Could there have been a half-Fall?

[Bran_Stark]

What if, after Eve ate of the forbidden tree, Adam had refused to follow in her sin?

 

[CaptainPicard]

As I understand it, Adam was the “corporate head” of the human race. As he went, so too the human race. If Eve had fallen and he hadn’t, we wouldn’t be under the effects of original sin. Somebody can correct me if I’m wrong…

 

[LoyalViews]

As I understand it, Adam was the “corporate head” of the human race. As he went, so too the human race. If Eve had fallen and he hadn’t, we wouldn’t be under the effects of original sin. Somebody can correct me if I’m wrong…

Your are correct. It did matter that Eve fell, but if Adam never. If Adam had never have fallen, then we wouldn’t have original sin.

 

[JVD]

What if, after Eve ate of the forbidden tree, Adam had refused to follow in her sin?

This is ultra-hypothetical and to some degree glosses over the severity of sin. I don’t think this could have happened.

Sin by its very nature damages relationships - the person who sins wounds their own relationship with themselves, wounds their relationship with God, wounds their relationship with others, wounds the relationship with The Church (the family of God - Adam and Eve initially) and wounds Creation itself. If we can take the garden accounts literally then in a certain sense it can be said that Eve brought sin into the first family and wounded the relationship in the instant she sinned. Adam, as indifferent as he appears to be to the severity of Eve’s transgression does not hesitate to join her in the sin. There are actually numerous sins - Eve’s abandonment of the marital union by acting on her own impulse without consulting with “her man” and Adam’s not looking after “his woman” and warning her not to do it – then partnering in it.

But as it is, Adam joins her transgression as a co-partner in solidarity with his mate and with the desire to be “like God” without thinking twice of the implications. I note too an interesting thing. If what the Serpent had said were true that Adam would be like God if he disobeyed him then that means that Adam would have to share being “like God” with Eve too. How strange that this thought never crossed his mind since greed for power usually never desires to share that power with others. Its also peculiar to me that Eve would desire to share her God like status with Adam by inviting Him to the same transgression. Something does not add up here. Did Eve perceiving no interior change already know it was all a lie when she offered Adam the forbidden fruit? What was her motive? Did she desire only that someone share the guilt with her? Or was it all to avoid an estrangement and anger from Adam when He found out she attempted to like God without consulting him first? Or was it more the case that sinful Eve in her pangs of guilt felt the marriage bond to Adam as a stronger bond than her relationship to God? That would be loving the creature more than the Creator (another sin). There is no mention in scripture that after eating the forbidden-fruit Eve received any new powers or insights “like God”. Therefore we know that Eve had to realize that the serpent lied BEFORE she enticed Adam to do the same sin. And here I wonder how stupid was Adam to not ask Eve before He ate: “Eve, are you now like God? Can you know my thoughts or can you nullify God’s command to not eat the forbidden fruit since you are now like Him?” Perhaps Adam panicked and wanted to take a bite before the new God Eve could take away all the forbidden fruit and leave Him alone again in the garden.

This speculative OP question causes me to feel there’s something deeper to the garden account that needs to be discerned. There are more lessons here. The forbidden fruit may be purely metaphorical in that there is no true sequence of Eve first partaking then followed by Adam. The possibility for a half-fall would not be a real possibility to an Omniscient God since that would immediately divide humanity along a gender divide and defeat His plan for the man to have a partner. That could not be an equal possibility in the Divine Plan since that would make the entire salvation story contingent on only one gender - but Jesus needed a mother as well as a foster father. I don’t believe that God has contingent Salvation Plans. Besides, God had allready gone on record as ordaining the “goodness” of man being bound to woman. It would not be good to for the woman who came out of her man to be alone any more so than it was good for the man to be alone.

As well, if not a literal account, it may have been a mutual act committed together in the same moment at Eve’s prompting - perhaps carnal sex? If valid this would make a half-fall an impossibility.

If these ideas hold then your scenario can’t arise.

Bottom Line:
I don’t believe that God would set in motion any conditions where it was possible for humanity to be fractured at the onset along gender lines after He just created them in His image as male and female and said “it is not good for man to be alone”.

I must conclude and say “there could NOT have been a half-fall” God does not have contingent alternative salvation plans since He knows all and because it would violate other aspects of the garden account.

James

 

[Benadam]

He would have become a living testimony against her. I believe she would have repented being utterly alone without him. I don’t believe the preturnatural gifts would have been permanently lost to her.

 

[m134e5]

Adam didn’t just have a responsibility to avoid sin himself. God did not create Adam and Eve independently of each other. He created Eve because he saw that Adam needed a companion, and from him, God created her. Adam had a responsibility for Eve because of this. She was left on her own, and Adam did not protect her from the temptation that was put before her. I do not think there could have been a half fall, because Eve’s fall inevitably led to Adam’s fall.