Did Adam Cease To Believe Due To The Fall?

[gmm4j]

The “T” in Calvinism’s Total Depravity/Inability states:

Because of the Fall, man is unable of himself to savingly believe the gospel. The sinner is dead, blind and deaf to the things of God; his heart is deceitful and desperately corrupt. His will is not free; it is in bondage to his evil nature. Therefore he will not—indeed cannot—choose good over evil in the spiritual realm. Consequently, it takes much more than the Spirit’s assistance to bring a sinner to Christ. It takes regeneration, by which the Spirit makes the sinner alive and gives him a new nature. Faith is not something man contributes to salvation, but is itself a part of God’s gift of salvation. It is God’s gift to the sinner, not the sinner’s gift to God.

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With the Calvinist view in mind, does Scripture say that sin caused or God cursed Adam with the inability to believe in God, thereby removing his ability to believe or respond to the call of God at the Fall?

Of course, there is no indication that Adam at any time ceased to believe in God. In fact, immediately after the Fall, both Adam and Eve recognized God when He was walking in the Garden.

Genesis 3:8 says,
"Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden"

They obviously still had a knowledge of God. They still believed He was real, but now they were afraid of Him. They were not in proper relationship with Him.

Genesis 3:10 says that Adam responded to God, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

Adam still retained the ability to believe God, so much so, that they feared Him due to their new fallen condition.

Or, perhaps God regenerated both Adam and Eve, after they fell and prior to verse 8 when He walked in the Garden, enabling them to recognize that it was Him (God) walking there in the cool of the day. Theoretically, if He had not regenerated them, they still would have heard the sound of Him walking, but they would have explained the noise away by saying, “That's not God. There is no such thing as a God. It must be one of the animals. Anyway, I believe we just evolved.”

Or, maybe we should just stick with: Adam did not cease believing in God.

Upon the Fall, did God curse Adam and remove his ability to believe?

When God pronounced curses upon satan, the ground, woman, and man did He ever revoke man's ability to believe upon Him?

If this curse were to come upon man, or was part of the death sentence of sin, you would think God would have mentioned it here, but He did not. God did not remove Adam's ability to believe. He still retained the ability to recognize and believe in God.

Upon the Fall, did Adam lose the ability to respond to the call of God?

Genesis 3:9-10
But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" 10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

And, yes of course God did ban them from the Tree of Life. Man was expelled from the Garden. The way back, however, is by faith, by believing in Christ.

Although man had fallen, was afraid of God and hid from Him, when God called man, man was able to respond to Him. Adam retained the ability to respond to the call of God. By all indications this was not an irresistible inward call, but was an outward call that could have been resisted by Adam, but instead he answered.

Or perhaps, although it is not recorded, the Spirit of God irresistibly regenerated Adam between verses 9 and 10, allowing him to make a positive response to God's call. Or maybe we should just stick with: "He answered." Adam did not lose the ability to respond to the call of God.

And then, I'm glad that God regenerated Adam and Eve from their fallen state so as to enable them to receive the garments of skin that He provided. Or again, perhaps they just retained the ability to receive this gift from God all along?

 

[gmm4j]

OP anyone?

 

[stenerson]

We're not given enough info concerning them to answer all those questions. The fact that they still believed in God (that He existed and that He is real) after the fall means nothing. Of course they did, He created them, communicated with them and was the first person/being they saw when created and given life. That's not a saving faith, just knowledge of facts concerning the reality and existence of God.
They heard God cursing Satan and His warning to Satan that a man descended from the woman would conquer (crush) the head of the serpent.
I get a sense that they were waiting in faith for this Messiah by Eve's excitement over the male children born to her. Of course we have no idea of the moment that God gave them this saving faith.

 

[singlecandle]

Upon the Fall, did God curse Adam and remove his ability to believe?

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die. Genesis2:17

They died spiritually and brought the curse of sin upon the whole human race.
Disobeying God's Word is always sin.

So, yes.

 

[gmm4j]

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die. Genesis2:17

They died spiritually and brought the curse of sin upon the whole human race.
Disobeying God's Word is always sin.

So, yes.

So, yes? You said they died spiritually and brought a curse of sin upon the whole human race, and that disobeying God's Word is always sin. How did that affect their ability to believe? You do not state anything about their ability to believe being removed. Were they able to believe God and receive the covering He provided them?

 

[singlecandle]

So, yes? You said they died spiritually and brought a curse of sin upon the whole human race, and that disobeying God's Word is always sin. How did that affect their ability to believe?

