pbee
Rrhain writes:
Suppose you have a very delicate Mhing vase. It's in a room on a somewhat rickety pedestal. You put your toddler in the room and very directly and specifically tell the child, "Don't touch."
When we hear the inevitable crash and the kid crying, do we blame the kid for not obeying or do we blame the parent for being stupid enough to put the toddler in that position?
After all, what did the parent think was going to happen?
The ability to sin requires the ability to understand right from wrong. But Adam and Eve didn't have that ability since they hadn't eaten from the tree. Therefore, how could they possibly be said to have "sinned" by eating from the tree?
pbee writes:
If I read correctly, you beleive that Adam and Eve were ignorant and that they rebelled against God as a result of consequences proposed by God which in turn, lead Adam and Eve into innevitable sin.
I will attempt an answer since Rrhain and I are on the same page here.
They did not rebel, they simply had no information by which to judge the consequences of the action as being right or wrong. In fact, as I recall Eve
was obeying the command as she mentioned to the serpent.
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
But of the fruit of the tree which [is] in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Now God must have known what she said {being omnipotent} yet we see no praise given to her by God for this and, indeed, we also have the serpent in the picture created by God specifically to trip up Eve.
Eve ,having never encountered the serpent could not know that the act was evil and in fact the death that was supposed to happen was also a lie as the serpent said. Remember the verse "for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." ? It never happened.
What many people do not know, is that this interpretation flatly contradicts the context of the Genesis. Starting with the concept that Adam and Eve were ignorant or incapable of rational decision making(such as a child). We have evidence that they had already taken in plenty of knowledge before they disobedeyed God.
But we are not talking of knowledge but of discernment, which required the eating of the apple.
Their Creator, himself, was directly involved in their education. For instance, he brought animals and birds to the man for him to name them. No doubt Adam would have studied each one carefully in order to give it an appropriate name.
And Eve, although created later, was also not ignorant. Since the serpent questioned her and she proved that she was educated in God’s law by disclosing the difference between right and wrong, and explaining the consequences of those actions.
So why did God not create in her the ability to know she was being conned? Or did he just forget that because he was busy?
Eating the fruit, could have been, as simple as an act of open defiance towards God. An open refusal to obey Him." Is that not what Genesis clearly says? The scriptures confirm this viewpoint in Romains saying "By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners." - So scriptureally, the original sin was indeed an act of disobedience.
That would be reading into the verses that which is not supplied.We are not told of the thoughts on the matter. Regardless God knew in advance this would happen, so why is God incapable of creating humans that do not "sin"? Does this not call into question his omnipotence?
Oh really? Perhaps you would care to relay to us just what Adam named the animals so that we can see if this is correct.
Disobedience punishable by death? DO you do the same thing to your children at any level of maturity? What possible threat is it to God?
While a sin of disobedience may seem simple on the surface, consider its profound implications. A footnote in The New Jerusalem Bible puts it this way "It [the knowledge of good and bad] is the power of deciding for himself what is good and what is evil and of acting accordingly, a claim to complete moral independence... The first sin was an attack on God’s sovereignty."
They did not decide for themselves though, since their fate was inevitable since God planned the whole thing. If God had not placed the fruit of the tree of good and evil in the garden then what would be wrong with that? It cannot be freewill since they had that before consuming the fruit. God is being an obvious idiot for such a vastly ignorant display of ineptitude when he ,by definition, had to know better.
Yes, the tree of the knowledge of good and bad symbolized God’s prerogative to set the standards for man as to what is approved or what is condemned. By refusing to obey God’s law, man was calling into question God’s very right to rule over him. God justly answered the challenge by allowing man to rule himself.
What crap! In this story God provided both the temptation and the serpent when Adam and Eve were already obeying. Had God not created the nature of the serpent so that it would do such a thing {and he knew it would} then it appears that Adam and Eve would have obeyed just fine.
Edited by sidelined, : No reason given.
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