Our inclination towards unbelief

"The origins of unbelief are unmistakable.  The Bible opens in paradise, with unbelief only a temptation away.  From the Fall onward, God's people have an inclination towards unbelief.  Church historian, Martin Marty, writes:

'What is original in today's unbelief?  It is misleading or fruitless to ask this question as if unbelief itself were a new phenomenon... The Bible gives no license for its readers to draw the conclusion that belief came without struggle to man or that faithfulness prevailed in its time.  Even the most casual reading of medieval history reveals the extent of ignorance, faithlessness, apathy and rebellion in the 'Age of Faith'.  The Reformers, by their own admission, left the world and the church in many ways as they had found them, and faith did not prevail.  As a modern process, secularisation is now centuries old.' "

Ruth A. Tucker, Walking Away from Faith (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), p.82