Hi, gmm4j!
Being dead would mean that they had no spiritual life in them whatsoever-meaning that they could not function spiritually. Could they believe to the saving of their souls at this point? No, not apart from the divine intervention of God.

You do not state anything about their ability to believe being removed. Were they able to believe God and receive the covering He provided them?

"Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them" Genesis 3:21

God provided clothes for them. That didn't require for them to believe anything.

 

[gmm4j]

Hi, gmm4j!
Being dead would mean that they had no spiritual life in them whatsoever-meaning that they could not function spiritually. Could they believe to the saving of their souls at this point? No, not apart from the divine intervention of God.

"Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them" Genesis 3:21

God provided clothes for them. That didn't require for them to believe anything.

Being dead is separation from God, not the inability to believe Him for salvation. The divine intervention of God is His redeeming work on the cross. Faith comes by hearing the good news of His work for us.

How do you know that receiving and putting on the clothes didn't require faith? If God gave you clothes to wear and wanted you to put them on, I think you would need to trust Him to do so, otherwise you wouldn't receive them.

Why didn't they reject the gift of skins. In a fallen state of total inability wouldn't they naturally have rejected this gift from God who is Spirit?

 

[ronathanedwards]

Being dead is separation from God, not the inability to believe Him for salvation

You are assuming that. You must give an explicit verse that supports your view, but you can not. There isn't one explicit verse that says: the natural man is ABLE to please/obey God.... not one...

Faith comes by hearing the good news of His work for us.

Hearing they did not hear.... "you do not believe BECAUSE you are not my sheep"

Why didn't they reject the gift of skins. In a fallen state of total inability wouldn't they naturally have rejected this gift from God who is Spirit?

Your assumptions always get you in trouble gmm ... The Spirit of God was upon them, otherwise, your assumed consequence, if it were the reality, would be true and they would not have taken the skins.

 

[Don Maurer]

Of course, there is no indication that Adam at any time ceased to believe in God. In fact, immediately after the Fall, both Adam and Eve recognized God when He was walking in the Garden.

Genesis 3:8 says,
"Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden"

They obviously still had a knowledge of God. They still believed He was real, but now they were afraid of Him. They were not in proper relationship with Him.

Genesis 3:10 says that Adam responded to God, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

Adam still retained the ability to believe God, so much so, that they feared Him due to their new fallen condition.

There are several category errors in the above post. One of the catagory errors is when the gmm4j speaks of faith. He confuses two different kinds of faith. When gmm4j says... "They obviously still had a knowledge of God. They still believed He was real" he confuses saving faith with a knowledge that God is real. I cannot help but think of James 2:19 immediately. Demons have faith that God is real and have a kind of knowledge of God, but if there is any point to James 2, he is saying that such a faith is not saving faith. The category error is confusing saving faith with knowledge of certain facts about God.

Then gmm4j makes another category error in which he assumes that because Adam continued to be aware of God's existence, that this somehow demonstrates that Adam had the ability to have faith. Another category error. One can be aware of an God, know things about God, and yet have such an evil nature that this person cannot love God in any way. Again, knowledge is not the same thing as ability. So then, there is a 2nd category error.

Or, perhaps God regenerated both Adam and Eve, after they fell and prior to verse 8 when He walked in the Garden, enabling them to recognize that it was Him (God) walking there in the cool of the day. Theoretically, if He had not regenerated them, they still would have heard the sound of Him walking, but they would have explained the noise away by saying, “That's not God. There is no such thing as a God. It must be one of the animals. Anyway, I believe we just evolved.”

Here is a complete misunderstanding of the biblical teaching of regeneration. gmm4j assumes that if they were unregenerate, that they would not be able to hear the noise of God walking. This is a complete misunderstanding of hearing. This of course makes me think of Deuteronomy, and then later ISaiah, and then even later the gospels. The scripture talks about "hearing and they did not hear." In those passages, people hear the words of God, but they hear them only with the ears, and not the soul. It speaks of hardness of heart. The unregenerate can hear the sounds and words of the scriptures. I know atheists that can read the bible, they just do not have the ability to believe it.

Adam, no matter if regenerate or unregenerate could hear the audio sounds of God, but if he was unregenerate, he would not believe the words of God.

Or, maybe we should just stick with: Adam did not cease believing in God.

WOW, think of the implications of this statement!!! Adam believed in God and still partook of the fruit. Ehhh?

