Posted by During my recent readings in both C.S. Lewis’s Pereandra and the scriptures, I’ve made a list of what I believe are relevant questions that I would love to know the answers to. Some of these questions are redundant and merely reworded, but phrasing them different ways helps to illustrate the multi-faceted issue. I challenge you to think about these questions—I suspect the answers are not at all as immediately obvious as they may seem.
Was violating God’s commandment the only way to progress from the Garden of Eden into mortality?
Sin needs to be possible in order for righteousness to be possible—but does sin actually need to happen?
Could Adam and Eve entered mortality and had children, and populated a world of people with moral agency to choose right and wrong, without violating a commandment themselves?
Could we learn to rely wholly on Christ—learn true dependence and humility—without committing sin?
Would Christ have been necessary if there was no actual sin (only the possibility of sin)?
Does temporal separation from God require sin? That is, could Adam and Even have been physically separated from God without committing a sin?
Does temporal separation from God require Christ? That is, do we need Christ to return to the physical presence of God (if we have committed no sin)?
Is there such thing as death without sin? Could Adam and Eve have introduced death into the world without committing sin?
Is death only a punishment for sin? Or could death have been brought into the world in other ways?
Could Adam and Eve patiently waited until an authorized individual offered them the fruit (in other words, could they have waited until it was no longer forbidden), and then entered mortality and brought death into the world, and still have populated the earth with moral agents with the capacity for death and sin?
That is, could they have not listened to Satan, and still have been the father and mother of a race of saints and sinners needing Christ?
In short, is the story of Adam and Eve the only way things could have happened, or merely the way it did happen?