Adam and Eve’s original sin produced a plethora of undesirable consequences that account for the imperfections in the world and in our lives.
The Earth Became Dangerous
God intended the entire earth to be a perfect environment for our sustenance and enjoyment.
He did not mistakenly create it with poor soil, scarce water, and erratic weather that make life difficult in many places. He did not design it to spawn natural disasters that cause countless hardships. Instead, he made the earth safe, sufficient, and satisfying for everyone and everything.
The Bible states that the natural world, including the cosmos, became corrupted, dangerous, and subject to decay because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience.
Our Health Became Fragile
God designed our bodies to live forever. He did not mistakenly make them susceptible to disease, deterioration, and death.
God did not program our DNA to produce genetic disorders or our immune system to attack healthy tissue. He did not design our cells to grow abnormally or become cancerous. He did not make our brains and emotions vulnerable to severe stress. He did not intend childbirth to be painful.
The Bible says our bodies became corrupted and subject to decay and death because of Adam and Eve’s sin.
Labor Replaced Leisure
God intended for us to live naturally off the land without undue effort, rather than laboring for our subsistence.
He intended for us to spend each day communing with him, managing our daily tasks, pursuing our interests, enjoying the camaraderie of our fellow humans, befriending the animal kingdom, and exploring the universe.
After Adam and Eve sinned, God made us responsible for our provisions. Now we must toil for food, clothing, and shelter, with meager results for some, excessive stress for others, and dissatisfaction for many.
Outcomes Became Unpredictable
God audibly forewarned Adam of the consequences of eating the forbidden fruit before even creating Eve.
Their subsequent disobedience diminished the intimate, didactic nature of our relationship with God.
We still have direct access to him through prayer. He has given us principles and instructions in the Bible to guide our behavior. He occasionally speaks directly to our minds about specific situations.
But God’s communication with us is now less conversational than it was with Adam and Eve. As a result, he does not caution us about every danger we face or advise us on every decision we make.
Without access to his foresight, we sometimes find ourselves in stressful situations we would have avoided had he given us advance notice.
Decisions made in good faith about people, careers, investments, etc., can come back to haunt us days, weeks, and years later because of unforeseen circumstances or unintended consequences.
Innocuous choices can put us in the wrong place at the wrong time, sometimes with tragic results.
Our Nature Became Selfish
God created humans with a flawless, innocent nature. Our predisposition became inherently selfish and sinful through Adam and Eve’s disobedience. We are now innately inclined to act on moral untruth.
Our selfishness makes us willing to harm others to advance our perceived self-interest. Unseemly personal traits such as pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, and sloth emanate directly from our fallen nature.
We often indulge these vices against our better judgment. Our inability to resist immoral and unhealthy urges evidences our inherent sinfulness.
Relationships Became Discordant
God intended our relationships with one another to be harmonious and fulfilling.
Instead, our selfish nature prompts us to exalt or denigrate ourselves and others, depending on the circumstances. This selfishness produces harmful thoughts, attitudes, words, motives, actions, and reactions that create conflict among us.
These tensions give rise to fleeting friendships, bad marriages, dysfunctional families, and hostile work environments.
They leave us feeling lonely.
Morality Became Relative
Adam and Eve ignored God’s moral truth and decided for themselves what was right and wrong. We inherited their tendency to define morality for ourselves.
Each of us now determines right and wrong based on our desires, current circumstances, and worldview. God’s moral truth is just one option among many.
Our personalized moral codes justify all sorts of selfish comments, attitudes, and behaviors that disregard the needs and concerns of others.
Our Freedom Was Restricted
God gave Adam and Eve unlimited freedom to do anything they could conceive, with one exception.
Now that our nature is selfish and corrupt, we are inherently prone to making poor choices that harm ourselves, others, and the environment.
To protect us individually, preserve us societally, and safeguard the earth, we must submit to civil and criminal laws that regulate our activities.
We are no longer free to do whatever we please in every circumstance without penalty.
Society Became Fragmented
God intended us to be united in our diversity, as we lived unselfishly, worshipped only him, and adhered uniformly to his precepts.
Instead, the combination of moral relativity and our innate selfishness spawns civil strife. As a result, we now identify ourselves as “us” and “them.”
Moral relativity divides us into disparate groups that share the same attributes, behaviors, and worldviews. As a result, we tend to stereotype and judge others based on their membership in the groups we favor or dislike.
Our selfishness divides us into factions based on appearance, status, life experience, and geography. It motivates the strong to conquer, control, and exploit the weak.
