Original sin has a curious, irresolute connection to human freedom. God’s fundamental gifts to His children—reason, imagination, free will—are the very things that give men the desire to sin as well as the ability to resist. This combination makes the Fall of Man a paradoxical event, one that seems inevitable at the same time it appears avoidable. We were not created perfect; rather, we were created temptable, and with vivid imaginations. As shown in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, such a condition of independence makes for a rich road between temptation and the outcome, which can only be one of two opposites: standing or falling. Adam and Eve find themselves tempted, and, equipped only with innocence, they fall. But alternate possibilities weave ephemerally throughout the rest of Milton’s epic, possibilities of goodness and lasting purity that accentuate the sad precariousness of Eve’s fall. In hinting at these auxiliary stories, Milton subtly reminds us that steadfastness in the face of evil was always attainable, and in Paradise Regained, he shows Jesus divinely embodying this capability.
http://en.oboulo.com/sufficient-to-have-stood-temptation-in-paradise-lost-paradise-regained-64997.html
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