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Were Adam and Eve Created Holy? | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to reformed thinking. Great to be diving in again
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today. We're really getting back to
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basics, the very beginning of the human story.
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We're looking at Adam, our first father, before the fall.
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Right. Specifically his state at
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creation. And this isn't just some
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abstract theological point, is it?
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It shapes how we understand well everything that follows sin,
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morality, even redemption. It really does.
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Our focus today is on what's called the Doctrine of Original
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Righteousness, or Dior for short, and we're digging into
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how Jonathan Edwards defended this idea.
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Yeah, Edwards mounted a pretty powerful defense, didn't he?
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We're looking at his sources, particularly how he argued
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against a major opponent known as Doctor T.
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That's the one Doctor T denied that Adam was actually created
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wholly. So our mission, if you like, is
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to unpack Edwards's arguments, the logic, the scripture for
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believing Adam was created holy, positively good, not just
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neutral. We want to understand why
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Edwards believed that. Why was it so crucial that Adam
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wasn't just a blank slate? The sources really layout this
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clash of worldviews. Was Adam created with, you know,
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genuine holiness, a real disposition to love God?
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Or was his heart neutral, like needing to figure things out,
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make choices, reflect before any virtue could even exist?
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Doctor T was firmly in that second camp.
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He was for him any goodness fixed by God from the start
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wasn't true virtue because it wasn't chosen by Adam himself.
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So that's the core question we're wrestling with today.
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Did Adam start holy or did he start neutral?
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And the answer has huge implications.
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If he was neutral, the fall is maybe just a learning error, a
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mistake. But if he started holy.
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Then the fall becomes this massive, catastrophic rebellion
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against the way things were meant to be against goodness
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itself. So let's dig into why Edwards
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insisted that initial goodness was absolutely necessary.
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OK, so to really get Edwards points, we first need to
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understand what he was arguing against.
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What was Doctor T's big issue with original righteousness?
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It all comes down to what Doctor T called his grand objection,
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and it's basically rooted in his definition of what virtue even
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is what. Do you think it was then?
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Well, fundamentally, he believed that for something to count as
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virtuous, you know, morally praiseworthy, deserving reward,
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the person, the moral agent, has to actively contribute to it.
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It can't just be. Given so it can't be something
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God just implants. Exactly, he argued.
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Holiness couldn't be con created, meaning created along
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with Adam's nature by God's power right at the beginning.
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That wouldn't count. Why not?
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If God makes something good, isn't it good?
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For Doctor T, the issue is moral credit.
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If God just wires Adam to be good, then Adam is just acting
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out of necessity like a like a well made machine.
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A clock ticking correctly you mentioned earlier.
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Right. A clock doesn't get praise for
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keeping time. So for Doctor T, if God just
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puts righteousness into Adam without Adam's own active
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involvement, his own free choice and agreement, what he called
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concurrence, then it's just no holiness at all.
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So the agents free conscious agreement was absolutely
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essential in his view. Totally essential.
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The goodness had to come from the creature's will operating,
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you know, independently, not predetermined.
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And it. Wasn't just about agreement
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being after the fact, was it? The sources say he required a
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specific process. Yes, that's key.
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The person had to exercise thought and reflection before
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they could be considered righteous.
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Righteousness had to be the fruit of preceding choice.
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Fruit of preceding choice. So the choice comes first, then
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the righteousness. That's his model.
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It's not enough for Adam to eventually choose good things.
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The very principle of goodness within him, like love for God,
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had to be generated by Adam's own prior self determining
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choice. Wow, OK so if Adam just woke up
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on day 6 already loving God. Doctor T would say that's just a
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natural feeling, maybe like hunger or thirst, not truly
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moral holiness unless Adam consciously chose to activate or
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create that love first. So saying, righteousness was
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brought into his nature at creation.
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Was for Doctor TA, contradiction in terms.
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Virtue, in his mind, absolutely had to be an achievement,
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something earned through the will deciding for itself.
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This idea of the self determining will seems pretty
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central here. Can you unpack that a bit?
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What does it mean in this context?
