Did Adam and eve really have a choice?

That question would worry me seriously if I actually believed there was a God.
If the second option is the case then HE makes the decision as to who will be saved and who will burn in hell. If you happen to be one of those NOT chosen then it doesn't matter how well you live your life. You are going down anyway.

And Adam and Eve had no knowledge of these concepts. He chose not to inform them of the choice they were about to make. The serpent at least did that.
Does Knowledge=Satan? Now your getting closer... "on his terms". Everything was on his terms... he created everything, I'm reluctant to go round this once more, But I'm not so much saying that the choice was directly affected by the knowledge, merely stateing that if the choice was a forgone conclusion, was it really a choice at all? I don't think so.
I'm losing the will to discuss this any further to be honest. I don't want to repeat my self any more.
I don't believe there ws a choice in any real sense of the word, Not to that the choice was affected or influenced. just that Adam and Eve were playing out God's great Plan, a plan that involved the fall of man, and the eternal punishment of mankind for an ill-informed 'choice', that was a foregone conclusion.i.e. right from the get go, we (as in you and I) were doomed. what chance did we stand? and why are we being punished for something we had absolutely no influence on or control over?
a loving god?
bollocks!(edit: Changed 'he was' to 'they were' in the 1st paragraph)This message has been edited by Creavolution, 09-28-2005 11:16 AM

First off, Genesis is a story. God nor the nature of God is bound by a story written by men borrowed from other cultures.Second, even if the story was true, everyone here is assuming that God actually did know what choice Adam and Eve would make.

---

No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Hi Iano. Looks like we meet again. This time though I am not entirely opposite you in position. (at least as far as free will goes) (that is a bit of a weird layout. Maybe i did it wrong. Ah well it works I suppose)
I kind of agree yet don't agree with both of you here.
On the one hand, if God set up the situation, having foreknowledge of the outcome then from His perspective, there would be no choice.
On the other hand, from the perspective of A&E (and the rest of the Human race) we have total free choice. We are not able to see the future so we don't know which choice we are going to make. We may only have one possible path which we will take yet we are under the illusion that we actually decide it. To me this equates to free will (in a sense) Any choice made can only really be free if all consequences are known. Spelling them out in explicit detail would not be stacking the deck. It would be honesty.
Also remember that God would have also known exactly what Satan would do. His actions were also predestined by the omnipotent foreknowledge of God. I don't understand your reasoning on this.
If God had foreknowledge of the outcome then he really only set the scene for one choice with the illusion of a second which he knew would never be chosen.
Unless you are saying that God didn't know the outcome ahead of time in which case I agree with you.
It is all down to your definition of God I guess. This also doesn't cut it.
First up, God knew full well that this was going to happen when he set up the universe. He designed it with this inevitable event already set in stone. It was His choice to make it that way. He knew that man would fall. He knew that he would send Jesus to earth.
Secondly, it wasn't really much of a sacrifice was it? he sends his son to live as a man for a very short period. he dies then is immediately ressurected. Big deal. What has God lost by this sacrifice?
The way I see it, he created the situation. The fall was inevitable and foreknown as was the utterly pointless sacrifice. He is just causing totally unnecessary suffering for his own amusement, his son's included.This is just one of the reasons that I became an Atheist in the first place

I think you are correct that it is just a story. Trouble is that there are many here who don't think that. to them it is literal history. Again the claim here is that God is omnipotent and omniscient. Any such God HAS to know the choice they would make since that lack of knowledge would lessen him.
He is either all powerful and all knowing or he isn't.The belief by many here is that God is those things and if that is the case then the arguments against free will have merit. If he isn't then they don't and the entire argument is moot. Simple as that.

quote:

---

Jesus acknowledges that people are evil, as He is addressing his Disciples. In the same moment, He suggests that what kind of a Father would give His son a snake?

---

IF he asked for fish?A&E didn't ask for anything.Is a stone or snake necessarily a bad gift if the child didn't ask for anything?If I understand the usage of the word "evil" in the verse you shared, it deals with our actions and not our character. Considering all that happened before Jesus, I don't think anyone doubted that people do bad things. But Jesus was talking to people who have the knowledge of good and evil.In Genesis 3 we see that A&E did not have that knowledge when approached by the snake. So putting a bowl of candy in front of a child and telling them that they are not allowed to eat it or they will be punished, doesn't do much good if the child doesn't understand what good or bad behavior is or what punishment is.Obviously Eve didn't truly understand death, since it didn't deter her from reasoning that the fruit was good.Satan is still not part of the A&E story.

---

"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

What is any disobedience to any instruction or law but operating independantly of whatever the instruction or law was meant to achieve. If one is dependant on something one will operate according to it not own ideas. One will subject oneself to its terms and conditions. If I want my motorbike to stop I obey the law which says "pull the lever" Or I can operate independantly of that law. A&E disobeyed. They acted independantly of God merely by disobeying God.One swallow doesn't make a summer, granted. But it's not like the idea of independance from God isn't adequately covered elsewhere in the Bible. It's a bit of a recurring theme throughout...

---

"Jesus wept" John 11:35. It's the shortest verse in the Bible. What caused him to weep? Anothers death....

Hi Mod,A good analogy of pre-destination and shows there is no choice in fact except for a complicated way of getting a particular number to arise. This would mean that God went through an apparently complicated process to achieve a result which was predetermined by him without us playing any part at allIt could well be the case. Except it makes no sense of anything. It makes the world and everything in it non-sensical as far as we are concerned. Determinism in other words.But it would mean that all the apparent sense the world makes is nonsense. But surely the onus is on the one making the claim to arrive at a sensible rational behind it. Which would appear to be a self-refuting argument. IOW, how can you make a sensible argument that all is non-sensical.

