John Behr - Was Adam created 'perfect'?

John Behr - Was Adam created 'perfect'?

From Gospel Conversations podcast by Tony Golsby-Smith

October 20, 2025 · 1h 7m

About this episode

John Behr discusses the concept of Adam's perfection and the Church Fathers' understanding of the gospel.

I can remember lots of times when Christians have speculated about whether salvation means returning to the ‘perfect’ state of Adam before the Fall - or do we go one better and somehow improve on the first Adam? This talk by John Behr demolishes that whole worldview…. It is the first in a series of four talks that John Behr gave at our recent Gospel Conversations conference. In this talk John introduces us to the radical way the Church Fathers thought about the gospel - and how they read the Scriptures. Of course for them, the ‘Scriptures’ meant what we call the Old Testament. John’s stuff is paradigm shifting - that means it is clearly explained but conceptually challenging. He is inviting us to stand on the shoulders of these early church fathers and think like them. So I have added a short ten minute introduction to this talk to give you an overview of the big idea in summary. I think that will help you absorb the guts of what John has to say. As you know, John and David Bentley Hart, admire each other’s thinking - and they are both very innovative. But they have something else in common - both of them have had their OWN paradigms shifted by the deep translation work they have…

People in this episode

Guest: John Behr

Topics covered

  • salvation
  • Church Fathers
  • gospel
  • Scriptures
  • Christian literature

Keywords

  • perfect state of Adam
  • Fall
  • paradigm shifting
  • early church fathers
  • translation work

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Gospel Conversations, Scriptures, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Church Fathers

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