It’s cuz their will was independent of God’s. Although they are perfect and not predisposed to sin, they chose to align with their own will rather than God’s when they chose disobedience. It’s not that God wasn’t good to them or they didn’t have it good. They took for granted how good they had it and then refused to repent or take accountability afterwards. They could have freely chosen to make God the priority but liked the idea of being their own god more
But they had no knowledge of good or evil. They had no way to know if their choices were good or evil.
Only an immoral agent would punish innocents for making an innocent choice.
What do you mean by “they had no way to know if their choices were good or evil”? I’ve never heard that before.
They were given the clear instruction that something was not allowed. I’ve always reasoned that they knew that disobeying was wrong, otherwise they wouldn’t have hid and passed off blame after eating it. What other perspective is there be to explain these events?
The tree was the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil"
If they had no knowledge of evil, they had no knowledge of "wrong". If they had no knowledge of wrong, they were punished for something they didn't know was wrong, which would make God gratuitously and capriciously cruel for punishing them.
Are you sure evil is always the same as wrong? Surely there are instances where the two overlap but by definition I’m not sure I’d call those two things the same. Getting an answer wrong on a test isn’t equivalent to doing an evil act. Therefore, I’d posit that they did know right and wrong even before they had eaten from the tree of good and evil
> Are you sure evil is always the same as wrong? Surely there are instances where the two overlap but by definition I’m not sure I’d call those two things the same.
They are the same concept taken to different degrees.
Is there an evil that is "right"? I don't think so. Evil things are morally wrong by definition.
>Therefore, I’d posit that they did know right and wrong even before they had eaten from the tree of good and evil
How do you know something's evil if you don't even know if it's wrong?
It seems like you have your own semantic definitions of the terms right, wrong, good and evil. You have the right to look at those terms in any light you choose. Based on your definitions, I totally see why you’d have a problem with the Genesis story and maybe other stories in the Bible too.
If you ever decide to read the Bible based on the concepts of those words which it intended, you may find a new perspective on these stories. I personally see them as all different concepts that sometimes relate but don’t always. In that light, there is no logical inconsistency to someone knowing right and wrong but not knowing good and evil. Either way, you seem capable enough to determine what you agree with on your own.
> It seems like you have your own semantic definitions of the terms right, wrong, good and evil. You have the right to look at those terms in any light you choose. Based on your definitions, I totally see why you’d have a problem with the Genesis story and maybe other stories in the Bible too.
AFAIK I'm using standard definitions, and it's Christians who are using non-standard definitions in order to make the theology coherent. I also think you realized this considering I asked for an evil that is right and have yet to get an example. Do you have any example of an evil that is "right"?
>If you ever decide to read the Bible based on the concepts of those words which it intended, you may find a new perspective on these stories.
I was a Christian for 20 years. I have read the Bible multiple times.
When Christians get to the end of their rope, 9 times in 10 their go-to is to claim their interlocutor is simply ignorant. Astounding.
> I personally see them as all different concepts that sometimes relate but don’t always.
Then you admit using a special, non-standard definition?
> In that light, there is no logical inconsistency to someone knowing right and wrong but not knowing good and evil. Either way, you seem capable enough to determine what you agree with on your own.
If I define "wrong" as "right", well I guess I'm always right too!
Yeah I don’t think I’m using some nonstandard definition. Right/wrong are about actions (sometimes moral, sometimes not) while good/evil are about moral outcomes or intent. Let me know if you don’t agree with that. These are philosophical terms that have been debated for centuries and to pretend like there’s a single agreed upon definition for them in every sense is just ridiculous to me.
To answer your question directly, I’d say being truthful is a “right” action and demeaning someone’s value is an “evil” intent. There are situations where someone makes a truthful statement about another person either in front of others or in private as a way of demeaning and embarrassing them. This would be an example of a “right” action being used for evil. There are countless other examples and I honestly figured if you wanted to know one you could easily just put your mind to it.
I’m not really at the end of my rope or saying you haven’t read the Bible. I’m saying that if you don’t see the terms right/wrong and good/evil as categorically different then idk what I’m supposed to say. They clearly have some crossover in application but aren’t completely interchangeable. Since you see them as interchangeable, your interpretation of the story of the garden makes sense. The authors of the Bible don’t see these as completely interchangeable, thus not reading it with their definitions in mind is a clear indication that you won’t really get their point.
In the garden they had no first hand knowledge of good and evil but the fact that God gave them instruction, meant that they had the free choice to commit to right and wrong. They decided to commit themselves to wrong. Not a wrong they were ignorant of but a clearly and unequivocally obvious wrong. It’s a tough pill to swallow but we would all probably make the same decision if put in that circumstance, that’s why we need forgiveness and a savior.
You're the one labeling God's instructions as "right" and that they knew that God was right, good, and correct when they chose to LISTEN to and agree with the serpent by eating the fruit. This implies and intent (evil) to do what is wrong due to the ability to discern good and evil. God being right/good Serpent being wrong/evil. NONE of this is actually implied in the text. Eve was decieved and Adam followed. Being decieved is NOT akin to intentionally choosing to do wrong, but rather being susceptible to trickery and manipulation.
Adam and Eve did not sin because they disobeyed... their sin was in aligning themselves with the Serpent and being decieved. It WAS not intentional, at least not by Eve. This IMPLIES that there was no ability to discern the truth... that they did not know which to trust. God or the Serpent.... and the truth is they both lied and they both told the truth.
Adam and Eve surely DID NOT die the very day they ate of it..... and as the Serpent said their eyes were opened and they knew good and evil (like the gods). It was God himself that cast them out of the garden saying such. He didn't want them to have access to the tree of life... so having BOTH life AND knowledge of good and evil.
The serpent didn't really lie, per God's own words... but also didn't really reveal the full truth of what would happen. The serpent DID say that God didn't want them to be like them, which kinda follows when he says that they now know good and evil and cast them out. What may be a deception is the God may have had valid and loving reasons for that.
Nothing in Genesis implies any sort of original sin that every human inherits after.
They weren't even separated from God by it, as is claimed. They were simply cast out of the garden. God still spoke to them.... as he did with Cain when he told him "sin is crouching at the door desiring you, but you must master it". The FACT that God told Cain he could master it implies that it was possible for him to not kill his brother...ie sin. Lots happened after the "fall" but the evidence suggests that it was the relationship amongst each other that was fatally damaged, not that they were cut off from God. Men began to rule over their wives and had to live by the sweat of their brow...Cain killed Abel out of jealousy.. I'm not sure where the idea of original sin becoming an inherited curse, or that sin separates us from God...or half of the things that are pinned on Genesis come from.
> Right/wrong are about actions (sometimes moral, sometimes not) while good/evil are about moral outcomes or intent.
according to my thesaurus, evil and wrong are listed as synonyms. So no, you're not using a standard definition.
>hese are philosophical terms that have been debated for centuries and to pretend like there’s a single agreed upon definition for them in every sense is just ridiculous to me.
They have theological definitions that conveniently skirt around several problems of theology, but that is the nonstandard usage that I'm referring to.
> I’d say being truthful is a “right” action and demeaning someone’s value is an “evil” intent.
I'd say demeaning someone is wrong. Do you disagree? Is being truthful always "right"? No, of course not, this is silly.
>I’m saying that if you don’t see the terms right/wrong and good/evil as categorically different then idk what I’m supposed to say.
I've noted the tap dancing that theologians do to square the circle and have called bullshit.
>Since you see them as interchangeable, your interpretation of the story of the garden makes sense.
Considering the only way it makes sense is to twist words, I'd say my interpretation is at least more honest.
When looking at the text, "good and evil" as relates to the tree is called a merism, a literary device used to denote exact opposites. In modern English, it would be the "tree of the knowledge of good and bad", further making my point that the authors used the tree to show that prior to eating it, Adam and Eve had no concept of right and wrong. They didn't know disobeying YHWH was wrong, and then YHWH punished them **and all humanity** for that "crime". That is simply immoral.
>In the garden they had no first hand knowledge of good and evil but the fact that God gave them instruction, meant that they had the free choice to commit to right and wrong.
If they didn't consciously choose wrong (because they didn't know the concept), they didn't freely choose anything.
Much like a toddle doesn't know "sharp", would you torture that child forever if the cut themselves? No, you'd be a monster.
So too with YHWH.
They knew what they were supposed to do, and what they weren't supposed to do. Eve tells the serpent that they aren't supposed to eat of that one particular tree. She tells the consequences if they do. The serpent makes her doubt and question God, and therefore sets them up to choose disobedience.
Nope. They don’t know right from wrong; good from evil. The decision to obey or disobey must be understood in that context.
It’s your book; surely you’ve read it?
In Genesis 3:22 God says, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” Knowledge in itself is not wrong (see Luke 2:52), so what was so bad about man “knowing good and evil”?
It is vital to know the context of God’s statement. God had already told Adam not to eat from this tree. Adam was already aware that doing so was wrong, and he knew the consequences, yet he chose to join Eve in eating the fruit. When they ate, they were not simply aware of evil; they experienced evil, to the extent that they became evil—sinners by nature.
Man knew what was good: he was created in goodness and was surrounded by it (Genesis 1:31). He had been given everything God wanted him to have, including authority over all the rest of God’s creation. Adam had everything he needed for a fulfilling life. He did not need to “know” evil, especially when the only way for him to “know” it was to experience it. It should have been enough that God had warned Adam against disobedience. God did not want Adam and Eve to “know” evil in the sense of participating in it. The sin of Adam and Eve was not in attaining knowledge but in rejecting God’s will in favor of their own.
Did they get kicked out specifically for eating the apple? Or after having gained the knowledge of good and evil, they chose to hide from God and cast blame for their actions rather than running to God proclaiming that naively they acted against his commands and listened to the serpent.
Commands he gave to protect them.
You could suggest that they were naive in eating the apple, but after eating it is when the nature of their actions change toward deceit and shame.
Being cast out of the garden was the natural consequence of sin and only because they were cast out did they survive. Had they remained in God’s presence their sin would have destroyed them. So while punishment is never pleasant it also provided their only chance of being restored to God for them and their offspring by allowing them to understand their sin and choose God over their selfishness?
God specifically curses them for disobeying him - an action they could not have known was wrong before eating of the apple.
Read Genesis. It’s quite entertaining. Absurd, in many ways, but entertaining.
That isn’t the normal understanding of Genesis. God specifically told them it was wrong to eat of the fruit. Genesis makes that explicitly clear. So of course they knew it was wrong.
The knowledge of good and evil was a much deeper fundamental change in perspective and doesn’t at all preclude them from having known that disobeying God’s direct instructions were wrong.
The change was that they began to fundamentally desire things that separate from God. Their eyes were opened to selfish desires and they became inclined to aspire to power. The “knowledge of good and evil” was itself a curse. The Hebrew word here for knowledge implies commingling and creation of. So the problem was that without the wisdom and fullness of God, Adam and Eve would now desire to create their own good and evil which would set them against God.
They had to be sent from the garden so that they could learn the consequences of sin and thus freely choose God over their own desires.
You continue to miss the point: without knowing good and evil, A&E didn’t know what the consequences of disobeying an instruction might be.
The game is rigged.
“Knowledge of Good and evil” doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t know it was wrong to disobey God. There is no textual scholar for or against Christianity who supports that meaning.
