What happens: God creates the heavens, the earth, living things, Adam, and Eve. The creation is very good, and the Garden, the Tree of Life, and direct communion with God belong to this original order.

Biblical connection: Genesis 1:31 and Genesis 2:7–25.

Question it raises: Is Genesis describing the same physical order measured by science, or an original creation that is no longer directly available to scientific study?

What happens: Adam and Eve disobey God. Their act brings alienation, mortality, and the fallen condition. FEC proposes that the Fall is responsible for the existence of the fallen creation, not merely for a private change in two individuals.

Biblical connection: Genesis 3, Romans 5:12–21, and Romans 8:18–23.

Question it raises: How can the Fall be causally prior to a world whose internal history extends across billions of years?

What happens: The fallen creation has a complete internal history. The universe begins with the Big Bang, galaxies and planets form, the earth becomes ancient, life develops, species appear and disappear, and human populations arise. This is the history studied by science.

Biblical connection: Genesis 3 describes the curse, while Romans 8 describes creation as subject to futility and decay.

Question it raises: Can the scientific account be a true history of fallen creation rather than a description of the original very good creation?

What happens: Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden and enter a fallen world that is already old within its own chronology. They do not experience the billions of years that precede their arrival there.

Biblical connection: Genesis 3:22–24 places their expulsion eastward from Eden and bars access to the Tree of Life.

Question it raises: How should their relationship to other human populations, genealogy, and the spread of sin be understood?

What happens: God enters the fallen order in Jesus Christ. Christ shares the world of suffering and death, defeats death through resurrection, and begins the renewal of humanity and creation.

Biblical connection: John 1:14, Romans 5:12–21, and 1 Corinthians 15:20–49.

Question it raises: How does the biblical parallel between Adam and Christ operate across the original and fallen orders?

What happens: The Christian story ends with resurrection and new creation. Death is defeated, creation is freed from decay, and communion with God is restored. FEC therefore points forward as well as backward.

Biblical connection: Isaiah 65:17–25, 1 Corinthians 15, and Revelation 21–22.

Question it raises: In what sense is the new creation continuous with the present world, and in what sense does it restore what was lost?