I think that Christian apologetics perhaps has a very difficult task indeed in trying to account for an imperfect and arguably an apparently entirely natural world.
A frankly impossible task imo.
Just how do you shoehorn in a perfect God into an imperfect world?
Blaming mankind for his own demise, as feeble as that is, probably is just about the best spin apologetics can do.
Otoh apologetics is perhaps deliberately and desperately trying to steer away from something rather more blindingly obvious and likely which is based on real facts and evidence; that the best evidence for an entirely natural godless world is the apparently entirely natural godless world itself!
A world that just is what it is, often cruel and harsh that no caring involved god created, nor is currently controlling.
Humans have surely created God, not the other way around.
lain:
I think you have maybe underestimated the effect of Satan. When we first meet him, he immediately throws himself into dismissal and challenge of one basic command. It is fascinating that the entire world was available to the first couple, perfect climate, food for the picking, ever-available sexual pleasure, AND one restriction. Being a thorough "victim" of the "missing tile syndrome," what does Satan do? ***** that the place is awful and that God hideous for the one restriction!
Later, we find that he is the same way toward Christ. He thinks supernatural powers exist for the next meal; that a person should go from one dare-God to the next; that he owns the world and it's his to give away. "His native language is lies" said Jesus.
Back to the temptation, his 'missing tile syndrome' was contagious and affected Eve first. I don't know what they had in mind by doing the one thing they should not have, but, hey, they aren't God and aren't infinite. Who is going to cast a stone at them and say we would never have done what they did?
In the Trinity, there was love and communication before the foundations of the world. As "parents" (cosmologically speaking) they knew the "teenagers" might mess it up for the worst of reasons (they were). And that immediately afterward the man would probably blame the woman for what he did--as though he didn't do it himself!
Each of us is truly responsible for our decisions. If I had a perfect climate, gardening work, free food and a naked woman companion all the time, I'd like to think I would ignore the one limitation. But apparently not. Satan is a master of skepticism, cynicism, narcissism. Eve knew beauty was all around her, but she still bit into the one beautiful thing that was restricted.
There is a limited dualism between good and evil in the Bible. "Limited" means evil did not exist forever, going back and it will not going forward. It begins sometime before the earth is formed as we see it in Gen 1. Evil breaks out amongst arrogant angels who rebel, including Satan. It may explain why the earth is formless and void and black and murky when we first hear of it (it may have been a place where Satan as a rebellious angel was incarcerated). In Job 38 God says that he had to 'shake out the earth--like a carpet or tent' before he laid the foundations of the world, to get rid of some of the rebellious angels, ie, demons.
If he had made a world without temptation, we would be automatons, and no free will. Oscar Wilde didn't want responsibility for his free-will for the opposite reason: "there's only one thing I can't resist; and that's a temptation." His hero is Eve. Or, later, Steve. We were created in the middle option of this.