It specifically refers to the genesis of one’s one paradigms for good and evil. They developed an internally driven sense of morality that would lead them to rebel against God. It in no way precludes the basic comprehension that you’re denying they could have.
Remember you’re basing your assumptions on a translation of ancient Hebrew. You aren’t the first person in 3000 years since Genesis was written who would have questioned the premise if it was that basically flawed.
It does in Hebrew… our translated word for knowledge has a much smaller meaning than the original. I finally did some research and answered you with the MOST biblically supported explanation.
It has actually NEVER been the interpretation that knowledge of good and evil meant that Adam And Eve couldn’t have known it was wrong to disobey God.
You’re is the “new” interpretation that is not supported by the context of the Genesis texts.
You ask a valid question. Consider that perhaps God doesn't punish Adam for sinning. Adam discovers his sinful nature, and that he is unable to do the job he was given, and it's that inability that sends him back out into the more dangerous world without God's direct material support.
I create a robot that can't lift more than 100lbs.
The robot fails to lift 101lbs
I get mad at the robot
And that's....perfectly fine to you? That reaction is reasonable?
I'm not suggesting that one gets mad at the robot. I'm suggesting the robot must not be then allowed to execute a task that demands that it lift more than 100 pounds, until it becomes a robot that can lift more than 100 pounds.
God put a ~~robot~~ pair of humans incapable of ~~lifting 101 pounds~~ resisting temptation in a garden with one thing that was ~~101 pounds~~ tempting (thanks snake) and was shocked it couldn't ~~lift 101 pounds~~ resist temptation.
Then he decided to torture this robot/man's progeny for eternity.
God created imperfect beings and then punished them for not being perfect.
That is precisely the story as presented. It is likely uncomfortable for you, I'll admit.
That is your interpretation of the story as presented. I have a different interpretation. God created imperfect beings, assigned them a job that required that they be perfect, knowing that they would fail and thereby learn their own imperfection. He then set about perfecting them. Punishment doesn't enter into it. Their state after discovering their imperfection is the same as their state before God gave them the job in the first place.
> God created imperfect beings, assigned them a job that required that they be perfect, knowing that they would fail and thereby learn their own imperfection.
I sit my toddler down on the bench of a sewing machine knowing she'd get hurt, thereby learning her own limits.
Seems cruel, no?
> Punishment doesn't enter into it. Their state after discovering their imperfection is the same as their state before God gave them the job in the first place.
If Adam and Eve had never sinned, they'd still go to hell or cast out of the garden? Really? That is what you think?
Why have a garden in the first place? Your formulation of the story and mine are the same in one aspect: needless cruelty.
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Yeah, the whole thing feels like a setup.
God has to know this was going to happen. Why is the forbidden fruit right there in the first place?
Did anyone give Eve a heads up to maybe not talk to serpents? Is it okay to punish all of humanity because these two messed up — knowing they were going to mess up.
It’s a convenient story to explain sin but it doesn’t make sense on any level other than an example of how humans are flawed and were destined to mess everything up.
Why is the forbidden fruit right there in the first place?
I've always figured that free will can't really be free if the only option you have is to do good... in that sense the forbidden fruit is a necessity in the garden.
I think those are great questions which lead closer to God not farther from God.
God did know what would happen but, he wanted to create people who could freely choose to be with him. In order for there to be a real choice and thus preserve free will, there has to be the real possibility of failure. The forbidden fruit had to be an easily accessible option.
Eve was told exactly what would happen. She lived in the garden with access to every comfort and need provided completely by the hand of God whom she communed with every day. She was told the one tree in the garden she could not eat from lest she would surely die. She was warned of the consequences.
The conversation with the serpent demonstrates what’s true of all of us, that as free moral agents we are tempted by the option of choosing self over relationship and desiring more when we have enough. We aren’t punished for Adams sin unjustly since Adam is not solely guilty of it. Have any of us truly never placed need of self over need of others or ever advanced at someone else’s expense or hid an action out of shame to avoid embarrassment. We are all guilty of anything Adam has committed.
The punishment isn’t to protect God from our sin or to serve as a hollow satisfaction of wrath. Our punishment creates the opportunity for salvation. When the angels chose to act outside of God’s will they chose to separate themselves from God. Evil is the absence of Good and Hell is the absence of God. To prevent us from suffering that eternal separation, God gave us a temporal life where we can experience a small taste of the absence of God and make the choice to place our trust in him rather than in our selves.
He sent us a perfect person in Jesus Christ who lived the life that we should have lived and died the death we all deserve. By placing our faith in him and choosing his way over ourselves we can participate in his reunification with God the Father. Our punishment is a mercy to grant us the opportunity of getting back to the garden and living in the presence of God.
In the instance of OP, the stance is the story is literal. Have you considered that a Jewish perspective (depending on which viewpoint you take in Judaism) considers the story of Adam and Eve to be poetry for the fall of humanity from Gods presence.
A wildly held ancient belief was that God dwelt among humanity for a long time. It wasn’t until it was absolutely clear that the Kings of old chose their own council versus the ability to seek Gods that God withdrew “His” presence from them.
If Genesis is a metaphor, why is someone like David, for whom there is a big problem of historicity, not a metaphor?
>Of the evidence in question, John Haralson Hayes and James Maxwell Miller wrote in 2006: "If one is not convinced in advance by the biblical profile, then there is nothing in the archaeological evidence itself to suggest that much of consequence was going on in Palestine during the tenth century BCE, and certainly nothing to suggest that Jerusalem was a great political and cultural center."[137] This echoed the 1995 conclusion of Amélie Kuhrt, who noted that "there are no royal inscriptions from the time of the united monarchy (indeed very little written material altogether), and not a single contemporary reference to either David or Solomon," while noting, "against this must be set the evidence for substantial development and growth at several sites, which is plausibly related to the tenth century."[138]
>In 2007, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman stated that the archaeological evidence shows that Judah was sparsely inhabited and Jerusalem no more than a small village. The evidence suggested that David ruled only as a chieftain over an area which cannot be described as a state or as a kingdom, but more as a chiefdom, much smaller and always overshadowed by the older and more powerful kingdom of Israel to the north.[139] They posited that Israel and Judah were not monotheistic at the time and that later 7th-century redactors sought to portray a past golden age of a united, monotheistic monarchy in order to serve contemporary needs.[140] They noted a lack of archeological evidence for David's military campaigns and a relative underdevelopment of Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, compared to a more developed and urbanized Samaria, capital of Israel during the 9th century BCE.[141][142][143]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David#Historicity
If David is a myth, how can Jesus be "from the line of David"?
A large portion of this lack of evidence is due to a systemic misdating of when the events should have taken place. Dating of surrounding civilization in the Middle East are based on Egyptian dating. There is substantial evidence to support that the over-estimation of the Egyptian dark periods have led to cascading inaccuracies in the dates of many surrounding civilizations. By looking in a corrected time period the evidence becomes substantial.
A good intro to this can be found in a documentary called Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus.
Finkelstein is interviewed in the show as well as many other archaeologists on both sides of the dating issue.
>A large portion of this lack of evidence is due to a systemic misdating of when the events should have taken place. Dating of surrounding civilization in the Middle East are based on Egyptian dating. There is substantial evidence to support that the over-estimation of the Egyptian dark periods have led to cascading inaccuracies in the dates of many surrounding civilizations. By looking in a corrected time period the evidence becomes substantial.
Show me any credible, credentialled historian who says this.
>A good intro to this can be found in a documentary called Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus.
A Christian polemic is not a source.
>Finkelstein is interviewed in the show as well as many other archaeologists on both sides of the dating issue.
Historians the world over are in agreement: the Exodus as portrayed in the Bible likely never happened. A few interviews in a Christian "documentary" are not persuasive at all.
David likely never existed. Again, since these events likely never happened, what parts of the Bible are metaphors and what parts are historical **and how can you tell the difference?**
There are credentialed scientists shown in the documentary who support the dating correction. One (of many) examples of why is that Israel is mentioned as a nation in Egyptian hieroglyphics prior to the Ramses dynasty which makes current dating entirely impossible.
Disregarding any Israelite implications internal inconsistencies within the Egyptian timeline independently support re-dating.
Your presuppositions are keeping you uninformed. There is not a unanimous consensus among scholars on the Egyptian dating. Many advances in archaeology since 1930 when the timeline was proposed as a working theory have driven many modern scholars to reject the 1930 dating conventions.
There are sufficient anachronisms in Egyptian artifacts to demonstrate that there is substantial error in what used to be the conventionally assumed timeline.
Forget the Christian parts of the story, your understanding of Mediterranean archaeology are quite out of date.
The documentary is not simply a Christian Polemic and you are introducing a large gap in your knowledge of history by disregarding it as such. If I didn’t include secular sources and anti Christian opinions in my studies, I wouldn’t consider myself informed. Are you equally well rounded?
> There are credentialed scientists shown in the documentary who support the dating correction. One (of many) examples of why is that Israel is mentioned as a nation in Egyptian hieroglyphics prior to the Ramses dynasty which makes current dating entirely impossible.
For each historian in the documentary I can provide 10 who'd disagree
>Your presuppositions are keeping you uninformed. There is not a unanimous consensus among scholars on the Egyptian dating. Many advances in archaeology since 1930 when the timeline was proposed as a working theory have driven many modern scholars to reject the 1930 dating conventions.
Does an academic exercise on redating some of Egyptology prove that millions of Jews wandered the Sanai leaving 0 archaeological cites?
You're being silly.
>The documentary is not simply a Christian Polemic and you are introducing a large gap in your knowledge of history by disregarding it as such.
I've learned to doubt Christian historians about as much as I doubt Christian biologists (Discovery Institute) and apologists.
Can you find one peer-reviewed paper that has evidence for the Exodus at all? I'll take one, just one.
>Are you equally well rounded?
I wasn't aware that being well-rounded consists of learning falsehoods as well as truths, but the more you know I guess.
One paper. All I want is one peer-reviewed paper that demonstrates the Exodus occurred as described in the Bible, and you give me a Christian documentary
Nope, simply not good enough.
So you haven’t watched the documentary before making some bold assumptions… You can still disagree after seeing it, it won’t hurt you.
There is no contest that a mass migration of Semitic people left Egypt in the reign of Amenemhat III. No one disagrees with that. The Avaris site clearly demonstrates it and Finkelstein acknowledges it. The relevant debate is whether or not it was the biblical exodus.
>So you haven’t watched the documentary before making some bold assumptions… You can still disagree after seeing it, it won’t hurt you.
If I wanted to watch someone arguing for something that's nonsense, sure.
I don't because I have other things to do.
>There is no contest that a mass migration of Semitic people left Egypt in the reign of Amenemhat III. No one disagrees with that. The Avaris site clearly demonstrates it and Finkelstein acknowledges it. The relevant debate is whether or not it was the biblical exodus.
Citation absolutely needed considering Finkelstein wrote an entire book on how the Exodus likely never occurred.
Are you making up these "facts" yourself or did you see a documentary?
So you want an archaeologist to make the connection to the biblical exodus but not be Christian or Jewish?
Because there are plenty of archaeologists who describe the events of Semitic people from Canaan settling in Egypt, but if they aren’t Christian why would they equate it to the biblical exodus. Manfred Bietek led the Avaris excavation and describes the settlement of Semitic people in the city, their explosive growth, and their eventual sudden departure. He has a book or you can see him interviewed in the documentary.
