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Faith Insights with Tyler Griffin is a channel made possible by Scripture Central. The focus of this channel is for Tyler to explore topics and themes surrounding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The formats will vary between traditional podcast settings, explainer videos to exploring the Gospel through the scriptures and lenses of faith while out in nature (God's studio).
We hope you can find greater meaning and excitement in living the teachings of Jesus Christ through the Restored Gospel. We welcome both members of the Church and those who aren't to join with us on this journey!

Faith Insights with Tyler Griffin

Was the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Old Testament a mistake? Most of the world sees the events in the Garden of Eden as a tragic "original sin," but restored light reveals a different story&mdash;one of necessity, growth, and divine foresight.See the Come Follow Me lesson here: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-home-and-church-old-testament-2026/04?lang=engIn this episode of Faith Insights, Tyler Griffin breaks down why the Fall is one of the "Three Pillars of Eternity" and how understanding it can change your entire perspective on life's challenges. If you&rsquo;ve ever struggled with why life is so hard or why God allows for opposition, this video will provide the scriptural "tools" you need to find answers.In this video, we explore:The Three Pillars: Why the Creation, Fall, and Atonement are inseparable.Seeking Truth: How to use the "Triangulation" method (Recency, Frequency, and Potency) to understand modern prophetic counsel.The Pyramid of Certainty: Distinguishing between absolute, probable, and possible truths.Forethought vs. Afterthought: Why the Fall wasn't a "Plan B," but a crucial part of Plan A.Stop viewing the Fall as a tragedy and start seeing it as the gateway to your eternal progression. As the Come, Follow Me manual teaches, Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden so that we could eventually become like our Heavenly Parents.

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Genesis 3–4; Moses 4–5 | Come Follow Me | Faith Insights

<h5 dir="ltr">[00:00:00.00] - Tyler Griffin</h5>
Hello there, and welcome to Faith Insights. Due to the incredibly important nature of this particular lesson on the Fall of Adam and Eve, I'm going to actually split it into three segments this week. Segment number one is going to be talking from a big picture level about the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement as the pillars of eternity, and our efforts to understand and seek truth in order to help guide our beliefs, our behaviors, and our focus in life. Segment two, we're going to dive into the scriptures starting in Moses 4, and look at the events surrounding the actual Fall of Adam and Eve, and the choices that were made and the decisions that were made. Segment three, we'll cover the events after the Fall, after the partaking the fruit, and what happened, and how Adam and Eve felt about that. So let's dive into part one. Of all of the doctrines that we cover in the gospel of Jesus Christ, You have the plan of our Heavenly Father for the salvation of His children that rests upon three pillars. We call them the three pillars of eternity: Creation, Fall, and Atonement. It shouldn't surprise us then that there are so many significant questions for us to try to navigate and figure out surrounding the Creation of the Earth, surrounding the Fall of Adam and Eve, and surrounding the infinite Atonement of Jesus Christ, because those three pillars uphold that whole plan that our Heavenly Father has for us.
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<h5 dir="ltr">[00:02:00.00] - Tyler Griffin</h5>
So as we dive into this discussion about the Fall today, it's okay to have some questions. It's okay if there are some things that are unclear or if you don't understand them fully the way that you would like. That's a natural part of lifelong discipleship, is not to expect that God gives everything upfront and we have no worries, we have no concerns, we have no questions or curiosity even. One of the beautiful aspects of mortal life is this opportunity that God gives us to use our agency to hunger and thirst after righteousness, which should drive us to action, action filled with faith to seek out God's answers and to find truth, not just because we're curious, but because we want to become more like the Savior. And correct doctrine and a correct understanding of gospel principles will govern those behaviors that lead to us building the kind of character that we're striving for as disciples of Jesus Christ and as sons and daughters of Heavenly Parents. So something that Elder David A. Bednar has emphasized multiple times in a variety of settings is this idea, the difference between a person who approaches life as an object waiting to be acted upon, as if we're puppets in the hands of the Lord sitting back waiting for Him to do everything, tell us everything, make everything clear, and we just sit here waiting to be acted upon, versus or compared to or contrasted with an individual who chooses to be an agent, who uses that agency to act actively seek God's will and then the motivation to do that will and through the process of time to become who we were intended to become.
