Freewill, Salvation, and the Fall

“Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Many people, especially Christians, are familiar with these words in one form or another. They are from Matthew 26:39 and they embody Jesus’ willingness to die for our sins. But why did they have to be spoken? The answer can be found in Genesis 2:4 through Genesis 3, the story of the first sin. Those two chapters depict life in Eden before Adam and Eve eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. Within that story, not only do we see the first sin, and evil enter the world, but also we see man gain free will at the same time. Freewill does not exist until after Adam and Eve commit the first sin, and by being saved through Jesus, we achieve a relationship with God that resembles the garden of Eden before the first sin. Therefore, when Jesus died for our salvation, He gave up His free will because that was the state of man before the first sin. Jesus showed that, by relinquishing our freewill to God, we can have a closer relationship with Him that resembles the relationship between Adam and Eve when they were first in the Garden of Eden. Christians believe that Jesus is the way to God. However, if to be saved by Christ, one must give up his or her freewill, then do we truly have freewill? Is it really our choice to be saved if in the end we do not have the ability to choose salvation for ourselves?

The garden of Eden before the first sin is paradise. Evil has yet to enter the world, and Adam and Eve are happy to do the work God tells them to do. Therein lies the problem. God tells Adam and Eve what to do. Chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis do not reveal any kind of choice in the matter. Adam tills the soil and takes care of the land only because God tells him to do so. Adam cannot choose not to work the soil. Adam may have realized that the soil would not produce vegetation if he did not tend to it, but it does not occur to him that there is an option not to till the soil. The same is true of Eve. She works the soil because it is the task that God gives to her.

There are many places in Genesis chapters two and three where the language used shows that Adam and Eve have no free will, including Genesis 2:8, Genesis 2:15, Genesis 2:21-22, and Genesis 3:20.  All of these verses have language that shows that God is in charge and that Adam and Eve have no say in what they do. Without reading chapters two and three from a particular religious perspective, the text still shows that Adam and Eve do not make decisions for themselves until they eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad.

Genesis 2:8 says, “Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.” The key words used are “God” and “put.” There is no mention of where Adam himself wants to go. God creates the whole world, and knows that it must need vegetation. Why could Adam not chose where he wanted to live on the Earth? Certainly, the Garden of Eden is special because it is the place that God chooses, but Adam still has no say in where he goes. Adam does not venture outside of the garden to see the world. He has no way of knowing whether outside the garden of Eden is better than the inside. He stays inside the garden because that is where God places him.

In Genesis 2:15, the verb used is “took”: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” Again, there is no indication that Adam has any choice about where he can go on Earth. Verse fifteen shows more than verse eight, adding the fact that God has a specific purpose in mind for Adam. Adam does not have the ability to choose whether he wants to tend to the garden because he does not have any freewill, yet.

Next, in Genesis 2:21 and 22, God takes as He will from Adam. “So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.” Adam feels no pain and does not even know what happened to him, but he still has no say in what is done to his own body. If Adam had any free will, he may have been reluctant to give up a piece of himself. Also, in verse twenty-two, we see Eve’s lack of freewill as well. She is brought before man and told that she is his partner. She has no choice whether she wants to accept Adam as a partner, and Adam lacks that very same choice about Eve. No other partner is apparently suitable for Adam, but Eve is because God puts them together.

In all of the above examples, the verbs used are in the past tense and it is God who performs all of the actions described. The Garden is God’s creation in which He does as He wills, but the fact that man has no free will in the Garden of Eden does raise some questions. For example, if the Bible says that we are created in God’s image, and if God has free will, then why does man not have freewill in the Garden of Eden? Should not being created in God’s image give man that attribute? A simple reading of the text suggests that the answer to these questions is no. In Genesis chapter one, God creates everything and sees that it is good. Nowhere does the Bible mention either love or purpose for the world. God is happy with His creations, but the Bible does not say that He loved His creation. The same can be said about chapter two. We see man’s purpose in the world, but we do not have any idea what God has in mind for the world itself. This means that man is not created in God’s image at the beginning because man did not have free will.