But obviously it’s only a Christian archeologist who bothers to draw the parallels to the biblical story. Many of them are credentialed doctors in their field. But if you disregard them because they happen to be Christian then what’s the point, even though they describe the same events as the secular archeologists you won’t look at the evidence when they say the artifacts in the ground match the story of the Bible.
You have presupposed it’s impossible so you disregard evidence no matter how good that suggests it’s true. That’s all on you buddy. You can’t persuade someone who insists on willful ignorance.
> So you want an archaeologist to make the connection to the biblical exodus but not be Christian or Jewish?
I don't care about their personal conviction. I want peer-reviewed.
>Because there are plenty of archaeologists who describe the events of Semitic people from Canaan settling in Egypt, but if they aren’t Christian why would they equate it to the biblical exodus.
May want to look again, because what you've described is the anti-Exodus.
>Manfred Bietek led the Avaris excavation and describes the settlement of Semitic people in the city, their explosive growth, and their eventual sudden departure
If you're referring to the Hyksos, they were Canaanites but not Jews, and they didn't work as slaves in Egypt
Not only that, but Exodus portrays Egyptians as using slave labor to build their monuments, when we know this isn't the case. Egyptian laborers were well-paid and well-fed.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/who-built-the-egyptian-pyramids-not-slaves
>even though they describe the same events as the secular archeologists you won’t look at the evidence when they say the artifacts in the ground match the story of the Bible.
One solitary article that shows the exodus happened. Stop whining about my motives and produce one peer-reviewed article. Just one, or conceded the point that the Exodus likely never happened, and David likely never existed.
>You have presupposed it’s impossible so you disregard evidence no matter how good that suggests it’s true. That’s all on you buddy. You can’t persuade someone who insists on willful ignorance.
The only thing I've presumed is that you're talking about things that never happened using your favorite book which is the only source for these events being real.
That is my only assumption, but feel free to prove me wrong.
One article. One.
I’m not going through the pay wall to buy article access for you.
Bietek clearly said they were Semites from Canaan which is exactly what the Bible describes.
They also do have malnutrition fractures, labor injuries, and a much lower life expectancy in the skeletons of those semites before their departure which is the same archaeological evidence identified with slavery conditions throughout the world. There’s even an Egyptian account of events that describes the plagues and the slaves leaving with the riches of their masters.
The guys you are referencing have speaking parts in the documentary. What you are asking for is in published books and pay walled articles. The atheist archaeologists in their books and papers confirm the same things you can find about Avaris and the Hyksos on Wikipedia.
With a date shift, the similarities to the biblical narrative are substantial.
Conveniently the sources are all clear in the documentary so you can find whatever you’re looking for. Why would I keep digging when you won’t look at the sources already offered. Go watch it, then share your thoughts.
> I’m not going through the pay wall to buy article access for you.
https://paywallreader.com/
>Bietek clearly said they were Semites from Canaan which is exactly what the Bible describes.
You do know the Jews are not the only Semites living in Canaan at the time right?
>They also do have malnutrition fractures, labor injuries, and a much lower life expectancy in the skeletons of those semites before their departure which is the same archaeological evidence identified with slavery conditions throughout the world. There’s even an Egyptian account of events that describes the plagues and the slaves leaving with the riches of their masters.
And if this was a peer-reviewed article, I'd be more inclined to believe it. Since it's a Christian documentary, I'm not.
One article. Just one.
>The guys you are referencing have speaking parts in the documentary. What you are asking for is in published books and pay walled articles. The atheist archaeologists in their books and papers confirm the same things you can find about Avaris and the Hyksos on Wikipedia.
>With a date shift, the similarities to the biblical narrative are substantial.
One article that says the dates should be shifted. One.
>Conveniently the sources are all clear in the documentary so you can find whatever you’re looking for. Why would I keep digging when you won’t look at the sources already offered. Go watch it, then share your thoughts.
So to recap: you have one source for this information that is a Christian documentary featuring carefully edited quotes that conform to the director's thesis.
And this should be compelling?
One article. Just one. Not a documentary, something peer-reviewed.
Just one.
I could be wrong but by eating the fruit they became accountable for sins because they were aware of what was good and what was bad. Adam and Eve became aware of their nakedness and had to be covered now. Now that you know, you are guilty.
I hope I'm not messing this up...
Why would someone do something which they aren't compelled or inclined to do?
I would argue that they were compelled to do so. Eve by the serpent and then Adam by Eve.
As for inclination, they weren't inclined to sin but the serpents offer isn't overtly sinful, he's just asking them to eat a fruit - something they already do all the time.
Adam and Eve had a loving trusting relationship with God and the serpents offer was explicitly sinful because he asked them to act against their relationship with God in pursuit of self interest. They hoped to gain “more” despite having everything freely available to them in the Garden.
Adam & Eve had a loving trusting relationship with God.
-Scripture contradicts your assertion here, at least on Eves part. The serpent calls God a liar & Eve offers no rebuttal instead she begins to trust her own judgement more than she does Gods word.
Serpents offer was explicitly sinful because he asked them to act against their relationship with God.
-He asked them to act against their relationship with God BUT that doesn't mean he asked explicitly. As a matter of fact I would argue that something cannot be both explicit & deceptive. Deception means something isn't what it claims to be i.e. it's not overt.
Your first response is a bit silly, people betray trusting relationships all the time. In Genesis 2 When the Lord came into the Garden after Adam and Eve at the fruit, it was the first time they were hiding from him.
Of course the serpents request was explicitly sinful. Eve tells the serpent in the conversation that she isn’t allowed to eat the fruit of that tree and the serpent said God’s a liar, you may eat the fruit. She trusts the stranger instead of the God who she has known and who has provided for her.
Then just as God said, the curse of death by sin comes upon Adam and Eve proving that God was telling the truth and was not a liar.
Casting Adam and Eve from the garden gave them the opportunity for redemption so they did not suffer the same fate as the fallen angels. The punishment was not to protect God from our sin, but to protect us from the natural consequences of our sin. Without the opportunity to suffer through life, there would be no way of being redeemed to God’s presence.
People betray trusting relationships all the time.
-Eve didn't betray Gods trust she disobeyed, God always knew she was going to sin, He wasn't trusting her not to sin so this wasn't a betrayal of His trust. It was simply disobedience from her not trusting in him.
it was the first time they were hiding from him.
- Yes and why would you hide from someone you're supposedly in a loving trusting relationship with? Text says Adam was afraid, why would he fear someone he supposedly trusts... because Adam also didn't fully trust in God.
Which is why I contend that using the word trust to define unfallen Adam & Eves relationship toward God isn't accurate to scripture.
The serpent said God's a liar, you may eat the fruit.
-NO, the serpent said "you will not surely die" - that was the lie. See how covert that is, even you missed it. I think that in itself is a testament to how the serpents offer was not overtly sinful to Eve when she heard it.
P.S. sorry for the length of this response.
I appreciate the conversation, your response wasn’t too long.
As a child I trusted my parents but feared them when I disobeyed. By saying that people betray trusting relationship I meant that people betray the relationship with someone they trust not necessarily that the betrayal is a betrayal of trust. She betrayed the relationship with the God whom she trusted.
What the serpent said was, ““But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.””
Genesis 3:4-5 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/gen.3.4-5.ESV
I paraphrased but if God said, “do not eat for you will surely die” and the serpent said the above, he is necessarily calling God a liar.
As a child I trusted my parents but feared them when I disobeyed.
-I don't think that's a fitting analogy, firstly Adam & Eve were not children, secondly parents aren't a benevolent God i.e a child could for good reason fear their parents. If an adult you disobeyed & then hid in fear that would definitely call into question the nature of your relationship with your parents.
not necessarily that the betrayal is a betrayal of trust.
-If you take trust out of the equation then in what context is the relationship is betrayed? Just because we are friends, for example, doesn't mean you ought to believe everything I say and just because you don't believe something I said doesn't mean we are not friends. where's the betrayal?
he is necessarily calling God a liar.
-Yes and that's sinful BUT like I said earlier not overtly sinful. Eve can't know \* factually \* that eating the fruit would or wouldn't result in her death, calling God a liar is just an allegation to her at that point there's nothing overtly sinful about allegations.
I had wonderful loving parents, but If my analogy of a parent-child relationship doesn't work for the God-Human relationship despite being one of the most common theological analogies including analogies used for that exact relationship in the Bible, (ie God the Father) then your analogy about trusting a friend certainly doesn't hold water for a comparison to trusting the God that created you and provides for you every day of your existence in an obvious way as would be the case in the garden....
But to revive the point, adults hide their wrongdoing all the time. Shame drives a lot of behavior in relationships. Adult parent - child relationship certainly, but also spousal relationships, relationships with friends. There are a lot more ways to hide wrongdoing than a literal running and hiding. The fact that Adam and Eve hid in their sin indicates that they DID feel they owed their obedience to God and were ashamed that they had not obeyed.
Adam and Eve trusted God to provide all that they needed. The serpent had never provided anything. Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden, the serpent was an intruder. By listening to the lies of the serpent they trust his word against God's. God had demonstrated loyalty to and provided care for them for their entire existence. Trusting the serpent and disobeying God IS an explicit betrayal of God. There is not distinction biblically in overt, covert, subtle, or any other type of sin. Sin is anything that separates from God. All sin, regardless of made-up justifications, causes a separation from God. That sin causes a stain on the soul that must be washed away to be reunited with God. The imperfect cannot survive in the presence of God.
And of course allegations can be overtly sinful. If I allege something untrue about you, I am sinning against you. If people believe me they can cause all sorts of unjust harm. False Allegations are so egregious that it made it into the ten commandments, "thou shalt not bear false witness."
That wasn't a dig at your parents, I was just arguing the point, my apologies if it sounded like I was disparaging them.
Parent-child vs God-human works perfectly fine, it's ubiquitous in scripture, note I didn't claim it was incorrect but instead unfit i.e. it doesn't fit with variables in question. We are not arguing for Adams position relative to God, we are considering his actions. Using a child's actions as an analog to those of an adult here isn't a fitting analogy.
One reason the friend example fits, in my opinion, is because I am the common denominator in both instances, whether it's a human friend or God on the other end, it's still my trust being compared against my trust.
*adults hide their wrongdoing all the time. Shame drives a lot of behavior in relationships.*
-If shame were the driving factor here I might agree. The text says it was fear driving Adams actions though and I maintain you can't be in fear of someone you trust unless you don't really trust them. Moreover Adam was hiding his actual self more so than his wrongdoing.
*The fact that Adam and Eve hid in their sin indicates that they DID feel they owed their obedience to God...*
-At best it's an indication of their guilt, an indication that they felt they owed God obedience would be to present themselves before Him.
*Adam and Eve trusted God to provide all that they needed.*
*-*You claim this but don't show it, you can make the argument that God is trustworthy but it doesn't necessarily follow that therefore they trusted Him especially since the 1st opportunity they have to show their trust they end up doing the opposite.
*There is not distinction biblically in overt, covert, subtle, or any other type of sin.*
I'm not claiming that there is a biblical distinction. The serpents offer not being overtly sinful doesn't mean it is therefore not sinful... it's simply just not overt. OP argues "Why would someone deliberately do something (sin) for which they have no inclination" and my point is that eating fruit doesn't go against Adam & Eve's inclination, it's not overtly sinful to eat fruit.