Upon the Fall, did God curse Adam and remove his ability to believe?

When God pronounced curses upon satan, the ground, woman, and man did He ever revoke man's ability to believe upon Him?

If this curse were to come upon man, or was part of the death sentence of sin, you would think God would have mentioned it here, but He did not. God did not remove Adam's ability to believe. H.e still retained the ability to recognize and believe in God.

Argument from silence. Moses does not have to fully explain every aspect of what it means to be spiritually dead in Genesis. It really is OK for Paul to expand the specifics of what Moses was talking about with reference to death. When the scriptures later speaks of the curse of this death in Romans 5, or Ephesians 2. In Ephesians 2:1-3 it says we are "and were by nature children of wrath." Our nature is one where we do not want to view God in a glorifying way and deserve the wrath of God. This is because of our "nature." So then, the discussion of "ability" in Genesis is meaningless. That is not what the context is in Genesis. Ephesians and other passages make it complete clear what the seed thoughts were in Gensis. We have a nature that allows the response of a rebel sinner dead in trespasses. We are by nature rebels who have no desire to believe.

This is why Romans 3:11 can say....
11 There is none that understandeth, There is none that seeketh after God;
This is why John 6:44 can say...
44 No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him: and I will raise him up in the last day.

It makes no sense at all to demand that a statement on the lack of ability be in every text. It makes no sense to assume that there can be no development of doctrine in the scriptures.

Well, it also makes no sense to reply to the rest of the OP, it was just simply not biblical.

 

[hedrick]

It seems to me that the discussion has gotten derailed in questions of whether belief is faith, and details about the consequences of the Fall. It seems equally obvious to me that the Fall would not have removed Adams ability to believe factual things about God, and that such belief isn't justifying. To me the question is whether he repented. Gen 4 suggests to me that he did. But I'm not going to claim that this is anything more than speculation. Not everyone agrees. (E.g. Pink does not.)

 

[ronathanedwards]

too bad "boo boo bear" doesn't leave his posts up... guess he wants his opinion to be heard but not tested....

 

[Don Maurer]

It seems to me that the discussion has gotten derailed in questions of whether belief is faith, and details about the consequences of the Fall......

Derailed? The OP raise the issues by making some category errors concerning faith.

 

[ronathanedwards]

Jonah 3:8-10
Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish." 10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

Ezek 18:27-28
But if a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life. 28 Because he considers all the offenses he has committed and turns away from them, he will surely live; he will not die.

Ps 51:13
Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners WILL turn back to you.

Isa 19:25
The LORD will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the LORD, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.

Where in ANY of those verses does it say "man in their natural state has the ability to turn to God"? All you did is give indicative narrative that states WHAT happened, but not HOW spiritually things happened in order for those events to happen. You are IMPLYING your presupposition into the narrative. That is why I am asking for an explicit didactic text... so far, you have failed.

25 I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.

Yes, that is true, but HOW? You are implying again. The dead shall hear by regeneration to give them "ears to hear, and eyes to see", these are works of God, not man. Again you failed.

Was upon them? You mean the Spirit of God regenerated them, right? They had to have had a new heart in order to trust God, right?

Can you take a statement for what is SAID and not imply meaning into the authors intention? You make this error with me as you do with Scripture. If I intended to mean regeneration, I would have used the word "regeneration". But I didn't, I said the spirit was upon them. The spirit worked differently on man before the New Covenant than the after.

 

[ronathanedwards]

Sinners are men in their natural state. They turn (not God turns them, gives them the ability to turn, regenerates them to turn). They will turn. Why are you reading more into the verse than is there? Sinners can be taught and sinners can turn.

You are the one adding your presumptions, not I. By continuously giving the same unsupported assertion (they will turn... they can turn... )Is only a tautology. You are not supporting your assertion with any explicit, DIDACTIC verses! Do you know what explicit means? They will turn means.... They will turn, it doesn't say that God does it, I'm not the one using that text for any assertion, YOU ARE, but just as it doesn't say GOD didn't DO anything prior, with that same reasoning it doesn't say that man did it WITHOUT God doing anything prior, THAT'S MY POINT! You are assuming your bias, that is why I am asking you for something explicit, something in which you are failing miserably. You haven't found anything that supports your assertion. You think that giving examples of narratives stating men changing and repenting proves something, but it doesn't, your not answering my question. I'm not concerned about the WHAT question being answered, I'm looking for you to give a verse that answers the spiritual " how" that happens.