---

"Jesus wept" John 11:35. It's the shortest verse in the Bible. What caused him to weep? Anothers death....

"no knowledge"? How does one make an argument from what ISN'T said? God said "The day you eat of the fruit you will surely die" If they had no concept of "die" how so a concept of: "you" "eat" "fruit". The bible doesn't say God thought them these concepts but we may suppose he did in whatever fashion he did.It is interesting to note that this conversation (correctly) makes the assumption that the bible is recording accurately and we're weighing up God in the light of it. Now what else does the bible say if we apply the same rational. Is choice implied all over the place elsewhere. No choice makes no sense of any of the bible so none of it can be used in discussion about this or anything else to do with it. So, how can someone be rationally angry with a machine that does what you've programmed it to do. How does one talk of loving a machine who does what you've programmed it to do. Why would one sacrifice a beloved son for something that the machine was going to do anyway. No senseIf one doesn't know what the evidence proves one way or the other then the next question to ask is in which direction does the evidence lead. Choice makes sense of the bible. No choice nonsense. You pays your money. Biblically everyone is born under the reign of sin and under the control of Satan. All increase in knowledge of his ways...some more eagerly than others though...

---

"Jesus wept" John 11:35. It's the shortest verse in the Bible. What caused him to weep? Anothers death....

That would have to be demonstrated. Faith would be a good one to talk to on that. God knew every person who would be born before the creation of the world. He knows how many hairs are on your head at this moment (in my case that isn't so hard but...). God knows when a sparrow falls to the ground. There is no evidence to suggest he didn't know A&E's choice. In fact Jesus as a sacrifice was known before the creation of the world. Since A&E's choice necessitated his sacrifice it follows that their choice was in fact known before it happened

---

"Jesus wept" John 11:35. It's the shortest verse in the Bible. What caused him to weep? Anothers death....

quote:

---

What is any disobedience to any instruction or law but operating independantly of whatever the instruction or law was meant to achieve.

---

I disagree. Disobeying a parental instruction does not mean the child wants independence from the parent. (your analogy is like comparing apples and oranges).God didn't say he would throw them out of the garden or stop taking care of them if they disobeyed.So when Eve made a reasoned decision (not a defiant one) to eat the apple, expulsion from God was not a threat. Only death.The A&E story as written does not support the idea that A&E desired independence from God.We are talking about one story as written and not themes.

---

"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

IIRC, GOD never did throw them out of the Garden for disobedience. He threw them out because he feared they would eat of the Tree of Life.

Like the proverbial bad penny Good point there PY. Which does ratchet the discussion on. I think the main problem is that we are not in a position to create anything which has absolute choice. Modulous computer analogy shows we can stretch the distance between us and the result - but we cannot break the link of determinism in our 'creations' choice. We are not God. God can do things that we can't. Creating a being of complete will -sufficient that punishment is justified (in Gods eyes) because of it's 'choices' it makes is all he would have to achieve.Talk of how abslute the choice is not possible because there is no standard to measure against. Do we have sufficient choice as it relates to condemnation/salvation is all the matters. In order to know all the consequences one would have to be God. Sufficient knowledge is sufficient is sufficient choice is the deal. All that has to occur for God to be just (fair) is that the choice wasn't loaded one way or the other. I've asked this a few times earlier. So I ask you. How is foreknowledge of choice influencing the choice Remember it's God not you whose doing the foreknowledging. God sets up a choice in one department of his being and concurrently looks at another department to see what the choice is. How does one influence the otherRemember God, when he forgives choses not to see our sin anymore. It's not that he runs a line through it but keeps it in his ledger under "forgiven sins of Iano". They are as far removed from his sight "as the east is from the west" God can do stuff we can't conceive of. Where's the conceptual problem with that? Hmmmm. If you edit this out quick you won't run the risk of your comment going into the eternity that is the net. But you gotta be quick PY Everyones an atheist (in God) until they become a believer. And once a believer always a believer. That's the deal (Gods deal I mean).This message has been edited by iano, 28-Sep-2005 05:38 PM

---

"Jesus wept" John 11:35. It's the shortest verse in the Bible. What caused him to weep? Anothers death....

We cannot say our definition of evil is more correct or truer than God's but we have the same ability as him to discern good and evil, is that not so?. I'm not arguing about the consequences of that choice, I'm just saying that there was no real choice at all. so you *do* agree that God limits our choices ?! Again, I didn't moan about it being fair or not. I just said that, contrary to what you claim, God never gives us any real choice. Nobody can show how foreknowledge of something influences the choice because nobody has absolute foreknowledge, like God's supposed to. The rest of us can only make educated guesses at something. God knows beyond any doubt what will happen. That means that this is the only thing that CAN happen. - otherwise God would be wrong. This is the only reasonable conclusion. Assuming that your foreknowledege is infallible, like God's, my choice is affected in two ways :1) I'm given a limited set of choices to begin with - I'm not allowed to choose 3,4,5...etc.
2) I am deceived into believing that I have two choices when in fact I have only one - the one you know I'm going to choose. If you know I'm going to pick no.2 then I might consider picking 1 and I might consider picking 2 but, in the end, my hand will always go on no.2...because *you* cannot be wrong.I hope that answers your question.

---

"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

why not? God is omnipotent, isn't he ? God doesn't like us suffering, does he ? why can't he make us realise our dependance on him in a non-painful way ? He didn't make it this way ???!!! And I was under the impression that he created everything, "he alone stretches the heavens" (Isaiah).Who made it this way then ? I bet it was us with our wrong choices, wasn't it?! Allow me to quote myself from Message 50 (I hate doing that): oh, I do! as it happens, yes I am. I *have* gone back. A lot of people on this board have. Sorry to disappoint.

---

"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."