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Sure, it's this idea that the will has a kind of independent
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power to choose not just its actions, but even its own
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inclinations or desires, without being caused by anything else,
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either outside or inside. So the will stands apart from
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motives and decides. Kind of like it's outside the
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chain of cause and effect, it just generates its own moral
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state. So for Doctor T, if God put love
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for God and Adam first, that love, a motive and inclination,
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would determine Adam's choices, making them necessary, not free,
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and therefore not virtuous. The will has to be the cause of
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its own goodness, not just the performer of good actions
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flowing from a good nature. That's the core of it.
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The will has to start from a point of like indifference and
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freely choose the good without being pushed there by any
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pre-existing inclination. OK, I think I see the setup and
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Edwards argues this whole structure just.
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Falls apart completely, he argues.
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It ties itself in knots. Dr. T basically sets up a
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requirement that makes it impossible for Adam to ever
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actually become righteous. Right, so Edwards doesn't just
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say Doctor T's wrong, he takes Doctor T's own ideas and shows
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how they actually contradict each other.
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Exactly, he points out. The Doctor T's view that virtue
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must come from a prior choice clashes with basic logic, common
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sense, and crucially, with Doctor T's own definition of
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what virtue fundamentally is. That's clever, using the
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opponent's own premises against them, it's.
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Very effective. See, Doctor T, like a lot of
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thinkers at the time, actually agreed with people like
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Hutchison that the real core, the essence of virtue, is good
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affection, basically benevolence or love.
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And Doctor G himself said this. Explicitly, he stated that all
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real moral goodness, all moral rectitude, boils down to the
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single principle of love. He even used the Bible verse.
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You know love is the fulfilling of the law.
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OK, so virtue is love. That's premise one from Doctor
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T. Right premise.
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A virtue equals love. But then remember premise B.
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Premise B Virtue requires a preceding choice.
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It has to be the fruit of choice.
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OK, now put them together. This is where Edward springs the
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trap. If all moral goodness is love
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premise A, then logically no choice can be morally good
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unless it flows from love. Love has to be the source, the
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principle behind the choice. Makes sense.
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A good action comes from a good heart, a good intention.
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But wait, Doctor T also insists premise B that the principle of
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love itself can't be virtuous unless it comes from a preceding
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choice. I see the loop.
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It's a complete circle. Virtuous love has to come before
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virtuous choice, but virtuous choice has to come before
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virtuous love. You can't have one without the
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other coming first. It's impossible.
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Edwards calls it an evident contradiction.
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It's like saying you need the fruit before you can have the
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tree, but the tree has to exist before you can have the fruit.
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Which comes first? Neither can according to this
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logic. So how could Adam ever get
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started on being virtuous? He couldn't.
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Edwards lays it out. Imagine Adam created totally
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without love, as Doctor T requires.
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Adam needs to make his first virtuous choice.
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Let's say he chooses OK, I will now love God.
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But he doesn't have love yet, by definition.
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Right. So that choice doesn't proceed
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from love. And if the choice doesn't
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proceed from love, according to Doctor T's own rule, that virtue
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is love, that initial choice is well, it's not virtuous.
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It's morally emty. O The very first step required
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to become virtuous is itself not a virtuous step.
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Exactly. It's impossible, Edwards says.
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There's just no way that can possibly be devised for Adam to
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get righteousness going under Doctor TS scheme.
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He's trapped in neutrality. And Edwards traces this back to
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that idea of the self determining will.
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Yeah, he blames these confused, inconsistent assertions on that
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faulty view of the will, this idea that the will have to
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somehow kick start its own goodness from a state of
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nothingness, of indifference. But a choice made from
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indifference can't magically create love, can it?
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It just creates another indifferent choice, presumably.
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Or an arbitrary 1. Edwards argues that a rational
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being, a moral agent, can't actually be neutral.
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They have to have some inclination, some preference,
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Otherwise they'd just be inert, unable to use anything.
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Paralyzed. Right, and if they have an
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inclination, it's either pointed towards the right thing, God,
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supreme goodness, or towards lesser things.
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There's no middle ground for a creature commanded to love God
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supremely from the get go. So if Adam was created as a
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functioning moral being under God's law.
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He had to be created with the right inclination already
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present. That principle of love, that
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relish for God's excellence, had to be built in.
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It's a logical requirement of creating a good moral agent
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subject to God's law. OK, so Edwards has shown the
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logical flaws in Doctor TS position.
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It just doesn't hold together. But he doesn't stop with logic,
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does he? He moves on to Scripture, right?