In Genesis 3:5 and 3:6, sin enters the world. Along with sin, freewill enters the world: “‘For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” In verse five, the serpent speaks to Eve. He tells her that she can eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad is edible. Eve still does not have free will at this point. There is a shift in the language of the verses in chapters two and three at this point, but man still does not have free will. Whereas the verses before tell how God makes the decisions and acts on His own will without man having any say, in verses five and six, Eve acts on the will of the serpent. The serpent tells Eve that it is okay to eat. Eve does not make that decision by herself. She does as the serpent tells her because she has no free will. Adam takes the fruit from Eve and eats it because she offers it to him. He has no free will either. Adam hears the serpent’s argument, and he too does as the serpent and his wife want him to do because he has no free will. He does not have the opportunity to say no.

After this event, however, man does acquire free will. The story continues as Adam and Eve realize their nakedness and choose to cover themselves. Adam and Eve feel shame, and they choose to hide themselves from God when He is in the garden. Man now has free will. He can act on his own desires and—in theory—not have to listen to God anymore. The serpent says in verse five that Adam and Eve will know good and evil and that they will be like God because of it. Does this mean that they were not like God when the Bible says that they were created in God’ image? The two ideas about man’s state at the time of creation seem contradictory. However, in Genesis 3:22 it says, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” God speaks in this quote. It seems that man is not created in God’s image immediately as the simple reading of the passage in Genesis chapter one suggests. The use of the word “now” implies that man has no free will before eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. It also implies that God knows that man would eat of the tree and gain free will, because it is God’s intention to create man in His image. The simple reading cannot give an answer to this problem.

Even Adam and Eve’s names show the lack of freewill before they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad and committed the first sin. Genesis 2:20 is the first mention of Adam’s name as Adam. Before that verse, he is always known as the man. His name is given after the section concerning the naming of the animals. God gives Adam the task to name all of the animals, but there is no command to make a name for himself. The passage makes no mention of Adam’s desire to give himself a name either. The Hebrew word for Adam is the same for earth and the more generic man because that is where Adam originated. He is made from the earth, and he is a man. The Bible does not make it explicitly clear that Adam is first created as man (he is simply a being), but because woman has not yet been created, it is possible that he is created as man. Regardless of whether Adam is truly man, a simple reading of the language used in the verse does not support the idea that Adam named himself. There is never any mention of Adam’s desire for a name. He does not desire a name because he did not have the ability to choose a name for himself.  To do that, Adam would need free will. The Bible also does not explicitly say that it is God who gives man the name Adam, but it can be safely assumed that God named Adam. Eve does not receive her name until after she and Adam eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. By now both Adam and Eve have free will and they can make decisions for themselves. However, Eve does not name herself. Adam gives the woman the name Eve. God does not give Eve a name when she is created just as God does not specifically name Adam upon his creation. Without free will, the names do not matter because Adam and Eve would not have been able to choose the names for themselves. The fact that it is Adam who names Eve is significant to this argument. It is merely a progression of God’s naming of Adam. God names Adam who he creates, and Adam names Eve who has been created from him. The fact that Adam names Eve is important. It is another example of Adam exercising his freewill. Now that he is able to make decisions for himself, he can decide what is important to him, including giving Eve a name, and he is able to choose Eve’s name, as the verse twenty-one shows.

Christians tend to read God’s plan into the stories of the Old Testament. They prefer to believe that God has a plan for all events to take place because that same plan leads to the salvation of all humanity. The plan that Christians refer to is Jesus. From a Christian viewpoint, there are over six hundred messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. Some, like Genesis 3:15 are less obvious. This verse says, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” God speaks to the serpent in this verse, giving it punishment for involvement in Adam and Eve’s disobeying of God. A simple reading shows that Eve’s descendants will have dominion over the descendants of the serpent. It does not initially appear to be anything of great significance, but Christians read those words as if they are very significant. Part of seeing God’s plan in the Old Testament is seeing where and how Jesus is implicitly mentioned. Verse fifteen is an example of one of the places.

From a Christian standpoint, all of these examples present the idea that man’s relationship with God in paradise is closer without freewill and show that when freewill enters the world, man is banished from paradise. Therefore, when Jesus prays to God in Matthew 26:39, His prayer only makes sense if man is not created in God’s image at the very beginning. The prayer reads, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Jesus has freewill, and He chooses to relinquish His freewill for the salvation of all of mankind.

