosing to disobey God and sin. Augustine believed that according to man's nature, though upright since he had not sinned, man was only able to sin of his own ability, but in the prelapsarian state God also granted man the "grace" necessary (Augustine's word, not mine) in order to continue in righteousness, thus making it possible for him to sin or not to sin. The fall corrupted man's nature so that he is morally inclined toward evil, and God also removed that "grace" whereby man could do the good, and man was only able to act according to his human nature, which was now inclined toward evil.

So at that point, we cannot say that man could only choose sin over good. Also, in the prelapsarian state (before the fall) we cannot talk about grace as though it is mercy toward the wretched, for Adam was righteous. Even though Augustine uses the term grace here, I am confident he means that it is merely something not owed to man, but something that God gives of his own free will and pleasure.

But certainly God had in mind the plan to redeem all of fallen mankind. I suppose my original question revolves more around whether God actively or passively brings to pass His will in Adam. Since to save us He must (1) actively determine to save us and (2) actively change something about us to make us alive, God is more active toward His People than toward the reprobate, whom he (1) actively determines to damn/leave in their sins but (2) passively leaves them in their sin, according to the first Adam. In order to reconcile my understanding to God's predestining Adam to sin, I think that it helps to understand God is actively predestining Adam to sin, but He is not changing anything in Adam's nature to make him do it.

Any thoughts in response? Thanks everyone for all the responses, they've been helpful in getting me thinking.


----------



## Brock Organ

davenporter said:


> My question has to do with Adam's fall. If he was created morally (and otherwise) able to sin (posse peccare) and able to not sin (posse non peccare), with a full libertarian free will and the power of contrary choice (which is what Augustine seems to have taught), did God merely know that the fall was going to happen and predestine everything else accordingly or did God ordain the fall of man itself?



Hi Benjamin,

I think the issue might be helped by considering the differences between a "libertarian free-will" and a "spiritual determinism":



> Libertarian free will
> Libertarian free will means that our choices are free from the determination or constraints of human nature and free from any predetermination by God. All "free will theists" hold that libertarian freedom is essential for moral responsibility, for if our choice is determined or caused by anything, including our own desires, they reason, it cannot properly be called a free choice. Libertarian freedom is, therefore, the freedom to act contrary to one's nature, predisposition and greatest desires. Responsibility, in this view, always means that one could have done otherwise.
> 
> Compatibilist vs. libertarian views of free will
> The Compatibilist believes that free will is "compatible" with determinism (as in the sovereignty of God). The incompatibilist says that the free will is "incompatible" with determinism. The Libertarian is an incompatibilist who consequently rejects any determinism associated with the sovereignty of God. Hence, Libertarian Free Will is necessarily associated with both Open Theism, which maintains that God does not foreknow or predetermine the free choices of man, and Arminianism, which admits that God in his omniscience foresees man's free choices and reacts accordingly. Libertarian freedom is the general view of liberal Protestantism and a growing number of evangelicals.
> 
> The Compatibilist view - This view affirms that man freely chooses what God has determined that he will chose. In this way, the idea that God is in charge, and the idea that man can be held responsible for his actions are compatible ideas. Free will is affected by human nature and man cannot choose contrary to his nature and desires. This view acknowledges man as a free moral agent who freely makes choices. But due to the effects of the fall, as contained in the doctrine of total depravity, man's nature is corrupted such that he cannot choose contrary to his fallen nature -- He cannot discern spiritual things or turn to God in faith apart from divine intervention.
> 
> The Libertarian view - According to libertarianism, the idea that God causes men to act in a certain way, but that man has free will in acting that way is logically false. Free means uncaused. Man has free will, and his decisions are influenced, but not caused. God limits the actions of men, but not their mind or will. Man has the ability to turn to God in Christ and sincerely ask for help, selfishly perhaps, apart from specific (special) divine enablement. According to Arminianism, God, in his freedom, not only sets a condition on salvation and wills only to save those who would ask Him to rescue them. God, then, predestines those who He "foreknew" to salvation. Or, according to Open Theism, God is anxiously waiting to see what each person will do, for he cannot know ahead of time what the choice might be.



I agree with the 1689 LBCF when it teaches:



> God the good Creator of all things, in his infinite power and wisdom doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, to the end for the which they were created, according unto his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will; to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy.
> 
> Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly; so that there is not anything befalls any by chance, or without his providence; yet by the same providence he ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.



Since God determines, disposes and governs all things, I don't believe a "libertarian free will" can be supported as biblical ... looking at Chapters 41-43 at:

On Grace and Free Will

... it doesn't seem that Augustine taught such a libertarian free will either.

Kind Regards!


----------



## davenporter

Brock,

Thanks, that was very helpful. There is no question as to whether Augustine held a compatibilist understanding of postlapsarian man. My original quote, however, was pointing to Augustine's view of free will prior to the fall. In the chapters of On Grace and Free Will that you cited, he is talking about postlapsarian man, where any good actions man does are only because of God's grace, and the evil actions of man are because of man himself.