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He turns to the Bible, specifically the first 3
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chapters of Genesis, the historical account, to show that
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the narrative itself demands original righteousness.
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How does the story support it? The first key point is really
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simple, almost obvious when you think about it.
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The whole story assumes that eating the forbidden fruit with
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the first sin he committed. OK, yeah, that seems clear from
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the text. And if that was the first sin,
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what does that imply about his state before that moment?
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That he hadn't sinned yet he must have been righteous.
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Perfectly righteous, Yes. Edwards argues that if Adam was
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perfectly righteous right up until that first sin, then he
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must have been created or brought into existence.
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Righteous. His initial state was
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righteousness. It connects his creation
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directly to his moral condition. Exactly.
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But why did that righteousness have to be created in him?
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Why couldn't He have just, you know, maintain neutrality until
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that point? Because of the commands.
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Precisely. Adam wasn't just created and
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left alone. He was created as a moral agent,
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immediately under obligation, under a rule of right action.
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From the very first moment he existed and was conscious, he
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owed obedience to God. And you can't obey properly
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without the right inner disposition.
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That's the link. Acting rightly requires an
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inclination to write action. You can't fulfill the command to
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love God supremely if you don't actually have an inclination, A
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disposition towards loving God. So if the obligation was
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immediate. The inclination had to be
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immediate. To that necessary inclination
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present at the very first moment of existence, is what we mean by
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being created with a virtuous and holy disposition of heart.
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Which makes Doctor TS idea that Adam had to do things first like
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reflect to get a good disposition seem backward.
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Edwards calls it grossly inconsistent.
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Think about it. If Adam's first duty was, say,
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to reflect on God's command in the right way, that act of
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reflection itself has to be a right action.
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And a right action needs a right motive, a right inclination
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behind it. Yes, the good disposition has to
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be the principal or spring from which even the first right
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actions proceed. You can't perform the duty of
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reflection in order to obtain the good disposition, because
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performing that duty rightly already requires the good
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disposition. So if Adam started neutral,
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without love for God, how could he even begin to reflect on
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God's command with the proper seriousness or regard?
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He couldn't if he had no love or regard for God.
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Initially, any reflection wouldn't be motivated by
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obedience or love. It would be motivated by, well,
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who knows, curiosity, self-interest, but not by a
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supreme regard for God. And since Doctor T himself
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agreed that love is the core of all moral rectitude.
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Then if Adam is required to do any right act at all upon
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existing, even just thinking correctly about God's command,
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he must have already possessed that principle of divine love
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from the very start. God wouldn't command something
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impossible if the law applied instantly.
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The capacity to obey the right heart disposition must also have
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been instant. That's the inference.
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To suggest otherwise implies God created Adam under a law he was
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inherently incapable of fulfilling for moment one, which
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would make the initial creation defective.
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Not very good. The moral goodness had to be
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there from the start. OK, so we have the logical
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argument and the argument from the timing of the first sin in
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Genesis. What else does Edwards draw from
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the Genesis account? He makes another really
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interesting inference, this time looking at the setting, the
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Garden of Eden itself, Adam's situation before the fall,
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Paradise. Exactly.
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The Bible paints this picture of Adam in incredibly happy
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circumstances, surrounded by evidence of God's favor,
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blessings everywhere. A state of peculiar favors, the
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sources call it. Right, it seems like an ideal
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place. OK, now hold that picture of
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God's blessing in favor and contrast it with Doctor T's idea
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that Adam was created morally neutral without any inherent
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principle of holiness, Edwards says.
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Those two ideas just don't fit together.
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How so? Why is neutrality inconsistent
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with paradise? This leads into a fascinating,
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almost counterintuitive point Edwards makes about what
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happened after the fall. Think about the curse, Labor,
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toil, sorrow, death. We usually see those purely as
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punishment. Yeah, they don't sound like
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blessings. But Edwards, drawing on the
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sources, interprets them differently.
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Yes, they're consequences of sin, but in God's Providence for
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fallen humanity, they actually serve as restraints, even as
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advantages for virtue. Advantages.
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How can sorrow and toil be advantages?
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Well, think about fallen people. When life is hard, when we have
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to work constantly just to survive, when we face sorrow in
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the reality of death, it tends to curb our appetites.