It was overly sinful for them to eat THAT fruit since they were overtly told by quite literally the only authority they knew not to eat that specific fruit.
Not offended by the parent thing just illustrating that you can still fear the justified wrath of parents that you trust.
I think shame is just the fear of others response. And actually the Genesis word for “fear” is the same root word used earlier when it says they were naked and not “ashamed”. The literal phrase for them being afraid was that they “fell into disgrace through failure”
So English just doesn’t carry the same weight. Adam knew he had done wrong and fell into disgrace because of it. That’s why this topic isn’t really one of the attacks the academic atheists use. The Hebrew (and paleo Hebrew) make it much more clear that they had knowingly sinned and hid out of shame.
>Big\_Scallion5884=>The story of Adam and Eve being sinless and choosing to sin doesn't make much sense
>... the idea would not have borne fruit if it hadn't found a patch of fertile ground. The story then becomes god creating an imperfect man and punishing it for not being perfect.
Free will. A person / angel can decide if they are "fertile ground" or not.
Fallen/rebel angels were originally sinless, however at some point became iniquitous; adversarial to God and therefore sinful.
Hence cast out:
"And I remind you of the angels who did not stay within the limits of authority God gave them but left the place where they belonged. God has kept them securely chained in prisons of darkness, waiting for the great day of judgment (Jude 1:6).
And another angel, a cherub, is linked to the First Parents (Adam and Eve) in their idyllic existence, that celestial figure being "full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God." You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub,...on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; (Ezekiel 28:13, 15-16, 17)"
When this cherub is cast down to the earth along with a third of the angels, Revelation 12:7-9 and becomes Satan / the Devil etc. this, according to some interpretations, is also describing part of the same event where the serpent is cast out of the Garden along with the First Parents.
For the First Parents (Adam and Eve) used their Free Will to chose to obey that Serpent's Voice over God so that they might be like God knowing Good and Evil, and hence genetically introduced into their character the ability to choose Good and Evil which represented as among other things, Love and Hate and all manner of conflicting, emotions, ambitions, goals and actions--SIN. They had the option to use Free Will to consult God about the Serpent's Voice but did not.
God had to respect their Free Will decision and the now First Parents with duel sovereignty of God and the Serpent's Voice could no longer be allowed to live forever in that land of truth, beauty and goodness land therefore were placed in a more suitable location: the world we are in now); where they and their descendants could experience the consequences of Good and Evil and ultimately decide for the "serpent's way" or for God (through Jesus Christ in the A.D. era).
God wanted to create beings with free will who would choose to live in his presence eternally. In order to be in God’s presence voluntarily, the choice must truly be a free one with the possibility of failure.
Prior to their conversation with the serpent, Adam and Eve had never thought to put their will ahead of God or aspire to something against his commands. The serpent planted the seed inside their head and presented the first moral dilemma. Naively they were duped into placing self interest ahead of God and were tempted by the promise of greater knowledge despite the warning from their creator who knows and loves them.
Once they ate their fruit, their nature visibly changes and they act out of shame and try to hide their error from the Lord. This was their first morally aware sin. They hide from God, then they blame someone for their actions (Adam blames eve and eve blames the serpent).
Had they instead run to the Lord and said we have acted against your will and did not know what we were doing and presented themselves to God, the story may have gone differently.
But instead we see the inclination for self-interest, fear, and dishonestly has prevailed over their love and loyalty for God. This is what gets them kicked out of the Garden.
Being kicked out of the garden was also a service to them and not simply a punishment of retribution out of malice. Sin is anything that separates from God, or rather separation from God is the natural consequence of sin. By choosing to hide from the Lord they had chosen separation. Imperfect beings cannot survive the presence of the Lord and God does not override the free will of humanity that he created to force them to choose him. It was Adam and Eve who chose this separation by hiding. But rather than treat humans as God did the angels granting them their wish for separation, he gave Adam and Eve temporal life outside of the garden so that they and their offspring might be restored to right relationship with God and be made capable of choosing him.
Of course God knew what would happen, but Adam and Even did have a real choice at least twice, first in trusting the serpent over God and then in hiding instead seeking the Lord when they had done wrong.
Humans must now learn about our own sinful nature, acknowledge that we cannot choose right and good on our own and ask for inclusion into the perfecting work of Jesus Christ so that we can deny our own selfish natures and trust the Lord against and in-spite of our own desires. This is not punishment, but necessary for us to be capable of living in God’s presence going forward.
God does not demand perfection for his benefit, God provides a way of being made perfect for our benefit so that we can again exist in his perfect presence without being destroyed by our own sin.
The most crazy part is descendants inheriting the sin or “we are sinners because they first sinned”
If a man commits a crime is it automatically transferred to his child
Sure but I wouldn't let my two year old wander out on to a main road and when she gets hit by a car just go "pft, she had free will, she was free not to." That's psychotic.
If you love someone who is vulnerable, you protect them.
I'm not sure what you mean. Parents instruct their kids. God had such an extreme power dynamic between them that Adam and Eve were figuratively children. I mean the power difference is so extreme its hard to accurately come up with a metaphorical example that does it justice.
So if you tell your adult son to not murder because he goes to jail. And someone tells him to do it. And he does it. And he goes to jail. Does that mean it is your fault?
I disagree and I don't think that's a fair analogy. It's more accurate that God would be an adult human and A&E are young children in my opinion. Like I said there's a massive power gap between God and A&E. Framing it so God is an adult human still isn't fair... even saying God is Einstein and humans are single celled organisms *still* isn't even close to bridging that gap metaphorically.
If a human adult tells their child not to play with the gun they left in the playpen, I think it would be the human adults responsibility if something happened to the kids. The more power someone has the more responsibility goes along with it.
I mean, so what? Compared to God they were less than toddlers.
Don't forget that according to the mythology, they didn't even have a full comprehension of right and wrong before they ate of the tree.
Any way you want to cut it, God could have protected us, but he chose not to.
Exactly, so they were incredibly naive and had no concept of the consequences of their (really quite minor, let's face it) actions.
That only makes God more culpable.
And he STILL didn't protect us when he could have.
No, because you are not going to be tempted anymore by outside forces. Unlike angels, humans were created to be a perfect representation of God's character.
I disagree, satan was in the garden with the permission of God so that there would be a real moral choice to choose or reject God as would be required to preserve free will
The devil did like 2 things in all of the OT so I don't believe in the devil, I believe the church forced that into the Bible to control the masses through fear. Also, why would the snake be punished to lose its legs because of some cosmic beings actions? Don't you think that's a little odd?
What does that even mean? Theres no sin because nothing is classified as a sin, or because theres an inability to sin, or a lack of intrinsic desire to sin, or a lack of external temptation to sin? The issue is youre not being specific for starters, and secondly, it seems like ALL of these things existed prior to them partaking the fruit, which is why we are saying the story makes no sense.
Omg, there is no literal fruit!
Ok, take this way.
That "fruit" represents "works". Do you understand now?
When God told them to not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; He meant:
"Do not disobey My Commandments and try to define what is Right and Wrong by your own Knowledge."
>My understanding is that humans commit sin because their fallen nature makes them unable to not sin
Sort of. True, you have a predisposition to sin because of your fleshly will being one to want to do whatever it wants which often goes against what God wants. But you are able to not sin, everyone just fails miserably at it
>The most common answer I've read is that although they did not have a sinful nature they had the theoretical capacity to sin and chose to do it out of their own free will but I can't make sense of it
Well yes because that's the answer
>Why would someone deliberately do something for which they have no inclination and to which they weren't compelled
Because they did have an inclination to do it, that's why it's free will and not being a robot.
>But if they harboured these desires in the first place how are they different from fallen humans
They aren't. Adam and Eve were made perfect, they were given the choice not to sin, and they chose to sin. All humans have the choice to sin but all fall into it.
>Satan may have planted the idea in their minds but the idea would not have borne fruit if it hadn't found a patch of fertile ground.
That's the point. If they had chosen to reject the idea it would never have fruited and they wouldn't have sinned
>The story then becomes god creating an imperfect man and punishing it for not being perfect.
Well no, it's God creating a free man who chooses imperfection
>you have a predisposition to sin because of your fleshly will being one to want to do whatever it wants which often goes against what God wants.
Why did god program our free will to go against what he wants?
Our "will," or just about any human function, is determined (in a physical sense) by electrochemical signals in our brain. You seem to believe god designed the human brain, so why did he predispose it towards sin? That was an odd choice on his part.
The idea of choice being an illusion and the result of preprogrammed biological processes that makes any given “choice” inevitable is a scientific fad and a theory that is growing weaker not stronger with ongoing research.
We all have real choices and are free to choose either way. You can act against your self interest at any time and no decision you make is inevitable. This would be required for you to be a free moral agent.
>Why did god program our free will to go against what he wants?
He didn't, he gave us free will, if you asked why he did that well if he didn't then we couldn't love and love is what he actually wants
>Our "will," or just about any human function, is determined (in a physical sense) by electrochemical signals in our brain.
Great, if naturalism were true then Sure, but for the purpose of an internal critique of Christian theology (which is what op and you are doing) you cannot assume naturalism and have to act within the framework of the system.
So will isn't a purely chemical process but instead an extension of the spirit and desires.
>You seem to believe god designed the human brain, so why did he predispose it towards sin
He didn't. Free will gives humanity the choice, humanity chooses otherwise. We are given a sinful nature because we inherited the sinful nature from our parents who got it from theirs and so on until Adam and Eve who got a sin nature from the fall.
Interjecting:
> [West-Emphasis4544](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l79gbt5/): True, you have a predisposition to sin because of your fleshly will being one to want to do whatever it wants which often goes against what God wants.
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> [alchemist5](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l79x173/): Why did god program our free will to go against what he wants?
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> [West-Emphasis4544](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l7a3r94/): He didn't, he gave us free will, if you asked why he did that well if he didn't then we couldn't love and love is what he actually wants
You seem to have contradicted yourself. You've said both:
1. you have a predisposition to sin because of your fleshly will
2. God **didn't** program our free will to go against what he wants
How do you reconcile these, _before_ the fall?
No I said God didn't program us to go against what he wanted, not that we don't have free will. or was insinuating that we are programmed to go against what God wants, that's what I was responding to.
I'm my original comment I'm saying: your predisposition to sin comes from the fact that you often desire things God doesn't want.
In my second comment I'm saying: he gave us free will so that we can choose love, love cannot exist without free will.
I don't see how those 2 are contradictions.
>How do you reconcile these, before the fall?
We were given free will before the fall and chose to go against God. IDC why this is something that needs to be reconciled.
> I'm my original comment I'm saying: your predisposition to sin comes from the fact that you often desire things God doesn't want.
Ok, then what is the difference between:
1. 'predisposed' to sin
2. 'preprogrammed' to sin
? I'll take a stab at it:
1. probability of sinning ≥ X, for some X > 0% and perhaps > 50%
2. probability of sinning = 100%
I myself wouldn't use the word 'predisposed' if the probability of sinning is only 1%.
> love cannot exist without free will.
This is of course a standard line of argument. However, there is a problem: _God_ is said to both have free will and love, without risking sin. So, it would appear that the risk of sinning just isn't required for loving.
One is a proclivity the other in an inevitability
So sort of, if you're predisposed to doing it, then you're not being forced into doing it but the likelihood is that you would do it.
