: God actively punished Adam, banning him from the Garden and from the tree of life,
The Nobel Prize awards committee has not given me the Nobel Prize in Physics. Are they punishing me by not giving me something I have not earned and do not deserve? I don't think so.
: making the ground difficult for him to cultivate, making all his days back-breaking and unpleasant.
You refer to Gen. 3:16-19. There God told Adam and Eve what life would be like for them outside of the Garden of Eden which they proved by their actions they did not deserve to live in. God did not make the ground difficult to cultivate outside of Eden. That was its natural condition. God did not make life difficult for Adam. That is how life naturally is. Adam and Eve had been temporarily given much more than they deserved, in order to illustrate the good things God has in store for all who choose to serve Him.
: He made childbearing painful and difficult for Eve and for women ever since.
No, God only predicted that Eve's pains to come, those she would experience in child bearing, would be greater than any pain she had yet felt. God was not saying He would increase her child bearing pains. For she had no child bearing pains previously. God was only using child bearing pain as an example of the many difficulties Adam and Eve would experience in this world.
: He punished children and grandchildren for the sins of their parents and grandparents. Today, we are "blessed" with disease and sickness, which, according to most Christians, is the result of the "sinful nature" you say he lovingly gave us.
You refer to the doctrine of "the fall of mankind." This doctrine is based on what I believe is a misunderstanding of the apostle Paul's words in Romans 5:12-20 and 1Corinthians 15:21,22. Romans tells us that "sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin." And that "many died by the trespass of one man," "death reigned through that one man" and "as a result of one trespass was condemnation for all men." 1Corinthians 15:21,22 repeats this same thought by saying that "death came through a man" and "in Adam all die."
With these verses in mind, many feel that these verses clearly indicate that all people inherit a "fallen" nature from Adam. And they say that it is this "fallen" nature inherited by us because of Adam's disobedience that brings upon us God's condemnation of death. They maintain that these verses prove that human beings were not "sinful" creatures until after Adam's spiritual, physical and genetic natures were somehow radically changed at the time he disobeyed God in Eden. Then, they say, when Adam fathered children after his nature had been corrupted, his children and all their descendants inherited Adam's "corrupted," "fallen," "sinful" nature.
However, I contend this doctrine of "The Fall" of mankind must be an incorrect understanding of Scripture because it contradicts several clear teachings of the Bible.
For instance, though the Bible tells us God does not hold children responsible for the sins of their parents (Deuteronomy 24:16; 2Kings 14:6; Ezekiel 18:20), the doctrine of "The Fall" of mankind says that all who have not accepted Christ as their Lord will be eternally condemned by God because of something Adam did.
Some may argue this point, reminding us that God has taken the lives of "innocent" children along with their "guilty" parents when executing a judgment in the past. However, those Divine judgments were not eternal judgments. For Jesus Himself told us that everyone who lost their lives in such past judgments by God will receive a resurrection from the dead. And He told us that they will then all be judged as individuals, and not by their parents past behavior. (Matthew 11:20-24; John 5:28,29)
The Bible also clearly tells us that God will hold each one of us responsible for his or her own unrighteousness, not for Adam's. (Romans 14:10-12, 2Corinthians 5:10)
And the Scriptures say that we all need the forgiveness God offers us through Jesus Christ, because we have all personally "sinned" and have all personally "fallen short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
The doctrine of "The Fall" must also be an incorrect understanding of Scripture because it is in conflict with proven science. The science of genetics has determined that information coded within the nucleotide sequences of human RNA and DNA is fully responsible for determining what characteristics will be inherited by a couple's children. And this branch of science has proven conclusively that a human being's genetic code cannot be altered by actions as ordinary as those performed by Adam in the garden of Eden.
I do not believe the Bible teaches that mankind "fell." Rather, I believe it tells us that God originally created the human race as free people. Free to do both right and wrong. In the exact same way we are free to do so today. Unfortunately we often choose to do what is wrong rather than what is right. God, however, cannot do wrong. For God is "Incorruptible." (Romans 1:23) So, because we can and often do behave unrighteously, and because God cannot and never does behave unrighteously, we are less righteous than God. And, because "all unrighteousness is sin" we are all born "sinful". (1John 5:17; Psalms 51:5)
Being able to do wrong, Adam was, from his very beginning, also less righteous than God. And he later proved his "sinful" condition by his behavior. Because Adam in paradise could not manage to obey one simple command from God, he clearly demonstrated that he and the entire human race, including those who had lived before him and those who would live after him, were far less righteous than God.
So, with these things in mind, Paul accurately referred to Adam when he wrote, "By one man's disobedience many were constituted sinners." (Romans 5:19, Amplified Bible) This is true because Adam's disobedience demonstrated that the entire human race was not only capable of doing wrong but incapable of not doing wrong. So, after Adam clearly showed himself to be unrighteous in a demonstration God arranged to for that purpose, God had good reason to condemn the entire human race as being undeserving of eternal life.
I believe those who adhere to the doctrine of "The Fall" also basically misunderstand the events which transpired in Eden. The Genesis account clearly indicates that Adam and Eve were created mortal with a dying nature just like us. The story of Adam and Eve told in Genesis makes clear that their being able to live forever was not a part of their original physical nature. Rather, Adam and Eve's ability to live forever depended entirely on their eating from a tree "in the middle of the garden" of Eden, "the tree of life." (Genesis 2:9) Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve were going to be allowed to eat from that tree only if they passed a God given test, a test which we are told they failed. After failing that test God expelled Adam and his wife from the Garden of Eden and prevented them from eating from "the tree of life."
Genesis indicates that had Adam and Eve been allowed to eat from "the tree of life" they would have lived forever. (Genesis 3:22-24) But when God prevented them from eating from "the tree of life" they died what were apparently natural deaths. A careful reading of the Genesis account shows us that living forever would have been as unnatural for Adam and Eve as it would now be for us.
Genesis does not indicate that Adam and Eve originally had eternal life programmed into their genetic codes by God and later had their genetic codes reprogrammed by God in order to remove eternal life from those codes. Rather, Genesis indicates that Adam and Eve would have lived forever only if God had graciously given them eternal life from an outside source, "the tree of life."
Of course, that "tree of life" was meant to picture Jesus Christ. For, as we have seen, God was going to give Adam and Eve eternal life from an outside source, "the tree of life," only if they passed a very simple test. And the Bible tells us that we will be given eternal life from an outside source, Jesus Christ, only if we pass a very simple test. That test is to simply believe in our hearts that Christ's death was sufficient payment to buy every human being God's full forgiveness, forgiveness for both our sinful nature and our sinful acts.
I see no other way to understand the Bible's story of Adam and Eve. And the traditional concept of "The Fall," I am convinced, is in conflict with several clear teachings of Scripture, proven science and a natural reading of the events which took place in the Garden of Eden.