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OK, we're maybe less likely to just indulge every whim If we're
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struggling toil, can wean us from loving the world too much?
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The shortness of life limits the time we have to keep sinning.
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These hardships act like brakes on our sinful nature.
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So for fallen people, the curse actually provides some
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guardrails against even worse depravity.
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That's the idea. Necessary restraints for a
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sinful nature. Now go back to Adam before the
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fall. According to Doctor T, Adam has
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no inherent holiness. He's neutral, but capable of
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choosing anything. OK, and where is he placed?
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Not in the world of toil and sorrow, but in Eden, surrounded
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by, as the sources say, most exquisite and alluring sensitive
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delights. Everything is pleasant, easy,
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beautiful, and he has no internal restraints from a
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sinful nature yet, but crucially, under Doctor T's
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view, no positive internal principle of holiness either,
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and no external restraints like toil or death.
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So maximum temptation, minimum resistance.
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Exactly. Edwards argues that if Adam
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really lacked inherent holiness, putting him in that environment,
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with all those pleasures and none of the hardships his fallen
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descendants face, would put him under unspeakably greater
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disadvantages for avoiding sin. Wow, that turns things upside
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down. Paradise becomes the most
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dangerous place for a neutral being.
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Precisely all that goodness, all those sensory delights.
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Without a strong internal compass pointing firmly towards
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God, it would be overwhelming. How long before the sheer beauty
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and pleasure of creation pulls His focus away from the Creator?
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So under Doctor TS view, the garden isn't really a blessing.
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It becomes, as Edwards puts it, a mere beat, a setup for
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failure, a magnificent trap designed, functionally speaking,
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to ensure Adam would fall and fall quickly, which completely
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contradicts the Genesis portrayal of Eden as a place of
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God's special favor. And it messes up the whole
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blessing curse timeline, doesn't it?
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Totally. If Doctor T is right, then the
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real curse, the situation most dangerous to Adam's soul, was
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before the Fall in the supposedly blessed garden.
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And the things we call the cursed toil, sorrow, death, that
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restraints actually become God's great favors given after the
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fall to help manage sin. It completely inverts the story.
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Moses clearly shows the change in circumstances, the curse
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following the sin as a consequence of it.
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That only makes sense if the initial circumstances were
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genuinely good and advantageous for Adam.
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Which implies Adam must have had the internal moral stability,
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the original righteousness needed to handle that level of
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blessing appropriately. Yes, the external blessings of
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paradise logically require a corresponding internal goodness
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in Adam. Otherwise, the blessing itself
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becomes the instrument of His downfall.
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OK, so Edwards has built a case from logic, from the timing of
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the fall, and from the nature of paradise.
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Does he point to any specific verses that just state original
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righteousness directly? He does.
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He moves from inference to what he sees as explicit biblical
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statement. The key text he brings forward
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is Ecclesiastes 7.29. What does that verse say?
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It says lo this only have I found that God made man upright,
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but they have sought out many inventions.
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God made man upright. That sounds pretty direct.
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It does, but of course, Dr. T wasn't going to concede easily.
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The debate then focused on exactly what man means here, and
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especially what upright means. Right.
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How did Edwards define those terms?
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Let's start with man, Adam in Hebrew.
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Doctor T tried to argue. It just meant, you know, mankind
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in general, sort of abstractly. Edwards agrees it means species,
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but he argues the context points specifically to the species at
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its origin. When God first made mankind.
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Exactly when God first made mankind existing in their first
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parents, Adam and Eve. He points to other verses like
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in Deuteronomy where scripture talks about the day that God
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created man, Adam upon the earth currently referring to the
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beginning. So Solomon isn't just making a
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general comment about people now because obviously people now
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aren't upright. Right.
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The verse only makes sense if it's contrasting the original
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state of creation with what humanity became later.
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It's about the starting point. OK, so man refers to humanity as
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originally created in Adam. What about the crucial word
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upright jashar in Hebrew? Did Doctor T try to weaken that?
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Oh yes, he tried to suggest it just meant right in some non
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moral way. Maybe physically well made or
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having rational faculties, but not morally good.
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Sort of neutral, but functional. But Edwards pushes back hard on
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that. Very hard.
