Man’s relationship to God, then, was to be a growing one. In the garden he had only begun to enter into the possibilities and potentialities of human existence. These all lay before him. Further development of knowledge, experience, etc., was anticipated in such commands as “be fruitful and multiply” and “subdue the earth.” How that first command would be followed (with all of the consequent social and political implications of the conduct of human affairs among a race), and what the subduing (or bringing under human control) of the earth would produce in the course of scientific and political activities, would depend upon the regulatory and interpretive revelation of God’s Word. Change, then, even developmental changes in a perfect man, always depended upon God’s counsel.
Man was created perfect, but that does not mean that he was ever able to live on his own.
From: A Theology of Christian Counseling by Jay Adams