Granted, Augustine did teach that God was divinely assisting Adam even before the fall, but this divine assistance merely gave him the ability to not sin if Adam so chose. Augustine makes clear that the power of contrary choice is not inherent in human nature: "free will is sufficient for evil, but is too little for good, unless it is aided by Omnipotent Good" (On Rebuke and Grace, ch. 31). This was contrary, of course, to Pelagius' view that the power of contrary choice is a necessary element for human nature, that without the power of contrary choice, it would no longer be a human nature.

Anyway, I'm not convinced that Augustine's view of free will prior to the fall was NOT a libertarian free will. It seems Adam did have the power of contrary choice. "[God] had given help without which [Adam] could not continue therein if he would; but that he should will, He left in his free will. He could therefore continue if he would, because the help was not wanting whereby he could, and without which he could not, perseveringly hold fast the good which he would." (On Rebuke and Grace, ch. 32) It seems that Augustine allows that Adam could have chosen to continue in righteousness or to sin. It seems that whatever choice he made could be considered as "uncaused" although certainly it was influenced. One could argue it was caused by Satan's temptation.

Thanks again for the helpful post. I welcome all comments and criticisms of my understanding of Augustine. I certainly agree that God predestined the fall, but I also think that Adam had a genuine moral choice whereas all of us who inherit Adam's sin are morally incapable of doing righteousness. I'm trying to understand if compatibilism can apply to a prelapsarian world. I think it must, to a degree, if God ordained the fall, but what exactly does that mean? Did God actually cause the fall to happen, or did he "permit" it to happen (making the fall a secondary cause)?

Anyway, I appreciate all the responses. Feel free to continue to help me think these things through.


----------



## Brock Organ

davenporter said:


> I'm not convinced that Augustine's view of free will prior to the fall was NOT a libertarian free will.



Thanks for your kind response, Benjamin, my thought is that if libertarian free will is not compatible with God's eternal decree, whereby he ordains all things that comes to pass, then given Augustine's support for the doctrine of God's eternal decree, I would think that would mean he could not hold to a libertarian free will ...

Best Regards!


----------



## davenporter

Yeah, I'm still trying to come to grips with this stuff. I think you're right that a compatibilist understanding of the will is necessary to understand the fall of man as ordained. But what I was really wrestling with is the distinction between the prelapsarian free will of man and the postlapsarian free will of man. Augustine held that prelapsarian man was morally able to sin and able not to sin. For God to predestine Adam to sin, compatibilism must be presupposed. But what is the exact role that God plays in Adam's sin?

So we hold that Adam is fully responsible for his sin. He wanted to sin and he did it. God did not make Adam in such a way that he was unable to choose righteousness. God did not change Adam's character in any way to make him sinful. Yet somehow God predestined that Adam would sin. Could we say God used a secondary agent (Satan) to influence Adam to sin? Adam was not inclined to sin until Satan came to influence him.

I guess my question will probably end up going the route of speculation about where sin came from, if God did not create it, or create anyone evil. But still, if anyone can help me clear this all up in my mind, it would be helpful.


----------



## MW

The forbidden fruit was not "inherently" evil, so a theory which teaches how how man "necessarily" chose the fruit, like compatibilism, does nothing to help our understanding of it. Furthermore, the bondage of the will after the fall only relates to "spiritual" good, not to this or that particular action. Compatibilism might be able to give some kind of psychological explanation as to how motives lead to particular choices but it cannot account for the quality of virtue or vice in those choices.


----------



## davenporter

The evil was in Adam's decision to disobey God (manifested through the action of eating the fruit). But God predestined both the morally neutral action of eating the fruit and the positively immoral act of disobedience, correct? Adam is morally responsible for his sin, and yet God is the one who predestined the sin, right? (Though not in such a way as to bring guilt upon God -- although it's difficult to understand how this is possible.)


----------



## MW

davenporter said:


> The evil was in Adam's decision to disobey God (manifested through the action of eating the fruit).  But God predestined both the morally neutral action of eating the fruit and the positively immoral act of disobedience, correct? Adam is morally responsible for his sin, and yet God is the one who predestined the sin, right? (Though not in such a way as to bring guilt upon God -- although it's difficult to understand how this is possible.)



Yes; if we properly distinguish between the decree and its execution we can affirm that God positively ordained the fall while at the same time He permitted the fall so far as providence was concerned. So while it was foreordained by God, it was freely and fully chosen and committed by man. In the words of the Catechism, our first parents were left to the freedom of their own will. Compatibilist explanations will only tend to introduce divine necessity into the choice and thereby implicate God in the sin, which is something we need to avoid.


