Learning as a Created Good

Recently, a colleague shared a question with me that he often discusses with his students during the first days of the semester.

“Do you think Adam knew how to make a guitar?”

It is a fun question to ponder, and to listen to students ponder. But, beyond the novelty of the pondering, I think this question has rich implications for our students and for us as scholars and educators.

Asking students this question on a Christian college campus almost feels like a parlor trick. Watching a student’s brow furrow in curiosity and then hearing their discussions is a reflection of what I love about working with college students. It’s one of the lightbulb moments that I love as someone who hopes to educate not just the mind but the heart and soul.

(As a sidenote: I also enjoy it when a student answers this question and then asks, “Am I right?” I hope that our students might explore this question beyond a right or wrong answer. Exploring this idea is not about figuring out what to think but rather how to think.)

As someone who regularly talks with students about the process of learning, the opportunities for a thoughtful question like this afford  not only to make students think but also to spur them towards academic inquiry and effort are rich. Our call as Christian educators is to help our students understand not only our discipline but also God’s call for us to be learners.

Why Didn’t God Create Us with All knowledge?

When I consider how I am called to live as a follower of Jesus, I often return to a Creation, Fall, Redemption framework of viewing the world. In his classic work, Engaging God’s World, Cornealius Plantinga Jr. explains the basis of this model by describing the three components of creation, fall, and redemption.

All has been created good, including the full range of human cultures that emerge when humans act according to God’s plan. But all has been corrupted by evil, including not only culture but also the natural world. So all – the whole cosmos-      must be redeemed by Jesus Christ the Lord.¹

Creation – All has been created good

If all was created good, what does this mean for Adam’s lack of knowledge in the garden? I believe this means that my lack of knowledge or lack of all knowledge is exactly as God intended. Not knowing everything is not a result of the fall. It is not a broken state. It is how I was created.

This doesn’t mean I was born without any knowledge. In fact, I would contend that a part of how we were created and what was inherent in Adam was the ability to learn. Stanislas Dehaene (2021), in his book How We Learn, argues that “the scope of babies’ prior knowledge is extensive,”² exhibiting a “sophisticated knowledge of objects, numbers, people, and language.”³ And that, along with this base level knowledge, babies are born with the ability to learn and quickly acquire an increase in understanding from the moment they are born.⁴ I wasn’t created already knowing it all, but I was created to acquire knowledge through learning.

Fall – But all has been corrupted by evil

As sin entered the world, it impacted everything (Romans 8:20), including our learning. We might be tempted to think of the corruption of sin on learning through the presence of failure or a lack of knowledge, but I think that this misses the fact that failure is a part of the learning process.⁵ Rather, I believe that sin has likely corrupted our learning through ideas like apathy, pride, and a belief that learning doesn’t require effort. The need to learn is not sinful, but lacking the wisdom to try to learn likely is.

Redemption – the whole cosmos – must be redeemed by Jesus Christ the Lord

Have you ever said, “When I get to heaven, I want to ask God about…?” More than a child’s philosophical question that helps us be okay with the unknown, this question is informative. I believe that we’ll still be learning even after Christ has returned to fully redeem His creation. In this redeemed world, in heaven, we will still be learning.

We were created to learn, and we will continue to learn in eternity.

So, What Does This Mean for Today’s Classroom?

While I love pondering ideas and ruminating as this question encourages, I believe that thinking is for doing.⁶ Our thoughts and our beliefs should lead to some practical implications. If Adam didn’t in fact know how to make a guitar, then learning is a part of faithfully following Jesus.

Curiosity and Joy – We were created for curiosity, discovery, and invention. I like the mental picture of Adam using his voice for singing for the first time, or seeing a giraffe, or tasting the goodness of a raspberry. What was it like as he did or saw many things for the first time? I picture childlike wonder and joy at the chance to discover and try new things. God created us as curious people, and the classroom is one place where we get to live this out. I am trying to encourage joy in discovery for my students. There is much to explore, and I believe it is our sin nature that tells us that this inquiry and this learning is boring. I am not saying that to be bored is sinful, but rather that God created us curious, and to live out this curiosity is part of his call in my life and for our students in our classrooms.

Humility – God did not intend for you to know everything, and he certainly didn’t intend for you to know everything from the start. Adam’s lack of knowledge encourages me to admit what I don’t know. I can be self-aware enough to understand that others may have knowledge worth seeking. It also encourages me to push towards the development of knowledge over time. Adam didn’t know how to make a guitar. He also didn’t know how to do most of the things that eventual guitar inventor Christian Frederick Martin did.⁷ Or as one of my students posited, “I don’t believe Adam knew metallurgy.” This knowledge and skill set developed over long periods of time. It took persistence. It took humility. And, it also took a good amount of failure.

Failure – Not only do I want to know everything from the start, I also expect to be perfect. When we consider Adam the guitar craftsman, it isn’t difficult to imagine a bit of failure along the way in Adam’s life. God’s creation, including Adam and Eve, was good from the start, but this doesn’t mean they never failed in their efforts. However, I am slow to allow myself to be imperfect or to make efforts that don’t always succeed the first time. Through Adam’s lack of knowledge, I am encouraged to be quick to extend grace to myself and to others when our first tries don’t succeed. I can attempt to learn things I do not know, appreciating that knowledge has grown over time and that this is the way God intends it to be in my life.

Calling – I love that the students I get to work with are typically earnest in their pursuit of following Jesus. Questions of how to live God’s call in our lives and to faithfully pursue becoming more like Jesus are conversations I cherish. The work of being a student, the task of learning, is part of this faithful following. If God created me to learn, I can view the opportunity I have in front of me as a student as a part of God’s call in my life and as a way to express my love for Him. Paying attention in class is what God has called me to. Doing homework is a form of loving the Lord my God, with all my heart and with all my soul, and with all of my strength (Deuteronomy 6:5).

Lifelong Learning

As the seasons change and summer turns to fall, I am reminded of the passage of time. I turned forty this summer. I have a high schooler for the first time. I feel myself getting older. I probably spend too much time thinking about what I want to be like when I get “older.”  This often involves exploring traits I hope to have in my old age, like kindness, generosity, and joyfulness. I also want to be someone who is learning until the day I die. I hope that I can practice curiosity and intellectual humility in a world where it seems that everyone knows everything and is always right. While my knowledge has grown as a scholar, an educator, and a follower of Jesus over the years, the more I know, the more I know what I don’t know. I believe that this is God’s created intention and that as I continue to learn, I am playing a part in His grand redemption story.

So, no, I don’t think that Adam knew how to make a guitar, and I am grateful for what that means in my life.

1. Cornelius Plantinga, Engaging God’s World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 2002), XV.
2. Stanislas Dehaene. How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better than Any Machine … For Now. (New York, New York: Viking, 2021), 53.
3. Dehaene, How We Learn, 63.
4. Dehaene, How We Learn, 71.
5. Gaier et. al, Scott E. Gaier, Jenna Kramer, and John M. Braxton. “Helping students to become effective learners: Early evidence on embedding learning skills instruction in content coursework.” Transformative Dialogues: Teaching and Learning Journal 15, no. 4 (2022), https://doi.org/10.26209/td2022vol15iss11735,
6. Daniel H. Pink, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward. New York: Riverhead Books, 2022.
7. “The beginnings of the acoustic guitar.” Yamaha, accessed October 1, 2025, https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/web_sources.html