To answer these questions, we must answer others first. Is man inherently good? That is, does he have a good nature? Or is God in all people? Does God favor some people over others? Do we have a free will? To answer these questions we must turn again to the Bible. We need to see how God created man, what happened to him, and what is his relationship to God and eternity.

When God created Adam, He created Adam to serve God and have communion or relationship with him (Gen 3:8-9). Not as a slave. But as a husband-wife relationship (Eph5:31-32) or like a son and Father (Rom8:15-16), or even as friend to friend (John15:13-14). But the relationship of God to Adam was not forced upon him without choice. Yes God is God, yes God is Lord, but God is good, merciful and loving. God even commanded Adam. Does a father command his child to stay off the street for his own safety? So God commanded Adam to not eat from the Tree of Knowledge. But God left the choice to Adam whether to obey or not. God did not want a robot to serve and love Him. What value is love if there is no choice. But the value of love becomes precious when what can leave, does not, because it chooses to stay. So God commanded Adam to not eat of the Tree of Knowledge but was allowed to eat all else. There was put before Adam a choice: 
 

Deut 30: MKJV
19 I call Heaven and earth to record today against you. I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life, so that both you and your seed may live,
20 so that you may love the LORD your God, and that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him. For He is your life and the length of your days, so that you may dwell in the land ...

Joshua 24: MKJV
15 And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve... 

Some would have us think that Adam's fall was God's will, or some even think that God has or had some sadistic pleasure of forcing servitude with the choice of punishment. But I ask you, does the father who commands his child to stay off the busy street, wish and desire the traffic to be there, to run over stray children? No! His obedience is commanded because of certain laws put into effect. For order to exist there must be laws. 

An example, without the law of gravity we would not be here. Is God therefore limited by gravity? No, he created it to bring order. Order without law would be an empty creation. And that was what was before God created. Therefore He made laws so His creation would exist in harmony. Well, some say would ask, couldn't God create a Universe where we can choose to walk without consequence? Then each man would be a god, and he would have his own standards, and each god or man would need create his own universe, because my laws would counter act against yours. And each god would then need to be completely alone, because we are selfish. And so God in His universe was alone and created man to be with Him. This is Love. And to exist in harmony and love, man must accept the laws of physics and laws of the spirit to abide there.

Another question by many is this? Is God evil that he put the Tree of Knowledge in the garden with Adam? This I know: God is good. In Him there is no evil. I know this; satan was on the earth and in the garden. I know this: God gave authority and power to Adam over all of creation. I therefore believe this: satan possessed a serpent in the garden which Adam could have rebuked and sent away. I believe this: satan cannot create but can corrupt. 

Here is a revelation that I put from theory into doctrine. That satan some how, corrupted a tree or possessed it and it became the Tree of Knowledge. Read this:

Ezek 31: MKJV
8 The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him; the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches. Nor was any tree in the garden of God like him in his beauty.
9 I have made him beautiful by his many branches, so that all the trees of Eden in the garden of God envied him.
18 To whom are you like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? Yet you shall be brought down with the trees of Eden to the lower parts of the earth...
 

So this Tree and the choice it gave came from satan, not from God. The fallen angels, came from heaven and have seen marvelous things man has not seen. It is completely possible, satan used his knowledge to corrupt a tree to produce the fruit of knowledge and death.

Rev 2:24 ...who did not know the deep things of Satan...

I believe this was permitted by God for 2 major reasons:

1. Because of the laws of order.
2. This furthered His desire for Adam to have a choice in choosing to obey, therefore allowing love thru choice to exist.
3. Adam had the authority to stop satan and bring all the earth including the serpent and the Tree of Knowledge back into their place under God away from corruption.

Lets remember:

1. God allowed it.
2. God did give power to break it.

Does a father allow the traffic to exist in front of his house despite the child's safety concerns? Yes. Because even the traffic and road serves the father. Though indirectly. 

In Adam's original state before he sinned, what nature did he have? Did God's Holiness abide in Adam's being? This is another tough question. This is what I have found in God's Word:

Rom 14: NKJV
14 I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.

1 Tim 4: ESV
4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

What I see here then, is that nothing is evil and nothing is Holy, unless we do something about it. Therefore, Adam was neither unclean nor sanctified. He was in a neutral state given opportunity by God to choose. Adam had not eaten of the Tree of Life, in fact God chased him out of Eden before Adam could eat it.

What is important is what became of Adam's being after the sin. God had declared "for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die". Did Adam die physically that day? No. Did he die emotionally? No he increased emotion. Did he die intellectually? No, he increased intellectually. Did he die in his will? That is, did he lose total power of choice thru self determination? No, that increased as well. Only one thing remains; spirit. Adam died spiritually. That part of man where God can reside, now was dead. Did Adam have a spirit? Yes, spirit is immortal, but it's light was put out. From henceforward all people are born spiritually dead, eternally separated from God.

Rom 5: LITV
12 Because of this, even as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death passed to all men, inasmuch as all sinned.

1 Cor 15: YLTV
15:22 for even as in Adam all die, so also in the Christ all shall be made alive, 

So despite how a person conducts his life, whether he is cruel and evil or nice and caring, this has no effect upon that eternal spirit of a person that is forever dead and separated from God. Just as if a baby gets killed in the street, no matter what you do, you can't make the baby alive. No matter how much love, no matter how much caring. That baby will be separated from it's father by death and no action can restore it. But thank God for God, He made a way, where man can not.

That way is 

JESUS 

Wow, okay, are you ready to commit to your life to Jesus? Or do you want to know how to get saved? Click on this link below:

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Perhaps you want to know why there is any reason to trust the Bible. I discuss several methods in trying to find the truth to God here: 

 How can you be sure what method is correct in finding God?

Maybe you want more information about the authority of God's Word: 

 The Word of God