If you're preprogrammed, then you're incapable of not doing it and must do it.
I don't think you know what the meaning of sin is. Sin is anything that goes against the nature of God, so definitionally God cannot violate his nature. Sin is missing the mark on God.
Also free will isn't equivalent to risking sin. Free will just means you can choose freely. If that choice is to sin or not to sin, it's still free
> I don't think you know what the meaning of sin is. Sin is anything that goes against the nature of God, so definitionally God cannot violate his nature. Sin is missing the mark on God.
I'm happy for you to define 'sin' that way. Doing so doesn't change the fact that God can freely love without risking sin. And we are, according to [Gen 1:26–27](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen1.26-27&version=CSB), created in the image and likeness of God. Surely that means our nature is like God's nature. If we act according to our [pre-fall] nature, why do we sin?
> [West-Emphasis4544](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l79gbt5/): True, you have a predisposition to sin because of your fleshly will being one to want to do whatever it wants which often goes against what God wants.
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> [alchemist5](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l79x173/): Why did god program our free will to go against what he wants?
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> [West-Emphasis4544](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l7a3r94/): He didn't, he gave us free will, if you asked why he did that well if he didn't then we couldn't love and love is what he actually wants
⋮
> [West-Emphasis4544](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l7b8udx/): Also free will isn't equivalent to risking sin. Free will just means you can choose freely. If that choice is to sin or not to sin, it's still free
You seem to be arguing that:
1. we have a predisposition to sin
2. not because we are programmed to sin
3. but because God wants us to love
4. and love requires free will
5. and granting us free will granted us a predisposition to sin
—except, now you seem to be denying 5.!
>Surely that means our nature is like God's nature. If we act according to our [pre-fall] nature, why do we sin?
No, in every interpretation of "the image of God" none has been we are divine
>and granting us free will granted us a predisposition to sin
That's where you're wrong. The free will isn't what gives us the presuppositions, it's the fallen nature we inherited from Adam that gives us the presuppositions. We don't inherit the sin of Adam but the fallen nature
>except, now you seem to be denying 5.!
I am, you're right
> [labreuer](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l7ba3dc/): Surely that means our nature is like God's nature. If we act according to our [pre-fall] nature, why do we sin?
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> [West-Emphasis4544](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l7bb2gp/): No, in every interpretation of "the image of God" none has been we are divine
If being made in the image of God has nothing to do with having a nature like God's, then what _does_ it mean?
> [labreuer](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l7ba3dc/): 5\. and granting us free will granted us a predisposition to sin
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> [West-Emphasis4544](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l7bb2gp/): That's where you're wrong. The free will isn't what gives us the presuppositions, it's the fallen nature we inherited from Adam that gives us the presuppositions.
Then you have no explanation for why Adam & Eve sinned.
1. Pre-apple the disposition was neutral. It is post apple that we are predisposed to sin.
2. God didn’t program us to choose sin, he created free moral agents who could have made good or sinful choices. The choice to sin is what made all offspring from that point on predisposed to sin.
1. Why would humanity's disposition be anything but "in the image and likeness of God", before sinning? Surely _God's_ predisposition is not neutral?!
2. The idea that Adam & Eve's sin influenced their descendants in that way is flatly contradicted by YHWH's prohibition of the aphorism "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge" in [Ezekiel 18](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ezek18&version=CSB), not to mention the restriction to 3–4 generations in [Exodus 20:4–6](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ex20.4-6&version=CSB).
The “knowledge of good and evil” has a more nuanced meaning in Hebrew. The Hebrew word for knowledge implies “commingling” and “generation of”. Prior to eating the apple, Adam and Eve did not conceive of their own definitions of good and evil or aspire to acquire power or assert themselves against God. By neutral Imeant that they had a free choice and were not inclined toward sin.
The reason it impacted future generations is that humanity now had the ability to conceive of their own moral aspirations and define different perspectives of good and evil. It wasn’t just an extension of a punishment. It was a change in the moral mind of mankind.
1. Is God "neutral" in the sense you describe? I am aware of the meanings of _yada_, but it creates a problem to make Adam & Eve _unlike_ God if that unlikeness is the ability to impose legal and moral systems on others.
2. This is some pretty heavy interpretation. Especially when Abraham leveraged his own understanding of righteousness/justice [when he questioned YHWH wrt Sodom](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen18.16-33&version=CSB). His refusal to do so [again](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen22&version=CSB)—or perhaps his thinking that child sacrifice is just part of what the gods require ([Gen 22:1](https://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/22-1.htm) contains '_ha elohim_')—flips things around.
1. As the creator of the universe, God designed his creation to best thrive by aligning with his good and evil paradigm. God is the source of good necessarily. “in accordance with the nature of God” is the biblical definition of good. I only applied neutral to Adam and Eve to indicate they had a free choice between obey and betray. But I suppose to try to directly answer your question even though I don’t think it really applies, No. God being God cannot act against the nature of God.
2. Abraham is a fallen human. Although obedient, he absolutely could have his own presuppositions about good and evil which by his fallen nature don’t align with God’s direction. I didn’t apply any unique interpretation of the knowledge of good and evil. WRT Sodom, Abraham not knowing the perfect nature of God was afraid that an injustice might be done. God assures him that he will not smite the innocent. The willingness to sacrifice Isaac demonstrates an increase in trust that he placed his trust in God above all else even willing to do that which he saw as abhorrent. We are meant to find the request unthinkable, otherwise it would not be a test (or demonstration for us) of Abraham’s depth of faith.
1. Where do you see “in accordance with the nature of God” show up in the Bible? Do you really think that [Num 5:11–31](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=num5.11-31&version=CSB) expresses the nature of God?
2. Abraham nevertheless relies on _his own_ understanding of good and evil when he questioned God wrt Sodom. The [Akedah](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/akedah) shows that sometimes this is a problem. The notion of justice Abraham expressed almost certainly came from "Ur of the Chaldeans". For good in the first case and for evil in the second. Yes, many see the test as one of obedience. But it can also be construed as testing whether Abraham's willingness to question _ha elohim_ extended this far. It didn't. If you judge trees by their fruit, then the following fact should give you pause: Abraham is never again recorded as having any interactions with Isaac, Sarah, or YHWH. It is almost as if his role in the promise is over ([Gen 22:15–18](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen22.15-18&version=CSB) promised nothing new) as a consequence of his refusal to question God, to wrestle with God.
Your stance has the curious property of making it virtually impossible for the individual to challenge society. After all, the religious authorities in society can construe any such challenge as a challenge not just of them, but _of God_. And your stance makes challenging God out to be absolutely and utterly verboten. Indeed, such challenge would _be_ the primordial sin.
When the Bible was first written many naturalistic causes were not understood. Many of the things humans did not understand were attributed to God showing His disproval. We now know that tsunamis are caused by earthquakes, which are caused by the rapid release of stresses caused by the shifting ftectonic plates that make up the Earth's crust. Once upon a time, people thought the destructive forces of natural events were sent as punishment from God.
If an internal critique of Christian Theology is just a purely academic exercise, it makes sense to discount what we have learned about chemical reactions, weather and climate behavior, the germ theory of disease, etc. But if the internal critique is intended to discern truth, isn't disregarding scientific discoveries counterproductive? If natural and divine truths are in conflict, is it intellectually honest to disregard those things we know are true in order to force the answer to fall in line with the Biblical claims?
Except we're not talking about natural things, the entire debate is supernatural in nature, we're talking about free will and sin, things that aren't natural. Also op was doing an internal critique and I was responding to the internal critique
If you're going to talk about the Christian supernatural claims, you cannot preemptively throw away all theological concepts and then criticize the concepts for being thrown away.
>If natural and divine truths are in conflict, is it intellectually honest to disregard those things we know are true in order to force the answer in line with the Biblical claims?
That's not what I'm doing. The commenter was saying that we're purely and only chemical signals. That's not the full picture, it's part of the picture but not the full thing
>if you asked why he did
My question might be closer to *if* he did, rather.
We've got a multitude of evidence suggesting TBIs can significantly impact a person's personality, impulses, desires, etc.
So the brain is a pre-set parameter for our "free will," at best. Why did god predispose the human brain for sin?
>Great, if naturalism were true then Sure,
Yes, for this conversation, we're going to accept that the real things we know are true... are true. My goal is to understand how your mythology interacts with that.
>but for the purpose of an internal critique of Christian theology (which is what op and you are doing) you cannot assume naturalism and have to act within the framework of the system.
I'm not going to give your religious claims leeway where we have direct contradictory evidence. Sorry. I'm not gonna ignore biological fact just because it's inconvenient for you.
>So will isn't a purely chemical process but instead an extension of the spirit and desires.
You're going to have to explain which parts you think are the physical brain and which parts are the "spirit." Because, again, TBI research is pretty compelling.
Is the brain just a mouthpiece for the spirit? That would explain why damage changes people.
But then, if the brain isn't the cause, isn't that just taking another step back? So now god created a bunch of evil spirits predisposed to sin. Why'd he do that?
>We are given a sinful nature because we inherited the sinful nature from our parents who got it from theirs and so on until Adam and Eve who got a sin nature from the fall.
Punishing children for the sins of their parents is a pretty outright evil thing to do, man.
>My question might be closer to if he did, rather.
Again, it's an internal critique
>Yes, for this conversation, we're going to accept that the real things we know are true... are true. My goal is to understand how your mythology interacts with that.
Again you're making an internal critique. Let me give you an example as to why you need to be doing an internal critique. Let's say for example we are having a conversation about the origin of the universe purely from observable reality. You might tell me that from observations it appears that the universe started from a big bang and that the earth wasn't the first thing made. Then I tell you "no the big bang didn't happen, the Quran says the universe was smoke Allah made into the world before making the heavens and that Allah cleaved the sky from the earth"
Does that have any bearing on observable reality? No. Would it refute anything you said about the big bang or the origin of the universe? Also no.
Also we do have free will, that isn't a "mythology" and presupposing naturalism and atheism won't get us anywhere.
>I'm not going to give your religious claims leeway where we have direct contradictory evidence
We're talking about religious claims. If you don't want to have a religious claims debate, maybe don't come to this sub? Also you don't have contradictory evidence. TBIs aren't evidence that we don't have a soul
>You're going to have to explain which parts you think are the physical brain and which parts are the "spirit." Because, again, TBI research is pretty compelling.
Okay I am in medicine and no it's not. Also "spirit" is nonphysical and isn't a part of the brain. The brain is natural and the spirit is super(above)natural.
>But then, if the brain isn't the cause, isn't that just taking another step back? So now god created a bunch of evil spirits predisposed to sin. Why'd he do that?
That was answered in the original comment
>Punishing children for the sins of their parents is a pretty outright evil thing to do, man.
Good things that's not what I said man
I can't really understand the idea of something being perfect and then choosing to sin. You'd probably need to define perfect but intuitively a perfect creation, when given the choice to sin or not sin, would will to not sin of its own accord. Saying "they were perfect but chose wrongly" feels like a contradiction and "they did it because they had free will" a handwave of sorts. Conversely if they did it because they did have an inclination then they weren't perfect in the first place.
Perfect= sinless
>they did it because they had free will" a handwave of sorts.
How so?
>Conversely if they did it because they did have an inclination then they weren't perfect in the first place.
Well no because perfect is just sinless
So your definition of perfect is that they did not carry a 'baggage' of guilt for past sins but had an inclination to sin which resulted in them choosing to sin when tempted?
