I am reading “The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan” for my daily
quiet time. This is a Christian work that probably dates from the fifth
century C.E. to the ninth century C.E.
Did Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden have the Holy Spirit inside of
them, as Christians do? Did Adam and Eve even need the Holy Spirit at
that point, since they had not yet sinned and thus did not have a sinful
nature? Was their pre-Fall righteous disposition (assuming that is
what they had) a part of their human nature, or something that was
supernatural—something that was foreign to their human nature and that
they depended on God for?
Does the Bible address this question? The most relevant passage that
comes to my mind is I Corinthians 15:45, which states: “And so it is
written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was
made a quickening spirit” (KJV). The context of this passage is the
resurrection from the dead, both the resurrection of Jesus, and the
future resurrection of others. Adam here is contrasted with the risen
Jesus. There are different ideas about what exactly I Corinthians 15 is
saying as to the nature of the contrast. Is it saying that Adam and
his descendants have fleshly bodies, whereas the risen Jesus has a
spirit body, like (to use an example) that of an angel? Or do Adam, his
descendants, and the risen Jesus all have physical bodies, but they are
enlivened by different things: Adam and his descendants are enlivened
by breath or a soul, whereas the risen Jesus is enlivened by God’s Holy
Spirit and lives perpetually as a result of that. If the latter is the
case, did the pre-Fall Adam have the Holy Spirit? It does not appear
so. Adam was made to be animated with a soul or breath, not God’s Holy
Spirit.
I have not read the entirety of “The Conflict of Adam and Eve with
Satan,” but I have encountered a couple of passages in it that may be
relevant to my questions. The first passage is in Book 1, chapter 23,
verses 6b-7. In this verse, Adam is lamenting about the results of the
Fall. In whatever translation The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden is using, we read the following:
“For when we were in the garden our praises and our hymns went up
before Thee without ceasing. But when we came into this strange land,
pure praise was no longer ours, nor righteous prayer, nor understanding
hearts, nor sweet thoughts, nor just counsels, nor long discernment, nor
upright feelings, neither is our bright nature left us. But our body
is changed from the similitude in which it was at first, when we were
created.”
In the Garden, Adam and Eve had understanding hearts, sweet thoughts,
just counsels, discernment, and upright feelings. Now, after the Fall,
they do not have these things. This reminds me of Daniel Keyes’ short
story and book, Flowers for Algernon, in which a
developmentally-delayed man, Charlie Gordon, undergoes an experiment
that triples his IQ, making him a genius. Unfortunately, in the course
of the story, Charlie loses his intelligence and reverts back to how he
was before. Somewhere in between his state as a genius and his state as
a developmentally-delayed man, Charlie is frustrated that he cannot do
what he used to do as a genius. He can no longer read German, for
example. At this stage, he remembers enough about being a genius that
he appreciates what he was able to do, but he is conscious that he
cannot do those things anymore; once he becomes developmentally-delayed
again, he does not care. This, in my opinion, is similar to what we see
in this verse-and-a-half in “The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan”:
they remember a time when they were righteous, and they recall what that
felt like, but they look inside of themselves and realize that they are
no longer in that same state, at least not to the same extent.
But why, according to that passage, did they have that righteous
state before the Fall? Was it part of their human nature, or something
that was supernatural, coming from God’s Holy Spirit inside of them? In
that passage, at least some of their pre-Fall nature was from their own
nature: they had a bright nature before the Fall, but that left them
after the Fall. Perhaps the same can be said about their righteous
thoughts and feelings; they had, after all, an understanding heart. Was
their heart naturally understanding, or did God make their heart
understanding through the influence of God’s Holy Spirit inside of
them? The passage does not explicitly say.
In Book I, Chapter 34, verse 16, we read the following (same translation):
“And of Thy goodwill, O Lord, Thou madest us both with bodies of a
bright nature, and Thou madest us two, one; and Thou gavest us Thy
grace, and didst fill us with praises of the Holy Spirit; that we should
be neither hungry nor thirsty, nor know what sorrow is, nor yet
faintness of heart; neither suffering, fasting, nor weariness.”
Here, God’s grace plays some role in how Adam and Eve were prior to
the Fall. Grace, in this case, does not refer to God loving Adam and
Eve even though they are sinners, for this verse concerns a time when
they had not yet sinned. What is God’s grace, though? Is it God
blessing Adam and Eve by making them with a certain nature? Or is it
God supernaturally empowering Adam and Eve through God’s Holy Spirit
inside of them? One can argue both ways, in looking at this passage.
On the one hand, God makes Adam and Eve with bodies that have a bright
nature. That is natural. On the other hand, God fills them with
praises of the Holy Spirit. That sounds supernatural. Could the latter
be a part of God’s creation of them?
There is probably more research that can be done on this topic,
particularly on how it has been handled within the history of biblical
interpretation. It overlaps with questions that Christians have asked
about the Fall: Were Adam and Eve prior to the Fall perfect, or did they
need to rely on God’s supernatural grace even then? Does Jesus restore
humanity to how it was prior to the Fall, or does he make humanity
something different, and new? Is God’s grace, in some manner, a part of
our human natures, or must it come from outside of ourselves? Karl
Barth had this debate with others, as he leaned towards the latter
position. See also the video, “Fundamental differences between an evangelical and Roman Catholic understanding of the Gospel.”