Thoughts on Adam and Eve, Original Sin, Self-Awareness and True Faith

Pre-fall, A&E were in a state of sinlessness and circumstantially aware, but not fully self-aware.

Circumstantially aware of God, so they had belief, but demonstrably not full of true faith that God was who He revealed Himself to be.

This lack of true faith caused them to succumb to temptation and sin in pride and selfishness. They grasped for equality with God and disobeyed.

Once they sinned, they received self-awareness of their true place before God and their position within His Creation. Naked, vulnerable, insufficient and hopeless outside of His sovereign benevolence and love.

I think this may be when they received true faith, as well.

The prime cause of Original Sin is lack of true faith, even in the face of God's immediate and visible imminence - self-pride and disobedience were results.

That is, God makes a material example of how we are by nature sinners and doomed to sin apart from His intervention, even though we were created without sin in the beginning.

Also, the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is self-awareness. This enables the ability to understand God's goodness and still disregard it willfully, but also the capacity that the Holy Spirit uses to guide us toward true goodness, once regenerated.

In the same way, Satan is circumstantially aware (along with all those who do not receive true faith), but not self-aware, not until final Judgement.