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He argues forcefully that Jashar in biblical usage,
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overwhelmingly signifies true virtue or moral rectitude and
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integrity. He knows it's used constantly in
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Scripture for moral goodness. Like when it says a king did
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what was right Jashar in the eyes of the Lord.
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Exactly. That clearly means moral
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obedience, acting according to God's will, not just, you know,
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standing up straight, Edwards says.
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When Solomon uses Jashar here, he means God made man of the
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right stamp, altogether good in his kind, truly and thoroughly
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virtuous as he ought to be. Made correctly, morally
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speaking. Yes, the internal moral compass
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was pointing the right way. And the verse itself helps
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define upright by contrasting it with something else.
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Absolutely. The structure is key.
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God made man upright, but he they mankind, starting from that
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original point, have sought out many inventions.
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And what are the many inventions?
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Edwards argues these are clearly things sinful or morally evil.
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Solomon is setting up a direct contrast.
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God's original work was moral rectitude, just shar, But
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humanity's subsequent activity has been the pursuit of moral
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evil. Many inventions.
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You can't contrast neutrality with evil like that.
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You contrast good with evil. Precisely the contrast itself
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proves that the original state upright must have been one of
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positive moral goodness, not just neutrality or potential.
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Did Doctor T have a counter for the many inventions part?
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I think I remember something about him saying Adam's first
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sin was only one invention. He did try that, yeah, Saying,
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you know, the fall was one act, not many.
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So the verse can't be about the fall.
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Edward saw that as pretty weak. How did he respond?
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He argued the many inventions refer to the consequences, the
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fall, the flood of different sins, the innumerable ways of
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sinning, the many lusts and corruptions that came pouring
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out after that first act of apostasy.
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The first sin opened the door to the multitude of subsequent
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evils. So the many inventions are the
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result of losing the original uprightness.
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Exactly. The verse paints a clear
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picture. Original state Jasher, moral
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rectitude created by God. Subsequent state.
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Many inventions. Manifold sinfulness sought out
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by man. The moral goodness came first
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from God. The corruption came second from
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humanity's choice. So, interpreting Jasher and the
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structure of the verse in context, Edwards concludes
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Ecclesiastes 7.29 is explicit testimony for original
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righteousness. Yes, he sees it as proving God
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didn't create a moral vacuum, but a morally excellent being
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who then chose to corrupt that God-given goodness.
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Well, that's quite a comprehensive case, Edwards
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builds. We've walked through a lot of
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ground here in this deep dive. We really have.
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From the pure logic to the scriptural accounts, it seems
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Edwards defense of original righteousness really stands on 2
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main pillars, doesn't it? Yeah.
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What would you say those are summarizing?
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First, there's that logical pillar, the sheer impossibility
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of Doctor TS scheme working. You just can't have virtuous
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choice requiring prior love, while virtuous love requires
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prior choice. It's a dead end.
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Love, the principle has to come first.
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Right, the fountain has to exist before the stream.
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Exactly. And 2nd there's the scriptural
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pillar drawing from Genesis. Both the fact that sin had a
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definite starting point, implying prior righteousness.
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And the fact that paradise only makes sense as a blessing if
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Adam had an internal holiness capable of navigating it.
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Otherwise, it's just a trap. Plus that explicit statement in
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Ecclesiastes. God made man upright.
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Taken together, Edwards argues, the evidence is overwhelming.
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So Adam wasn't created neutral waiting to earn goodness.
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He was created positively good of the right stamp, as Edwards
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put it. With a moral rectitude that love
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for God built into his very nature from the start.
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The fall wasn't a stumble on the path to goodness, it was a
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catastrophic turn away from goodness that was already
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present. It really reframes the whole
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narrative. So for you listening as you
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process all this, here's maybe a final thought to Mull over
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something to take away from these sources.
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Really consider the implications of God had done what Doctor T
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suggested. Imagine creating a rational
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being instantly responsible under the highest moral law, the
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law of love, but creating him completely empty of any natural
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inclination towards the one he's supposed to love.
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What does the apparent necessity of that pre-existing good
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disposition which Edwards argued for so strongly, tell you about
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the nature of God Himself, About the goodness inherent in his
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original design for creation? And what does it tell you about
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the depth of the tragedy? When that original good order
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was corrupted? It wasn't just a mistake.
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It was the shattering of something intrinsically,
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originally wonderfully good. Something to think about.