It is a classic, interesting question that is posed sometimes, both by Christians and non-Christians.
It is one of those "what if" scenarios, but it is fun to think about.
"What if Adam just made the right choice in the Garden of Eden? Our lives would be in paradise."
Didn't Adam put us in this position we are in, where evil and sin came into the world? Couldn't he have just done the right thing?
Then our lives would be paradise, too. Just like his was.
People wince and sigh, like when their favorite sports team narrowly loses a significant game, and wonder what could have been.
This post speculates how things would have been different if Adam did not eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.The Garden Of Eden
First a little background.
Just what happened when Adam sinned?
God had placed a man in the Garden of Eden, which was paradise. (It was paradise because God was there). Humans were the crown of God's creation, endowed with a body and a spirit and in communion with him.
What could be better?
People think of it as a bliss.
But after God told him not to eat of the Tree of Good and Evil, and he did, bad things happened.
For one death was brought into the world, which probably meant physical death. But other evils were brought into the world.
Adam had chosen to put his needs before what God said, and that is a bad place.
Out of communion with God, life is turned upside down.Communion With God
Here are some explanations of what it means to be out of communion with God.
According to this post, Communion assumes that God comes to us in love and that we respond joyfully to the beauty of his perfections and the offer of his fellowship. It was why God created humans.In other words, humans no longer share in His Divine Life, but instead have become partakers of death.
According to this post, this lack of communion with God, this process of death at work in us, manifests itself in a myriad of ways, extending from moral failure, to death and disease itself. It corrupts everything around us - our relationships with other people and our families, our institutions and our best intentions.
We come to hate all things righteous and good. We despise the Light and prefer darkness.
Basically, humans need a relationship with their God to be complete.
Life In Paradise
So, what would life be like if Adam had not sinned?
There is no definitive answer, but a person can speculate.
One could only guess. But, how a about a life without sickness, regret, death? This is where it gets fun to think about.
Theoretically, if no one sinned people could have lived forever, spiritually and physically.
Perhaps you would live problem free, if that is a good thing.
With no problems your time on earth would fly by. No one knows how God's plan would have unfolded, but there would not be things such as conflicts, envy or sickness.
How one would say they had a good life is questionable, as everyone's would be. If there is no bad, then is there good? There would also be no challenges or ways to show faithfulness to God that were out of the ordinary.
Some say there would be no starving children in Africa. Perhaps, but how would they get their food?
But, in getting back to reality, this scenario did not happen.
It is the author's opinion that God had a plan all along, and Adam's choice shows where free will fits in. The scenario above also assumes that bad things happen because of sin, while it is known that things like earthquakes happened before Adam and Eve.
Our fallen world has a lot of problems, no question. But, God can turn those problems into good things, also.
A Better Plan
The good news is there was a loving God who sent his only son to earth to show his love and try to get this relationship right again.Eastern Orthodox belief is that Jesus would have come, anyway, even if Adam made the right choice. He would not have had to rescue humans from sin, but he would have come like a King because his loves his creation.
Roman Catholics have a little different belief. They believe Jesus came to rescue humans from punishment.
Some people say Adam and Eve did not know good from evil at the time, so did they really sin?
Others say God would find a solution either way. His will wins in the end.
You can also remember John 3:16, which reads,
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."