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<h5 dir="ltr">[00:04:11.21] - Tyler Griffin</h5>
On that foundation, I wanted to hit three or four principles of seeking truth because we're talking about the Fall today that would guide us in this effort to better understand correct principles and true doctrine so that we're making sure that that foundation is firm, so that when we dive into the scriptures that talk about the Fall, we have some tools in our lifelong learning toolbelt that we can use to be able to better find those gems of truth. So number one, when we're seeking for truth, we have to be to triangulate principles and doctrines from heavenly sources. That would be the scriptures and the words of living prophets. So the opposite of that would be to put our trust in the arm of flesh or in the wisdom of men. And the scriptures are filled with examples. For instance, Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, Trust in the Lord with all thy heart and lean not unto thine own understanding, is a good starting place. Jeremiah 17:5 says, Cursed is the man who trusts in man. 2 Nephi 4:34 says, I will not put my trust in the arm of flesh. And finally, Doctrine and Covenants 1:19 says, Man should not counsel his fellow man, neither trust in the arm of flesh.
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<h5 dir="ltr">[00:05:59.03] - Tyler Griffin</h5>
So there are these scriptural invitations to constantly turn heavenward and seek for God's inspiration and God's answers on what the doctrines mean and what those foundational principles and truths might be. Now, when we're searching the scriptures, we're looking for a couple of things. We want to triangulate doctrine. We want to find more than just one or two passages or phrases or verses or chapters that perhaps agree with a preconceived idea that we have coming into the scriptures. We want to search all of the scriptures and all of the words of the living prophets, especially the recent prophets, and we'll talk about that in a minute, to see if we can find consistency over time from different speakers or different prophets in the scriptures, because there's power in seeing that that triangulation of truth. And if we're confused, if something is messy or muddy or fuzzy in our mind and we're left frustrated with trying to unpack conflicting passages, gratefully, God has given us not just the words of the ancient prophets, but interpretation and teachings and application from our modern prophets and apostles. So as we combine both of those, the ancient with the modern, we can now triangulate teachings, doctrines, principles.
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<h5 dir="ltr">[00:07:41.20] - Tyler Griffin</h5>
So if we find something confusing in the scriptures, we turn to the living prophets and see if there's clarification, see if there's been additional revelation that God has given. And when we're looking at those words of the modern prophets, there are three things that come in really handy: recency, frequency, and potency. In other words, how far back do I have to go to find a prophetic quote? If a teaching has come out recently, within the last 20 years, then there's a higher degree of certainty with which we can teach that principle or that doctrine. Frequency. Do we only find it once by one speaker on one occasion in one setting? Or do we see that teaching triangulated by multiple prophets, multiple leaders in multiple settings over time? And potency. How much emphasis has been given and how often do we see it coming up in a general conference, being correlated materials like the manuals, Come, Follow Me manual, and other resources that the Church provides? That increases the potency where we can teach it with a little more... With a higher degree of certainty. And another principle to consider here is be patient in this process.
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<h5 dir="ltr">[00:09:10.14] - Tyler Griffin</h5>
Be patient with yourself and be patient with the Lord. Sometimes we can put an intense amount of work in a short period of time into digging out an answer from the scriptures and the words of the prophets. And sometimes we can find answers that are very satisfying to the soul, that respond to those doubts or those fears or those questions or anxieties that we may be facing in our life. And sometimes we can dig in, and it seems that the more we dig in, the more questions we have, and at times even the more confused we might become. We need to not give up on ourselves, nor give up on the scriptures, nor give up on the living prophets in that process. We trust that God, according to His wisdom and His timing, He will give us what we need when we need it. He won't always give us what we want nor how we want it, but He will give us what we need. And there's something powerful about this process of discovery, this journey of discipleship in studying the scriptures and the words of the prophets. So what does that mean for us?
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<h5 dir="ltr">[00:10:24.22] - Tyler Griffin</h5>
It means instead of giving up and stopping our efforts to study and and move forward in faith, it means the opposite. It means we move forward with greater faith, greater hope, and greater trust in God, relying on Him to one day, according to His timing, give us those answers as we're moving forward in faith, acting to the best of our ability on the truths that we do have. So as we're seeking for truth, it's important to remember that there are degrees of certainty when it comes to our personal grasp on the truth. Now, my belief or your belief or the collective wisdom of the world isn't going to change ultimately things as they really are or things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come. Some of those definitions of truth that we see in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. We can't change truth by our belief or unbelief, but we can increase our certainty and our understanding of that truth. If you look at this little diagram, it shows the degrees or the layers of truth in a pyramid form. At the bottom, you have possible truths.
