Are there any Christian scholarly publications on the differences between the nature of humans pre-fall and post-resurrection?

Question

What was the nature of humans (i.e., Adam and Eve) like before the fall? What will the nature of humans be like after the resurrection (when those who are saved receive glorified bodies)? Are there any differences between the two? Did Adam and Eve also have glorified bodies? If Adam and Eve had the same nature that humans will have after the resurrection, how come they fell into sin but resurrected believers will never sin?

Are there any Christian scholarly publications that address the above questions?

Answer 1

One scholarly publication, a 2015 MDiv thesis by Mathew Thomas Hollen (of George Fox Evangelical Seminary, Portland, OR) Irenaeus Of Lyons: A Defense of Recapitulation, proposes to recover the FULL EXTENT of the theory of recapitulation, which now usually refers to merely the atonement aspect of salvation.

The theory is that the Pre-Fall Adam was created good but still incomplete, like a baby / child. Through the sin of impatience Adam didn't trust and wait on God to give him full glory. His eating of the fruit interrupted the process. What Jesus did was a "REDO" (recapitulation literally means "restate by heads or chapters", kaput=head, or "go over the main points of a thing again"), but this time Jesus (as second Adam) carried the process to completion, enabling everyone united with Him to attain glorified bodies that Adam would have had if he didn't sin.

To answer your question:

How come they fell into sin but resurrected believers will never sin?

Answer: In this theory, Adam was created as spiritual (and possibly physical) child who still needed to mature, and needed to rely on God to raise him to full maturity. It is probably like a child who leaves home before his parents have the opportunity to educate him. God allowed the possibility of sin (freedom of will). God also allowed the serpent (who was fallen before Adam was created) to successfully tempt Adam to be like God NOW instead of waiting. Adam's sin of impatience, which includes a measure of pride (since he thought he knew better than God), would have been a great sin since unlike us, he was unencumbered by "original sin", but only by his immaturity. Perelandra by C.S. Lewis, the 2nd of his science fiction trilogy, illustrates how this happened while also providing an alternate scenario of what would happen if Adam and Eve (allegorized as the King and Queen of Perelandra) didn't fall.

In contrast, a believer trusts the work of the Holy Spirit to purify us "by fire" that we need to endure and participate to erase our sinful nature (which Adam didn't have to do) PLUS the maturation process which maybe is similar to deification or to growing fruits of the spirit (which Adam HAD to participate) so upon entering heaven with our resurrected bodies, our nature (reason, will and passions) will be completely in sync with God's original design for purity and maturity, enabling us to will and to desire "with promptness and pleasure" everything that is True, Good, and Beautiful. In so doing, in heaven (as we are trying here on earth, but with much greater effort), it will be our PLEASURE to always obey God, exercising our freedom for excellence only for good.

Answer 2

In putting together Jewish & Christian traditions, here is what I have come up with.

I think if we were to meet the prelapsarian Adam & Eve, in their naked glory, we would be tempted to worship them as one of the gods & goddess of Greek legend.

Although human, Adam & Eve were anatomically different than Homo sapiens. For example, Eve encountered a physical change the resulted in painful child bearing. De-evolution, with wide spread speciation (Homo naledi, habilis, sediba, etc.), took place in subsequent generations.

According to Jewish & Christian tradition, prior to the fall, Adam & Eve were equals to each other, with para-normal (preternatural) abilities. Although, we might experience random “latent” psychic powers (healing energy, etc.) as well, they had it in a fully functional manner under their control.

If they were children when first created, they did not remain that way. For example, at one point they were mature in their appreciation of food and wine. According to Jewish tradition (Gemara Sanhedrin 59), angels would regularly dine with Adam & Eve bringing roasted meat and fine wine.

Adam was endowed, says Athanasius, with “a vision of God so far-reaching that he could contemplate the eternity of the Divine Essence and the coming operation of His Word." He was “a heavenly being” according to St. Ambrose, who breathed the aether and was accustomed to converse with God “face to face.”



J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote:

“Genesis is separated by we do not know how many sad exiled generations from the Fall, but certainly there was an Eden on this very unhappy earth. We all long for it, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is still soaked with the sense of ‘exile.’”

Some theistic evolutionists have concluded that if there was a “fall” in evolutionary history, it must have been a “fall upward” into greater maturity and responsibility of the sort advocated by theologians like Hegel and Kant.

C.S. Lewis spent much of his novel "Perelandra" (1943) critiquing this kind of thinking, arguing that God intended for human beings to progress to self-knowledge and maturity by obedience, not rebellion.

Having said the above, it's also (grudgingly in my mind) possible that Adam & Eve could have touched their toes without bending over. Lewis wrote in his book, "The Problem of Pain" the following argument:

I do not doubt that if the Paradisal man could now appear among us, we should regard him as an utter savage, a creature to be exploited or, at best, patronized. Only one or two, and those the holiest among us, would glance a second time at the naked, shaggy-bearded, slow spoken creature: but they, after a few minutes, would fall at his feet.