What do Calvinists believe about Adam & Eve before the Fall

Adam and Eve prior to the fall were in a condition of innocence without any experiential knowledge of sin, but existed in a mutable "upright" moral condition with the ability of alternative moral choice.

In the act of sin, the whole of human nature as it existed in Adam fell from its innocent mutable condition into the bondage of sin, meaning the heart of man came under the rule of "the law of sin" so that by nature his desires were fundementally and permenantly changed to love darkness and hate light (Jn. 3:19-20) and his will due to the "law of sin" was inclined in "enmity against God and is not subject to the law of God and neither indeed can be. SO that those in the flesh cannot please God" due to their funemental fallen nature.

So, they "cannot" choose to love and submit to God BECAUSE they have no such desire, and they have no such desire because their heart is under "the law of sin" and their "spirit" is separated from or "alienated from the life of God" through the hardness of their heart - Eph. 4:18. They cannot because they will not and they will not because their heart is in bondage to the law of sin.

In regard to the power of their will to choose, they are now a "free agency" meaning they can choose within the limitations of their nature and desires all of which are under the dominion of the law of sin, just as God can choose within the limitations of his nature and desires, all of which are under the law of righteousness. God CANNOT choose to lie or sin because it is contrary to his moral nature just as fallen man CANNOT choose to love and submit to God as it is contrary to his moral nature. Each has freedom to choose within the limits of their power and moral nature.

Nothing keeps a fallen man from salvation but his own stubborness and resistance to God. He cannot BECAUSE he will not and he will not because he has no HEART for God or the things of God due to the indwelling law of sin ruling in his heart. He needs a "new" heart or else he simply chooses not to love and serve God as his heart is deceitfully wicked.

A fundemental truth set forth by Christ is that words and actions are products of the heart (Mt. 12:33-35) and if the heart is evil then nothing good can come forth from it and the fallen heart is evil as the law of sin rules within that heart. In order for "good" (words and deeds) can come forth from a fallen man they must be "created in Christ Jesus UNTO good..." as only "good" can come forth from the "good treasure" of a good heart. That is why it is necessary for man to be born again. Gospel conversion is the visible manifestation of the new birth. We preach the gospel but it is God that empowers it as His creative word to reveal Christ in them (Mt. 16:16-17; Gal. 1:15-16; 2 Cor. 4:6) so that the gospel does not come "in word only" but "in power and in the Spirit and in much assurance" to His elect - 1 Thes. 1:4-5.

 

would say that when they chose to sin against God, that ALL humans after them born in same spritual state, esranged from God, dead in our sin natures to Him!

God was directlyinvolved in the fall, was not just reacting to it, as the fall was what He chose to permit to happen, for His greater glory, and for the ultimate best!