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<h5 dir="ltr">[00:11:43.25] - Tyler Griffin</h5>
So this is the biggest section of the pyramid because there are lots of possibilities, and the degree of our certainty isn't very high when we're dealing with possible truths. We're trying to collect all of the information, all of the inspiration we possibly can, and we end up with a whole bunch of possibilities. And the more we're able to discern truth at a higher level, it can then grow into this middle category called probable, or likely truths, where we say, that is more likely to be true than these other options based on the things that I've come to understand at this point. And eventually, we get to the point where we're in that top part of the pyramid where we can know absolute truth. And that list is not as long as sometimes we would probably like it to be. That list contains things such as, we are beloved children of our Heavenly Parents. God loves us. Jesus is the Christ. He is the Only Begotten of the Father. He is full of grace and truth, and there is no other means nor way whereby mankind can be saved only in and through the merits, mercy, and grace of Jesus Christ, our great Messiah, who is full of grace and truth.
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<h5 dir="ltr">[00:13:12.17] - Tyler Griffin</h5>
And if we start our inquiry towards other truths with that foundation, it helps us to be able to wrestle with all of these underlying possible and even probable truths. One thing we need to be careful of in this process of seeking truth is that we don't take one or a handful of possible truths and latch onto them and start teaching them as if they were absolute truths. The same problem can occur in the inverse, where somebody could take an absolute truth and downgrade it or teach it or treat it as if, yeah, it's just one of many possible truths when it's an absolute truth. Another principle to consider is that the Lord has told us He will reveal things to our mind and to our heart. We need to not leave one of those elements out of the process. We need to bring both mind and heart together when seeking truth. The last principle I wanted to share here before we dive into the actual scriptures now and try to put into practice these principles of seeking truth is, let's find joy in this journey. Let's enjoy this process of discovery and be grateful that God has set up His plan in such a way that His children can use their agency to decide the degree to which they want to seek after His truth and engage with His scriptures and the words of His prophets.
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<h5 dir="ltr">[00:15:02.21] - Tyler Griffin</h5>
And now we get to engage in that process of revelation and learn line upon line. And you don't have to have graduate degrees in ancient languages or ancient customs to be able to have these kinds of experiences with the scriptures. God will inspire each one of His children, wherever they are in their understanding and their knowledge, to help them grow to increasing levels of understanding and connection with Him. Because at the end of the day, we're seeking truth because we're seeking to become more like God. Because Jesus Christ has invited us to seek for that truth. And He's told us, if we know the truth, that truth will make us free. And it will give us more agency, more our power to act more wisely and to become who we were born to become. So with that foundation, let's jump in to this actual event, the Fall of Adam and Eve. We'll use some of these elements that I've just discussed. We'll search scriptures. We'll look at some quotes from the living prophets. We'll look at some of the resources that the Church has provided for us through the Come, Follow Me curriculum. We'll try to triangulate some of the questions that some people wrestle with to help us provide a more firm foundation for our faith surrounding the doctrine of the Fall and what happened in the Fall and what effect it has on us and what we can learn about God, what we can learn about Adam and Eve, and more importantly in this context, what we can learn about us and our Savior Jesus Christ and our covenant connection with Him today so that we can move forward with greater faith, greater trust in Him.
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<h5 dir="ltr">[00:17:12.19] - Tyler Griffin</h5>
So I love the way that the Come, Follow Me manual for this particular lesson opens with this. At first, the story of the Fall of Adam and Eve might seem like a tragedy. Adam and Eve were cast out of the beautiful Harden of Eden. They were sent into a world of pain, sorrow, and death, and they were separated from their Heavenly Father. But the truths restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith in the Book of Moses give us a unique perspective on the Fall. Yes, the Garden of Eden was beautiful, but Adam and Eve needed more than beautiful surroundings. They needed, and we all need, an opportunity to grow. Now, if we push pause there, take a little time out. This is a beautiful concept that is repeated to one degree or another in all three of the pillars of eternity. You and I, as spirit children of our Heavenly Parents, lived in heaven in Their presence. But we had to leave Their presence in order to come to this Earth for an opportunity to grow, for an opportunity to become like God, not to just live with God. So the same pattern follows with Adam and Eve in that Garden of Eden, which is no longer a celestial place, but a terrestrial place.