Theological interpretations put even more emphasis on meaning in Genesis chapters 2 and 3. Philo, a Hellenized Jewish philosopher, discusses the purpose and meaning of the garden of Eden. Philo does not discuss free will in his writings, instead focusing on virtues. Philo discusses Moses’ views of the garden of Eden. in F.E. Peters’ book Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Philo discusses how the trees in the garden of Eden are representative of the virtues that God places within the soul of man (Peters 119-121). The four rivers dividing the Eden are also representative of virtues. The rivers stand out because these virtues are the most essential, and they are used to provide a notion of what is good. The last part of Philo’s passage discusses how God’s wisdom is the source of these virtues. If someone read this text looking for free will, then this last part would be the most essential because it shows the source of all the virtues as God, meaning that God designs the way that humans act and react. This is the approach that Augustine takes in his response. The trees in the garden of Eden are representative of the saints who in turn represent virtues important in Christianity. The four rivers represent the four Gospels of the New Testament. The tree of life in the middle of the garden of Eden is another mention of Christ in the Old Testament, and finally, the tree of the knowledge of good and bad is “the will’s free choice,” as Augustine puts it.

For Augustine, Genesis 2 and 3 do not just tell the story of the introduction of free will into the world alongside sin. The two chapters are in fact devoted to the idea that free will comes into the world and that this introduction is a part of God’s plan because it is represented by the tree of the knowledge of good and bad from the beginning. Augustine continues in his response to Philo, “For if a man despises the will of God, he can only destroy himself…” Another way to put it would be to say that if a man wants to be with God, he must give up his own free will; otherwise, the man’s relationship to God will be tainted. Augustine recognizes the need for man to relinquish his free will to be with God just as Jesus exemplifies in Matthew 26:39

In group discussions of Genesis chapters 2 and 3, we focused on the language used in the verses, and what a plain sense reading of the text said. To do this we had to try to forget everything that we had learned about the chapters from our own traditions. I had always been taught that the “he” of Genesis 3:15 was Jesus. However, the plain sense reading does not make any specific reference to Jesus, so I could not read the verse effectively from my learned perspective. By bracketing these kind of beliefs, new possibilities of meaning opened up to me. Before our meetings, I believed that freewill was essential to salvation. After going through a plain sense reading with the group, the texts in chapters 2 and 3 told me something completely different. I found that giving up freewill is essential for salvation.

I had never before looked at Genesis chapters 2 and 3 from anything but a Christian perspective. When we read over Genesis 2:21-22, however, our reading was very different. In my case, I read these verses and saw another example of how God did as he pleased with Adam because Adam had no freewill at this time. There was also mention of these verses as an example for the theme of emptiness and fullness that runs through chapters 2 and 3. I had never seen this theme before, but after hearing it, I began to look for it and found more examples that I could use for my own findings about freewill.

When I searched Judaism, Christianity, and Islam for texts on Genesis chapters two and three, I had already determined a plain sense reading of the chapters, and I knew where my own thoughts stood both before and after our group discussions. I still was not clear on mainstream views about Genesis chapters two and three, however. Reading through Peters’ book, I did not expect to find sections with so much about the imagery in Genesis chapters 2 and 3. I had heard before that the tree of life was a representation of Jesus, but I had never given any thought to what the other trees could represent. However, Philo’s take on Genesis chapter two struck me as a logical point of view; if Philo is correct, it would mean that it does not matter where Adam was on Earth. Wherever he was, he was learning how to be human and how to be close to God. The virtues that Philo relays are what Adam learns by tending to the trees. I found Augustine’s interpretation of the same text even more logical because Augustine’s words are more applicable to my own life. He speaks about the trees as saints in the same way that the trees were virtues for Philo. Each point is exactly the same, but Augustine makes more sense to me because of my Christian background.

From a Christian standpoint, there are many examples of the lack of freewill before sin entered the world, and there are also examples of acts of freewill after sin enters the world in Genesis 2 and 3. Even a plain sense reading of the language used in the chapters supports this idea. Before reading the text with my group I had no idea that it would be so full of meaning for me and everyone else. Without the insights of the others in my group, I would not have found as much to support my topic. I still cannot answer whether freewill is necessary for salvation or if salvation must be relinquished for salvation, but these two chapters have certainly brought me much closer to the latter.

© 2007, Society for Scriptural Reasoning

Return to Title Page