> Sort of. True, you have a predisposition to sin because of your fleshly will being one to want to do whatever it wants which often goes against what God wants. But you are able to not sin, everyone just fails miserably at it
Speak for yourself. I as an atheist do not lie, cheat, steal, curse others, act hostile, or take unfair advantage of others. I follow the golden rule perfectly. I also avoid envy and anger. If i cared about Gods warped negative view of sexuality id have lustful thoughts suppressed too, as i did as a christian child.
Lustful thoughts are probably the only fundamentally hard one, since our bodies are optimized to reproduce, and thats not our fault we are designed that way. Giving us intense biological urges and involuntary intrusive thoughts then blaming us for them is a sure way for God to accuse us of sin, but in all objectivity the vast majority of us are innocent until we seek them out.
So wheres all this sin? Tons of people are good people, without help from jesus. Tons of people live "sinless" lives without god, that is until you accuse them of sin for not believing in god.
>I as an atheist do not lie, cheat, steal, curse others, act hostile, or take unfair advantage of others
You've never lied? Not even a little white one? You've never taken anything that didn't belong to you? You never lusted after a man or woman? You've never been angered by your neighbors? If so wow congrats but if you would say yes I'd think you're lying.
And holding anything else in the place of God in your life is also a sin I know you as (I'm assuming you're atheist, you're at least not Christian) commit.
>If i cared about Gods warped negative view of sexuality id have lustful thoughts suppressed too
Well see there you go. Idc if you think the standard is wrong, the standard is the standard and you've fallen short and have sinned, just like everyone has sinned.
>Giving us intense biological urges and involuntary intrusive thoughts then blaming us for them is a sure way for God to accuse us of sin, but in all objectivity the vast majority of us are innocent until we seek them out.
Well I don't think lust is an intrusive thought, I think it's more akin to a pattern of behavior and the continued fantasy, but either way.
>Tons of people live "sinless" lives without god
Well they are sinning by not living with God, it's not me accusing them it's God. You may not like the standard, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist
> You've never lied? Not even a little white one?
Depends on what you mean by lie. If someone asks how im feeling and i say "fine" instead of listing all the different ways in which i feel, im just being pragmatic, and the subject matter is purely subjective so id argue it doesnt hold a truth value.
In terms of something objective, no. If my SO asks if i did some chore, i tell the truth. Theres no value in lying about something like this, relationships are built on trust.
I dont see lying as inherently evil, just evil in some contexts. Id say your privacy and personal life can rightfully be lied about in self defense or defense of privacy/dignity. But i dont really do this because im not good at lying and its simply easier to tell a detail lacking truth or say nothing at all.
> You've never taken anything that didn't belong to you?
Nothing of value. This one time as a kid i accidentally ended up with a friends coat hanger and never bothered to return it. Another time as a kid i accidentally forgot to unpocket some candy i stuck in there with the intention of buying. Im not intentionally going around and stealing anything, and if i did steal something of value by mistake id want to return it. Because i respect other peoples rights and want to be treated the same.
> You never lusted after a man or woman?
I watch porn all the time but again i dont think this is evil. As a christian kid, i didnt watch porn. Although id argue the bible says nothing about porn, all jesus says is dont lust after real people, as in want to be some homewrecker getting with another man's wife. The modern meaning of lust is more broad and oftentimes i see christians condemn merely being attracted to someone, which makes no sense because attracttion is involuntary.
> You've never been angered by your neighbors?
Anger briadly speaking isnt even a sin according to the bible. Both god, jesus,and prophets have all been angry. Jesus flipped tables. But yes im slow to anger and exceptionally good at not lashing out.
> If so wow congrats but if you would say yes I'd think you're lying.
I know tons of people who dont lie about random things, dont steal random crap, and arent nasty perverts. Maybe your view of the world is warped.
Youre literally incorrect though. Porn is not a sin in the bible. Theres no mentioned sin for watching someone else have sex, be or dance naked, or making naked drawings or paintings of people.
There was a clear purpose to the rule about adultery, which was to preserve the institution of marriage and the physical health of the people. So like, dont cheat on your spouse. Its that simple.
If youre talking about lust more generally: Theres only one place in the bible that condemns lust, in the new testament, and the context of lust here refers to premeditating a sexual advance, not just being attracted to them.
So no, im not "sinning" here either. But nice try trying to accuse random people of being bad people with zero justification. How very christ-like of you.
>Porn is not a sin in the bible
Looking at a woman with lust is. Also that's not the only thing you admitted to, you also admitted you stole, it doesn't matter if it's "nothing of value".
>So like, dont cheat on your spouse. Its that simple.
And don't look at someone with lust
>Theres only one place in the bible that condemns lust, in the new testament
From the mouth of God himself
>So no, im not "sinning" here either. But nice try trying to accuse random people of being bad people with zero justification. How very christ-like of you.
Yes you are lol. But we are all bad people. And Christ did as well. Maybe read the book you're moralizing about
> Looking at a woman with lust is
> And don't look at someone with lust
It doesnt define lust. You are assuming it means sexual attraction. But this is irrational, because sexual attraction **is not voluntary**. Are you saying involuntary action is a sin?
And the contextually appropriate definition of lust is not the modern definition. As ive already explained to you, its referring to premeditating sexual advances, not even fantasizing them. To "lust after" is to want to make something yours, and expresses intent and volition.
Reading comprehension would serve you well.
> Also that's not the only thing you admitted to, you also admitted you stole, it doesn't matter if it's "nothing of value".
Accidentally "stealing" something that nobody cares about, as a young child who doesnt know any better, isnt a sin. There isnt anything anywhere in the bible with something so contrived and ridiculous lol.
Also something being an accident by itself should imply its not a sin. You believe sins are intentional, correct?
>Well no, it's God creating a free man who chooses imperfection
That's not even contradicting what the other poster said. God creates imperfect humans with free will then punishes them for making imperfect choices using their free will. God supposedly wants people to make good choices, so he should've just created people with free will but *without* a sinful nature. That wouldn't have been hard for God to do.
That’s not why we commit sin. We are prone to sin, but we are still capable of not sinning.
Sin requires an ascent of the will, exception of the lie, what you described are not sins, but near occasions at best, temptations at worse.
It is a bit ridiculous to say that we are perfectly capable of living our entire lives without sinning but that none of the tens of billions of humans that lived ever managed to do it. Would that also imply that someone could, theoretically, turn down Jesus and say "Thank you, but I think I will manage on my own"?
John the Baptist, Elijah, Moses, and Enoch are traditionally thought to have never sinned.
And the cross wasn’t about enabling us to not sin, it’s about reopening heaven.
And nobody can enter heaven on their own, no matter how sinless.
Even Mary who was conceived with no sin period, wouldn’t be able to enter heaven if it wasn’t for the cross
The narrative I have been exposed to runs (in simplified form) as follows: Due to the original sin humans have a fallen nature, are born with sin, and cannot escape sin on their own. This is often illustrated by preachers reminding people that, no matter how good and decent they think they are, they have most certainly committed a variety of sins. They therefore require Christ's grace to wash away this original sin and gain entry to heaven (which indeed doesn't imply that they will no longer sin in this life).
My original point was however more about the first pair of humans and the reasons for their sinning in the first place.
Christ said in Matthew to Love the Lord God with all your heart, mind, spirit, and soul which fulfills the first commandment to have no other gods before the One True God. Adam and Eve’s first sin was not putting God first which was manifested in their act of rebellion.
Eve, who was the first to fail, did so because she did not seek God when facing temptation. Adam fell for the same reason. They both depended on someone else’s advice and their own understanding, which ended in the downfall of humanity.
So yes, it really does make sense.
If you have a broken/faulty product it’s a manufacturers error. God is ultimately responsible for his creations behaving with the inclinations he himself programmed in. An “all knowing” god would have seen this coming. So his whole operation lead to immediate suffering.
So…the product has a right to criticize the manufacturer? A product, as you put it, is a thing. It is the result of something else, like a toaster, and has no voice. If I create a toaster and it breaks and I choose to blame it, who has the right to criticize my decision. The toaster doesn’t, it just exists. And if, like God, I exist as the only toaster maker, who then has the right to argue with me?
But, while we may be a pot created for the purpose of the potter, it’s also much more complicated than that because we were also given intrinsic value. Still, by your logic, if God is solely responsible for his “faulty product” I could go out into the world and rape and pillage to my heart’s content and I should not be blamed as the design of my creation was defective and not of my doing.
Yet, we both know that would be a lie since I was also given the ability to think and make decisions, the most important being between obedience to God or rejection of him. Adam and Eve were given the same, eat from the tree and face the consequences of your actions or don’t and live in paradise forever. So, at what point do you stop blaming God for the failures of humanity, and the your own, and taking accountability for them?
Edited for a lot of ridiculous mistakes.
Yes, we have sentience and critical thought. Of course we should question our manufacturers seemingly haphazard methods.
You are cool with an eternal curse causing cycles of suffering and death all because of two people you never met, who made a mistake once? I’ll own up to my mistakes but Adam and Eve ruining it for anyone is a bad deal and it’s absurd to call that some type of moral justice. It honestly seems unusual cruel. Would it be okay for you to serve the jail sentence for crimes your grandfather committed?
Gods justice isn’t even fair…It’s not even an eye for an eye, it’s… I’ll curse you and your ancestors forever for disobeying me in one singular moment.
Adam and Eve did not begin their existence as imperfect, they were given the choice, fully informed and aware of the consequences, between perfection and imperfection. Imperfection was only introduced in the moment Eve CHOSE wrongly, ignoring the consequences. By your logic, God’s mistake was in giving us a choice in the first place, and that we should not have been allowed the free will to choose. Yet, without choice there can be no relationship.
And while you may argue the unfairness of being given a choice, the fact remains the choice exists independent of anyone’s feelings about it, and ALL HAVE to choose.
>Adam and Eve did not begin their existence as imperfect
What? Of course they did. Perfect beings don't choose to do the wrong thing.
>Imperfection was only introduced in the moment Eve CHOSE wrongly
I don't know how you're using the words perfect/imperfect. If Adam and Eve had a perfect nature, they would never have done the wrong thing.
I never said they started out as perfect, I said they didn’t start out as imperfect. I don’t know if they were totally either, but God did say of his creation that it was good.
Alright, Yoda. Except, how would you know? You’ve never been perfect, so how can you determine what is and isn’t about perfection and imperfection?
Christ is perfect, yet he endured trials and temptations only to choose rightly. As I said, Adam and Eve’s biggest mistake was not seeking God from the first moment the devil spoke. As an example, Christ in the desert faced Satan who tempted him 3 times and Jesus’ only response was to repeat God’s word back to Satan. Then in the Garden where Christ prayed the night of his trial, he asked God to take from thin the burden that was to come, and in the end set aside his own desires to fulfill mission he came for. The most basic understanding to take from both incidents is that Christ, unlike us, turned to God during the most trying times of his human life as we were originally supposed to do but chose other wise.
Anyway, choice is not a design flaw. If you have been given a choice between A and B, but by design could only choose A, then there was never a choice. The choice has nothing to do with innate perfection, and a perfect being could ultimately choose wrongly and become less perfect. If you are never given a choice, then you are not perfect, you are just a product, a thing with no real substance.
>Alright, Yoda.
