Jesus. Deacon Keith Strohm

by their disobedience.

      Without that divine life, our intellect, will, emotions—all of the soul’s faculties (or powers)—are wounded. Our bodies become sources of temptation, and we experience a hunger for God and his love that we often seek to fill with things that are not godly. Without that divine life, death enters the world, the final layer of separation introduced by Adam and Eve’s sin. Even the original integrity of the human person—body and soul working together in harmony—breaks down as a result of sin. In God’s plan, our bodies and souls would never separate, and we would dwell in the unity of God’s love for all eternity. Now, the human body ages and breaks down, eventually succumbing to bodily death.

      As if these weren’t enough consequences, the whole created order is thrown into disarray:

      To the woman he said: “I will intensify your toil in childbearing; / in pain you shall bring forth children. / Yet your urge shall be for your husband, / and he shall rule over you.”

      To the man he said: “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, You shall not eat from it,

      “Cursed is the ground because of you! / In toil you shall eat its yield / all the days of your life. / Thorns and thistles it shall bear for you, / and you shall eat the grass of the field. / By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread, / Until you return to the ground, / from which you were taken; / For you are dust, / and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:16-19).

      Through the devil’s lies, Adam and Eve abuse the gift of free will which God had given them, and their sin leaves all of creation wounded. Now tension, domination, lust, manipulation, and many other things threaten human relationships. Now natural disasters afflict the world. Now pain and illness enter the human experience—because of this moment. We sometimes look at the suffering of good people and want to blame God for it all. The truth is that evil and suffering and illness are real, but God had nothing to do with their coming into being. These evils have resulted from two things: the disobedience of our first parents and the seductive prompting of Satan.

      God did not create evil, illness, and suffering—they come as a result of the fall of man. All of the suffering and illness and trauma that we experience in this life has its origin in this moment of the story. If God were truly a good God, and if he were truly all powerful, wouldn’t he have fixed things for us? Many people have followed this train of thought and come to the conclusion that God cannot be all good or possess all power. Many therefore decide God does not exist, or that if he does, he’s anything but loving.

      The truth is that God could easily have erased the fall of man. He could have interrupted the story the moment Adam and Eve took a bite of the forbidden fruit, snapped his “fingers,” and started Eden 2.0. Adam and Eve would be ushered offstage and Jose and Luana would take their place. Or, if God chose not to take this kind of cosmic mulligan, he could instantly have healed the effects of the Original Sin. Why didn’t he? Well, this is where our story takes a wonderful twist.

      God didn’t reverse the fall of man or instantly heal its effects because he loves us too much.