[Milton-L] Abdiel

[Patricia Stewart]

From: Michael Gillum:
>I guess Eve and Adam are "falling" rather than fallen or unfallen at the
> time of their interior monologues-- as James Watt says, the categories 
> have
> a blurred zone between them.

Falling but not fallen?  Then is being tempted the same as being sinful? 
Abdiel is tempted, rejects the arguments presented to him, and returns to 
God as an unfallen angel.  Adam is sin free until he--willingly and 
knowingly--disobeys God and commits himself to Eve whatever the 
consequences.  Whether Eve really knows what she is doing--after all, she is 
confused by Satan's rhetoric plus she is hunger--I think is debatable.  But 
to argue that they are--before eating--in a state of falling is to argue 
that being tempted is wrong and harmful. Such a conclusion means that Eve 
was wrong in separating from Adam and that Adam was wrong to let her go and 
that God was wrong to let Satan reach the Earth.