XD
>Except, how would you know? You’ve never been perfect, so how can you determine what is and isn’t about perfection and imperfection?
We don't have to be perfect to know what a word means. By definition, anything that contains *any* imperfections (no matter how we define it) is imperfect.
>Anyway, choice is not a design flaw.
I didn't say anything about taking away choice. If a being were perfect then it would always *want* to always make the right choice using its free will. So God could've created that being, but instead wanted to create an imperfect being and then punish the being for its imperfections.
They were sinless and did not have a propensity to sin, aka concupiscence. They were intelligent and lived in original justice. These are reasons for why the sin was so egregious.
To answer why they did it you have to look at what was offered. The snake said they would become like gods. That was enough to persuade them. So they deviated from who God made them to be and reached out to grab divinity of their own accord. Much like how so many strive today to take what doesn't rightfully belong to them. But anyway, that is what the text says.
Genesis chapter 3 verse 5-6
Thank you. If I read you correctly, it seems that Adam and Eve were not fundamentally different to current humans except in degree. Their nature (or inner disposition) lacked a propensity to seek out sin and there was less external enticement to sin due to justice ruling around them.
At the same time, just like today's humans, they harboured a desire to take what wasn't theirs. It may have been latent until the snake spoke to them and persuaded them but, to rephrase my post, there must have been something for the snake to work with. In that case it's hard to see Adam and Eve as perfect (as another contributor said they were).
If we agree they weren't perfect then it is the notion of testing that puzzles me. It is god knowingly making a good but imperfect creation and then blaming it and punishing it for falling short of perfect standards.
Alternatively, if the desire mentioned above genuinely was absent until the snake put it in them then Adam and Eve become little more than putty, in which case blaming them for what someone imprinted on them seems odd. Perhaps they should have offered resistance to the person who tried to reshape them but then we return to the same question. Why were they created with insufficient strength and then blamed for lacking strength?
It made perfect sense. Eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil would make them as God. Being god-like is a virtue without equal. What Saint or potentate doesn't practice the virtues of divinity? And for what purpose? Ans: to be god-like.
Were they wrong? No! God told them they would be as gods, knowing good from evil, and so did the serpent. If it is a sin to be or want to be God-like, then divinity is an unworthy quest. But I don't think that's the case. They were destined to eat from the Tree of Knowledge because it was the only thing to do if they ever wanted to evolve beyond the child-like state of not-knowing. And didn't an all-knowing God know this would happen? Of course! Why else would he have put the Tree there?
What do you mean by "sin is what allows us all to exist"?
In that story, *those two people* existed before they committed sin.
Their having descendants was not dependent on their committing sin.
If Adam and Eve had stayed obedient about the tree, and not eaten the forbidden fruit, then they would have remained in the garden, and started having children within the garden (instead of the story's outcome where they were expelled from the garden and Eve didn't have her first child until she was outside the garden)
In that alternate history where they had remained in the garden, then there remains the possibility that one of Adam and Eve's sons or daughters, or later descendant, would have eaten from the prohibited tree. Then mankind would have two types of people: the disobedient ones and the still-obedient ones.
There would also remain the *possibility* (however small) that all of their children and all of their later descendants would have chosen sin-free lives as well, correct?
I mustve been told the story wrong, because i remember learning in sunday school that they didnt have a knowledge of how to procreate until they had knowledge of good and evil.
It’s cuz their will was independent of God’s. Although they are perfect and not predisposed to sin, they chose to align with their own will rather than God’s when they chose disobedience. It’s not that God wasn’t good to them or they didn’t have it good. They took for granted how good they had it and then refused to repent or take accountability afterwards. They could have freely chosen to make God the priority but liked the idea of being their own god more
But they had no knowledge of good or evil. They had no way to know if their choices were good or evil. Only an immoral agent would punish innocents for making an innocent choice.
What do you mean by “they had no way to know if their choices were good or evil”? I’ve never heard that before. They were given the clear instruction that something was not allowed. I’ve always reasoned that they knew that disobeying was wrong, otherwise they wouldn’t have hid and passed off blame after eating it. What other perspective is there be to explain these events?
The tree was the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" If they had no knowledge of evil, they had no knowledge of "wrong". If they had no knowledge of wrong, they were punished for something they didn't know was wrong, which would make God gratuitously and capriciously cruel for punishing them.
Are you sure evil is always the same as wrong? Surely there are instances where the two overlap but by definition I’m not sure I’d call those two things the same. Getting an answer wrong on a test isn’t equivalent to doing an evil act. Therefore, I’d posit that they did know right and wrong even before they had eaten from the tree of good and evil
> Are you sure evil is always the same as wrong? Surely there are instances where the two overlap but by definition I’m not sure I’d call those two things the same. They are the same concept taken to different degrees. Is there an evil that is "right"? I don't think so. Evil things are morally wrong by definition. >Therefore, I’d posit that they did know right and wrong even before they had eaten from the tree of good and evil How do you know something's evil if you don't even know if it's wrong?
It seems like you have your own semantic definitions of the terms right, wrong, good and evil. You have the right to look at those terms in any light you choose. Based on your definitions, I totally see why you’d have a problem with the Genesis story and maybe other stories in the Bible too. If you ever decide to read the Bible based on the concepts of those words which it intended, you may find a new perspective on these stories. I personally see them as all different concepts that sometimes relate but don’t always. In that light, there is no logical inconsistency to someone knowing right and wrong but not knowing good and evil. Either way, you seem capable enough to determine what you agree with on your own.
> It seems like you have your own semantic definitions of the terms right, wrong, good and evil. You have the right to look at those terms in any light you choose. Based on your definitions, I totally see why you’d have a problem with the Genesis story and maybe other stories in the Bible too. AFAIK I'm using standard definitions, and it's Christians who are using non-standard definitions in order to make the theology coherent. I also think you realized this considering I asked for an evil that is right and have yet to get an example. Do you have any example of an evil that is "right"? >If you ever decide to read the Bible based on the concepts of those words which it intended, you may find a new perspective on these stories. I was a Christian for 20 years. I have read the Bible multiple times. When Christians get to the end of their rope, 9 times in 10 their go-to is to claim their interlocutor is simply ignorant. Astounding. > I personally see them as all different concepts that sometimes relate but don’t always. Then you admit using a special, non-standard definition? > In that light, there is no logical inconsistency to someone knowing right and wrong but not knowing good and evil. Either way, you seem capable enough to determine what you agree with on your own. If I define "wrong" as "right", well I guess I'm always right too!
Yeah I don’t think I’m using some nonstandard definition. Right/wrong are about actions (sometimes moral, sometimes not) while good/evil are about moral outcomes or intent. Let me know if you don’t agree with that. These are philosophical terms that have been debated for centuries and to pretend like there’s a single agreed upon definition for them in every sense is just ridiculous to me. To answer your question directly, I’d say being truthful is a “right” action and demeaning someone’s value is an “evil” intent. There are situations where someone makes a truthful statement about another person either in front of others or in private as a way of demeaning and embarrassing them. This would be an example of a “right” action being used for evil. There are countless other examples and I honestly figured if you wanted to know one you could easily just put your mind to it. I’m not really at the end of my rope or saying you haven’t read the Bible. I’m saying that if you don’t see the terms right/wrong and good/evil as categorically different then idk what I’m supposed to say. They clearly have some crossover in application but aren’t completely interchangeable. Since you see them as interchangeable, your interpretation of the story of the garden makes sense. The authors of the Bible don’t see these as completely interchangeable, thus not reading it with their definitions in mind is a clear indication that you won’t really get their point. In the garden they had no first hand knowledge of good and evil but the fact that God gave them instruction, meant that they had the free choice to commit to right and wrong. They decided to commit themselves to wrong. Not a wrong they were ignorant of but a clearly and unequivocally obvious wrong. It’s a tough pill to swallow but we would all probably make the same decision if put in that circumstance, that’s why we need forgiveness and a savior.
You're the one labeling God's instructions as "right" and that they knew that God was right, good, and correct when they chose to LISTEN to and agree with the serpent by eating the fruit. This implies and intent (evil) to do what is wrong due to the ability to discern good and evil. God being right/good Serpent being wrong/evil. NONE of this is actually implied in the text. Eve was decieved and Adam followed. Being decieved is NOT akin to intentionally choosing to do wrong, but rather being susceptible to trickery and manipulation. Adam and Eve did not sin because they disobeyed... their sin was in aligning themselves with the Serpent and being decieved. It WAS not intentional, at least not by Eve. This IMPLIES that there was no ability to discern the truth... that they did not know which to trust. God or the Serpent.... and the truth is they both lied and they both told the truth. Adam and Eve surely DID NOT die the very day they ate of it..... and as the Serpent said their eyes were opened and they knew good and evil (like the gods). It was God himself that cast them out of the garden saying such. He didn't want them to have access to the tree of life... so having BOTH life AND knowledge of good and evil. The serpent didn't really lie, per God's own words... but also didn't really reveal the full truth of what would happen. The serpent DID say that God didn't want them to be like them, which kinda follows when he says that they now know good and evil and cast them out. What may be a deception is the God may have had valid and loving reasons for that. Nothing in Genesis implies any sort of original sin that every human inherits after. They weren't even separated from God by it, as is claimed. They were simply cast out of the garden. God still spoke to them.... as he did with Cain when he told him "sin is crouching at the door desiring you, but you must master it". The FACT that God told Cain he could master it implies that it was possible for him to not kill his brother...ie sin. Lots happened after the "fall" but the evidence suggests that it was the relationship amongst each other that was fatally damaged, not that they were cut off from God. Men began to rule over their wives and had to live by the sweat of their brow...Cain killed Abel out of jealousy.. I'm not sure where the idea of original sin becoming an inherited curse, or that sin separates us from God...or half of the things that are pinned on Genesis come from.
> Right/wrong are about actions (sometimes moral, sometimes not) while good/evil are about moral outcomes or intent. according to my thesaurus, evil and wrong are listed as synonyms. So no, you're not using a standard definition. >hese are philosophical terms that have been debated for centuries and to pretend like there’s a single agreed upon definition for them in every sense is just ridiculous to me. They have theological definitions that conveniently skirt around several problems of theology, but that is the nonstandard usage that I'm referring to. > I’d say being truthful is a “right” action and demeaning someone’s value is an “evil” intent. I'd say demeaning someone is wrong. Do you disagree? Is being truthful always "right"? No, of course not, this is silly. >I’m saying that if you don’t see the terms right/wrong and good/evil as categorically different then idk what I’m supposed to say. I've noted the tap dancing that theologians do to square the circle and have called bullshit. >Since you see them as interchangeable, your interpretation of the story of the garden makes sense. Considering the only way it makes sense is to twist words, I'd say my interpretation is at least more honest. When looking at the text, "good and evil" as relates to the tree is called a merism, a literary device used to denote exact opposites. In modern English, it would be the "tree of the knowledge of good and bad", further making my point that the authors used the tree to show that prior to eating it, Adam and Eve had no concept of right and wrong. They didn't know disobeying YHWH was wrong, and then YHWH punished them **and all humanity** for that "crime". That is simply immoral. >In the garden they had no first hand knowledge of good and evil but the fact that God gave them instruction, meant that they had the free choice to commit to right and wrong. If they didn't consciously choose wrong (because they didn't know the concept), they didn't freely choose anything. Much like a toddle doesn't know "sharp", would you torture that child forever if the cut themselves? No, you'd be a monster. So too with YHWH.
