Not your usual question raised by reading Calvin

We are currently reading Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin. We had one session on it today, and another on it tomorrow(in fact we have three more sessions total), so I was working on my notes for it this evening, and the section due tomorrow mostly deals with sin, that is, what it is, how it relates to us and our relationship with God, and so forth. As I was thinking about this, and interesting thought came to mind. I realized, and wrote in my notes, that because of sin we have an understanding of what sin is, what consequences our actions have etc. and this understanding is necessary because otherwise there would be a lot of people doing really bad things and thinking nothing of it, you'd have your criminally insane, essentially.

Now the question that came up at the end of the page, and thus why I'm writing about it here instead of in my notes is, because of this understanding that sin gives to us, do we also then have a better understanding of God's love for us? Could we understand how much He loves us if He hadn't sent His son to die for us? It seems counter intuitive, that God would allow us to sin simply so we would be condemned and need a savior to feel His love most fully, but at the same time, it is kind of hard to wrap my mind around God's love without Christ's death on the cross.

If such is the case, that is sin causing us to most fully feel God's love for us, then that means that the fall of Adam and Eve had good results, and not just bad ones. I am okay with that conclusion, but again, that means that sin is technically a good thing, and that I'm not okay with. Interesting dilemma...and I doubt it will actually get addressed in session. Oh well. :P