Quiz: On God, the Creator and Provider

Disobedience, contrary to expectation, plunged our first parents into a state of discord — with the Sovereign Lord, with one another, and within their own selves. Their minds became darkened, their passions inflamed. The "approach" of the Lord, which once would have brought them delight, now evoked sheer terror. Hearing the voice of the Creator — “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8) — and forgetting God's omnipresence, omniscience, and omnivoyance, the primal humans could conceive of nothing better than to “hide themselves.” When the Creator asked Adam, "Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" (Gen. 3:11), the latter — far from repenting — instead accused God Himself: “The woman whom You gave me — she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate” (Gen. 3:12). Eve behaved no differently: refusing contrition, she shifted blame to the serpent. The outcome was tragic: spiritual death (separation from God), corruption (inherited mortality), expulsion from Paradise. The outcome is grievous: spiritual death, susceptibility to corruption, the inevitability of physical death, and expulsion from Paradise. Yet the tragedy of the Fall does not end here, for the consequences of original sin extend not only to our hapless first parents but to all mankind. Moreover, the whole of nature contracts a mortal illness. The earth no longer yields its fruit as before, and beasts, instead of submission, now display distrust and ferocity toward man. Man himself — once a caring sovereign — transforms into a cruel tyrant: wretched and feeble, yet a tyrant nonetheless. Human life becomes "devoid of meaning," for "what profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?" (Eccl. 1:3) when the end is death?