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<h5 dir="ltr">[00:18:50.05] - Tyler Griffin</h5>
They had to give that up in order to grow, to learn, to experience life and mortality. So picking up in the Come, Follow Me manual, it says, Leaving the Garden of Eden was the necessary first step toward returning to God and eventually becoming like Him. A perfect pattern for what you and I all did when we left heaven to come to this Earth as well. That meant facing opposition, making choices, making mistakes, learning to repent, and trusting the Savior, whose Atonement makes possible progression and the joy of our redemption. So again, there's this principle in the gospel of Jesus Christ and in our Heavenly Father's plan that sometimes we have to give up beauty and ease and comfort in order to provide opportunities for growth, development, and becoming. It happened with the Creation and us leaving heaven. It happens with the Fall, with Adam and Eve leaving the Garden of Eden. And it's going to happen an infinite level for Jesus Christ when He performs His infinite Atonement in order to open up the portals of the grave and the portals of hell for us to be able to be redeemed from that awful monster, death and hell, as Jacob refers to it in 2 Nephi 9.
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<h5 dir="ltr">[00:20:22.19] - Tyler Griffin</h5>
Based on that foundation, we now can look at the story of the Fall not as a tragedy, but it says, I love this closing part of this paragraph in the Come, Follow Me manual when it says, So when you read about the Fall of Adam and Eve, focus not on the seeming tragedy, but on the possibilities, not on the paradise Adam and Eve lost, but on the glory their choice allows us to receive. Adam and Eve, just like Jesus Christ, are both going to make a decision that will lead to suffering and death for them, but will ultimately result in mortal life and eternal life for you and me as God's children. So it's important that we see all three of these pillars as absolutely essential and prepared from before the foundation of the Earth. In other words, the Fall of Adam and Eve and the Atonement of Jesus Christ are not afterthoughts. They are forethoughts. They were put in place at the beginning. And remember, none of this is possible if Jesus Christ isn't willing to make that covenant offering of His whole soul when God said, Whom shall I send?
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<h5 dir="ltr">[00:21:52.05] - Tyler Griffin</h5>
And Jesus says, Father, here am I. Send me. I will be thy son. And the glory be thine forever. Then and only then, when Jesus is set up as the infinite, atoning one, can we even proceed with creating an earth and sending Adam and Eve to that earth. So If we can keep those three pillars in proper relationship to each other, they become complementary. God has set this up beautifully through His foreknowledge and His infinite capacity as God, allowing us to now progress through the plan of happiness so that we can become more like Jesus Christ and return to the presence of our loving Heavenly Parents and enjoy all that it means to not just be with Them, but to have, through the Savior's grace and merits and mercy, to become more like Them. Know that you're loved.
<ul class="footnotes"></ul>

Was the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Old Testament a mistake? Most of the world sees the events in the Garden of Eden as a tragic "original sin," but restored light reveals a different story—one of necessity, growth, and divine foresight.See the Come Follow Me lesson here: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-home-and-church-old-testament-2026/04?lang=engIn this episode of Faith Insights, Tyler Griffin breaks down why the Fall is one of the "Three Pillars of Eternity" and how understanding it can change your entire perspective on life's challenges. If you’ve ever struggled with why life is so hard or why God allows for opposition, this video will provide the scriptural "tools" you need to find answers.In this video, we explore:The Three Pillars: Why the Creation, Fall, and Atonement are inseparable.Seeking Truth: How to use the "Triangulation" method (Recency, Frequency, and Potency) to understand modern prophetic counsel.The Pyramid of Certainty: Distinguishing between absolute, probable, and possible truths.Forethought vs. Afterthought: Why the Fall wasn't a "Plan B," but a crucial part of Plan A.0:00 Intro - The 3 pillars of eternity3:20 Rely on heavenly sources (truth seeking principles) 6:15 Triangulate doctrine (truth seeking principles) 9:04 Be patient (truth seeking principles) 11:58 Degrees of certainty 14:30 Journey before destination (truth seeking principles) 17:15 Time of testing20:25 A necessary fallStop viewing the Fall as a tragedy and start seeing it as the gateway to your eternal progression. As the Come, Follow Me manual teaches, Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden so that we could eventually become like our Heavenly Parents.Hosted by Tyler Griffin and produced by Scripture Central. Executive Producer: Benjamin Griffin Content Review: Kiplin Griffin Editor: Jarret Griffin Timestamps: Dino Collins