Adam, Free Choice, and the Cause of Sin: A Creationist Response to a Christian Evolutionist

The presence of moral evil (sin) in the world is relatively easy for the Christian creationist to explain, and free choice is key to that explanation. To Christian evolutionist and professor of biology Daniel Brannan, the idea of a very good Creation and an Adam and Eve who were deceived and sinned is not only incoherent but also makes God the cause of sin. Brannan proposed that Christians accept an Irenean sense of original sin, which entails that Adam was essentially an undeveloped child. Adam was deceived by Satan because he was incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, and Adam had no free choice. How could Adam and Eve have chosen between good and evil, when only after eating of the tree did they achieve that ability? How could they even have been responsible for their choosing, when their eyes were open only after their choice and eating? This paper will show that Brannan’s arguments are based on faulty premises regarding Adam’s constitutional nature, the nature of Adam and Eve’s perfection and Adam’s power of free choice. Adam was not deceived, and God is not the cause of sin.