----------



## Brock Organ

davenporter said:


> Yeah, I'm still trying to come to grips with this stuff. ... I guess my question will probably end up going the route of speculation about where sin came from



Yes, you and I may need to get in line for that question, my recent reading on the topic (Bavinck and Berkhof) indicates its origin is an impenetrable mystery, and likely to remain so ... John Murray cites 3 insoluble problems (thanks to Pastor Greg Nichols for the summary) associated with the origin of sin:



> A. The Ontological Problem
> This problem is about God’s relationship to sin. Although God completely controls everything, man alone is completely and exclusively responsible for his sin. God decrees that sin shall certainly come to pass, and at the same time, God commands man not to bring it to pass. A similar tension exists regarding the free offer of the gospel and God’s secret decree of reprobation. This problem involves an apparent or seeming contradiction between God's decretive will and God’s preceptive will. 90 This tension safeguards both God's sovereignty and man's accountability. This problem focuses on the question: Who? Who is in control? Who is responsible? Someone supposedly once asked Spurgeon how he would reconcile God's sovereignty and man’s responsibility. He reportedly replied that there was no need to reconcile friends.
> 
> B. The Dispensational Problem
> The second problem focuses on the question: Why? Why did a good God ever allow and decree the fall, and all the suffering and misery that result from it? Ultimately, he designed it for his own glory. All we can say is that the God who decreed the fall is both wise and good, and that it seemed good to him in his infinite wisdom and goodness. We can never plumb the depths of this decree. It is incomprehensible.
> 
> C. The Psychogenetic Problem
> This final problem focuses on the question: How? How could Adam, a perfect and flawless man, sin? He sins by choice, but his moral nature, the condition of his heart, regulates his choices. Thus, for Adam to sin, his heart condition must change. Man’s heart condition changes by choice. He must will it to change. For him to will his heart condition to change, his heart condition must change. In short, change of heart condition necessitates prior change in will; yet a change in will necessitates prior change in heart condition. Thus, the fall is psychologically unexplainable. Efforts to avoid this problem have led to both to the error of Pelagianism and to the error of denying man’s original integrity.



And here is Dr. Nichol's conclusion, which I agree with:



> These three problems often come up in discussion. Many futile and misguided efforts have been made to avoid the tensions inherent in them. All such efforts lead to serious error. We must frankly admit that these problems exist and humbly acknowledge our inability to solve them. This is an instance in which solutions pose worse problems than the problems.



Kind Regards!


----------



## davenporter

I thank both of you for your help. I'll leave it there unless anyone else has anything to add.


----------



## One Little Nail

armourbearer said:


> davenporter said:
> 
> 
> 
> I hold to an infralapsarian view of predestination, so as God contemplated creation, he contemplated the fall and only then did he predestine some to salvation and some to remain damned, plucking some out of the mass of perdition and leaving others where they justly deserved to be.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> First, God worketh all things after the counsel of His own will, Eph. 1, which must include the fall. Secondly, Christ has been appointed the heir of all things, Col. 1; Heb. 1; hence Adam's dominion was subservient to the glory of Christ, Heb. 2. Thirdly, Adam was a figure of Christ to come, and his representative disobedience and subsequent death served as an antithetical parallel to the representative obedience and life of Christ, Rom. 5; 1 Cor. 15. Fourthly, Christ, the lamb without blemish and without spot, was foreordained before the foundation of the world, 1 Pet. 1, entailing that the sin for which He became a sacrifice must have been a foregone conclusion. Fifthly, God predetermined not only the death of Christ but also the instrumentality of wicked hands, Acts 2, 4. Sixthly, God subjected the creature to vanity in expectation of its deliverance from bondage at the manifestation of the glorious liberty of the children of God who have been predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, Rom. 8. Seventhly, those who stumble at the word of Christ, being disobedient, were appointed thereunto, 1 Pet. 2. These are facts of biblical revelation. Whether an infralapsarian view can adequately account for them is another matter, but there should be no doubt that the Scriptures explicitly teach the fore-ordination of the fall.
Click to expand...



Concerning the Fall of Man, I agree in your questioning of whether the Infralapsarian position can adequately account for it,
God's ultimate objective is His own Glory, He was not moved to redeem man as a consequence of the fall that would be to
make God subject to something from without,that could not be,He doesn't exist to be at the beckoning call of man or
anything,but only is moved for His Own Glory & the fall of man is contingent on this fact ,ordained for the manifesting of the 
Manifold Wisdom of God in all its Wonderful & Essential Glory.You look at the fall of the Angels,the good Angels which kept
there estate are spoken of as Elect Angels that is there was a special preserving Grace given to them, with Lucifer & the third of the stars for what reason did they fall but for The Glory of God,they sinned like Adam of their own free will yet it was determined of by God ,there is here a view of Supralapsarianism if ever there was one,looking at Roman 9 & the pattern continues Pharaoh,Esau hath not God power over the clay,what of the original lump of Clay Adam,God in Positively Determining his fall & ruin & that of his descendants,is He not the Sovereign of The Universe & Heavens.What if God willing to show his power in Esau like the rest of reprobate mankind had ordained there destruction
before they had done any good & evil & the fall of Adam was the decreed means in keeping with His Divine Character, Attributes & Nature ie Justice & Holiness,for in one man many were made sinners & the wages of sin is Death first & second. that therefore the one mans transgression was of a foreordained necessity for the accomplishing of God's Purpose & God did all this without any sin Himself,while Adam & Satan sinned wholly of their own volition,thats were the great mystery lies.


----------