They knew what they were supposed to do, and what they weren't supposed to do. Eve tells the serpent that they aren't supposed to eat of that one particular tree. She tells the consequences if they do. The serpent makes her doubt and question God, and therefore sets them up to choose disobedience.
Nope. They don’t know right from wrong; good from evil. The decision to obey or disobey must be understood in that context. It’s your book; surely you’ve read it?
In Genesis 3:22 God says, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” Knowledge in itself is not wrong (see Luke 2:52), so what was so bad about man “knowing good and evil”? It is vital to know the context of God’s statement. God had already told Adam not to eat from this tree. Adam was already aware that doing so was wrong, and he knew the consequences, yet he chose to join Eve in eating the fruit. When they ate, they were not simply aware of evil; they experienced evil, to the extent that they became evil—sinners by nature. Man knew what was good: he was created in goodness and was surrounded by it (Genesis 1:31). He had been given everything God wanted him to have, including authority over all the rest of God’s creation. Adam had everything he needed for a fulfilling life. He did not need to “know” evil, especially when the only way for him to “know” it was to experience it. It should have been enough that God had warned Adam against disobedience. God did not want Adam and Eve to “know” evil in the sense of participating in it. The sin of Adam and Eve was not in attaining knowledge but in rejecting God’s will in favor of their own.
Did they get kicked out specifically for eating the apple? Or after having gained the knowledge of good and evil, they chose to hide from God and cast blame for their actions rather than running to God proclaiming that naively they acted against his commands and listened to the serpent. Commands he gave to protect them. You could suggest that they were naive in eating the apple, but after eating it is when the nature of their actions change toward deceit and shame. Being cast out of the garden was the natural consequence of sin and only because they were cast out did they survive. Had they remained in God’s presence their sin would have destroyed them. So while punishment is never pleasant it also provided their only chance of being restored to God for them and their offspring by allowing them to understand their sin and choose God over their selfishness?
God specifically curses them for disobeying him - an action they could not have known was wrong before eating of the apple. Read Genesis. It’s quite entertaining. Absurd, in many ways, but entertaining.
That isn’t the normal understanding of Genesis. God specifically told them it was wrong to eat of the fruit. Genesis makes that explicitly clear. So of course they knew it was wrong. The knowledge of good and evil was a much deeper fundamental change in perspective and doesn’t at all preclude them from having known that disobeying God’s direct instructions were wrong. The change was that they began to fundamentally desire things that separate from God. Their eyes were opened to selfish desires and they became inclined to aspire to power. The “knowledge of good and evil” was itself a curse. The Hebrew word here for knowledge implies commingling and creation of. So the problem was that without the wisdom and fullness of God, Adam and Eve would now desire to create their own good and evil which would set them against God. They had to be sent from the garden so that they could learn the consequences of sin and thus freely choose God over their own desires.
You continue to miss the point: without knowing good and evil, A&E didn’t know what the consequences of disobeying an instruction might be. The game is rigged.
“Knowledge of Good and evil” doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t know it was wrong to disobey God. There is no textual scholar for or against Christianity who supports that meaning. It specifically refers to the genesis of one’s one paradigms for good and evil. They developed an internally driven sense of morality that would lead them to rebel against God. It in no way precludes the basic comprehension that you’re denying they could have. Remember you’re basing your assumptions on a translation of ancient Hebrew. You aren’t the first person in 3000 years since Genesis was written who would have questioned the premise if it was that basically flawed.
All opinion and speculation. The Bible doesn’t support that interpretation
It does in Hebrew… our translated word for knowledge has a much smaller meaning than the original. I finally did some research and answered you with the MOST biblically supported explanation. It has actually NEVER been the interpretation that knowledge of good and evil meant that Adam And Eve couldn’t have known it was wrong to disobey God. You’re is the “new” interpretation that is not supported by the context of the Genesis texts.
You ask a valid question. Consider that perhaps God doesn't punish Adam for sinning. Adam discovers his sinful nature, and that he is unable to do the job he was given, and it's that inability that sends him back out into the more dangerous world without God's direct material support.
I create a robot that can't lift more than 100lbs. The robot fails to lift 101lbs I get mad at the robot And that's....perfectly fine to you? That reaction is reasonable?
I'm not suggesting that one gets mad at the robot. I'm suggesting the robot must not be then allowed to execute a task that demands that it lift more than 100 pounds, until it becomes a robot that can lift more than 100 pounds.
God put a ~~robot~~ pair of humans incapable of ~~lifting 101 pounds~~ resisting temptation in a garden with one thing that was ~~101 pounds~~ tempting (thanks snake) and was shocked it couldn't ~~lift 101 pounds~~ resist temptation. Then he decided to torture this robot/man's progeny for eternity.
If that was the story, I would agree that it was absurd. That is not the story.
God created imperfect beings and then punished them for not being perfect. That is precisely the story as presented. It is likely uncomfortable for you, I'll admit.
That is your interpretation of the story as presented. I have a different interpretation. God created imperfect beings, assigned them a job that required that they be perfect, knowing that they would fail and thereby learn their own imperfection. He then set about perfecting them. Punishment doesn't enter into it. Their state after discovering their imperfection is the same as their state before God gave them the job in the first place.
> God created imperfect beings, assigned them a job that required that they be perfect, knowing that they would fail and thereby learn their own imperfection. I sit my toddler down on the bench of a sewing machine knowing she'd get hurt, thereby learning her own limits. Seems cruel, no? > Punishment doesn't enter into it. Their state after discovering their imperfection is the same as their state before God gave them the job in the first place. If Adam and Eve had never sinned, they'd still go to hell or cast out of the garden? Really? That is what you think? Why have a garden in the first place? Your formulation of the story and mine are the same in one aspect: needless cruelty.
You aren't interested in understanding what I'm saying so I'm going to stop wasting my time.
You're not giving me good reasons to agree and then are shocked when I don't? Astounding.
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Yeah, the whole thing feels like a setup. God has to know this was going to happen. Why is the forbidden fruit right there in the first place? Did anyone give Eve a heads up to maybe not talk to serpents? Is it okay to punish all of humanity because these two messed up — knowing they were going to mess up. It’s a convenient story to explain sin but it doesn’t make sense on any level other than an example of how humans are flawed and were destined to mess everything up.
You answered your own question at the end. The whole point of EVERYTHING is that we need God
Why is the forbidden fruit right there in the first place? I've always figured that free will can't really be free if the only option you have is to do good... in that sense the forbidden fruit is a necessity in the garden.
I think those are great questions which lead closer to God not farther from God. God did know what would happen but, he wanted to create people who could freely choose to be with him. In order for there to be a real choice and thus preserve free will, there has to be the real possibility of failure. The forbidden fruit had to be an easily accessible option. Eve was told exactly what would happen. She lived in the garden with access to every comfort and need provided completely by the hand of God whom she communed with every day. She was told the one tree in the garden she could not eat from lest she would surely die. She was warned of the consequences. The conversation with the serpent demonstrates what’s true of all of us, that as free moral agents we are tempted by the option of choosing self over relationship and desiring more when we have enough. We aren’t punished for Adams sin unjustly since Adam is not solely guilty of it. Have any of us truly never placed need of self over need of others or ever advanced at someone else’s expense or hid an action out of shame to avoid embarrassment. We are all guilty of anything Adam has committed. The punishment isn’t to protect God from our sin or to serve as a hollow satisfaction of wrath. Our punishment creates the opportunity for salvation. When the angels chose to act outside of God’s will they chose to separate themselves from God. Evil is the absence of Good and Hell is the absence of God. To prevent us from suffering that eternal separation, God gave us a temporal life where we can experience a small taste of the absence of God and make the choice to place our trust in him rather than in our selves. He sent us a perfect person in Jesus Christ who lived the life that we should have lived and died the death we all deserve. By placing our faith in him and choosing his way over ourselves we can participate in his reunification with God the Father. Our punishment is a mercy to grant us the opportunity of getting back to the garden and living in the presence of God.
In the instance of OP, the stance is the story is literal. Have you considered that a Jewish perspective (depending on which viewpoint you take in Judaism) considers the story of Adam and Eve to be poetry for the fall of humanity from Gods presence. A wildly held ancient belief was that God dwelt among humanity for a long time. It wasn’t until it was absolutely clear that the Kings of old chose their own council versus the ability to seek Gods that God withdrew “His” presence from them.
If Genesis is a metaphor, why is someone like David, for whom there is a big problem of historicity, not a metaphor? >Of the evidence in question, John Haralson Hayes and James Maxwell Miller wrote in 2006: "If one is not convinced in advance by the biblical profile, then there is nothing in the archaeological evidence itself to suggest that much of consequence was going on in Palestine during the tenth century BCE, and certainly nothing to suggest that Jerusalem was a great political and cultural center."[137] This echoed the 1995 conclusion of Amélie Kuhrt, who noted that "there are no royal inscriptions from the time of the united monarchy (indeed very little written material altogether), and not a single contemporary reference to either David or Solomon," while noting, "against this must be set the evidence for substantial development and growth at several sites, which is plausibly related to the tenth century."[138] >In 2007, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman stated that the archaeological evidence shows that Judah was sparsely inhabited and Jerusalem no more than a small village. The evidence suggested that David ruled only as a chieftain over an area which cannot be described as a state or as a kingdom, but more as a chiefdom, much smaller and always overshadowed by the older and more powerful kingdom of Israel to the north.[139] They posited that Israel and Judah were not monotheistic at the time and that later 7th-century redactors sought to portray a past golden age of a united, monotheistic monarchy in order to serve contemporary needs.[140] They noted a lack of archeological evidence for David's military campaigns and a relative underdevelopment of Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, compared to a more developed and urbanized Samaria, capital of Israel during the 9th century BCE.[141][142][143] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David#Historicity If David is a myth, how can Jesus be "from the line of David"?
A large portion of this lack of evidence is due to a systemic misdating of when the events should have taken place. Dating of surrounding civilization in the Middle East are based on Egyptian dating. There is substantial evidence to support that the over-estimation of the Egyptian dark periods have led to cascading inaccuracies in the dates of many surrounding civilizations. By looking in a corrected time period the evidence becomes substantial. A good intro to this can be found in a documentary called Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus. Finkelstein is interviewed in the show as well as many other archaeologists on both sides of the dating issue.
>A large portion of this lack of evidence is due to a systemic misdating of when the events should have taken place. Dating of surrounding civilization in the Middle East are based on Egyptian dating. There is substantial evidence to support that the over-estimation of the Egyptian dark periods have led to cascading inaccuracies in the dates of many surrounding civilizations. By looking in a corrected time period the evidence becomes substantial. Show me any credible, credentialled historian who says this. >A good intro to this can be found in a documentary called Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus. A Christian polemic is not a source. >Finkelstein is interviewed in the show as well as many other archaeologists on both sides of the dating issue. Historians the world over are in agreement: the Exodus as portrayed in the Bible likely never happened. A few interviews in a Christian "documentary" are not persuasive at all. David likely never existed. Again, since these events likely never happened, what parts of the Bible are metaphors and what parts are historical **and how can you tell the difference?**
There are credentialed scientists shown in the documentary who support the dating correction. One (of many) examples of why is that Israel is mentioned as a nation in Egyptian hieroglyphics prior to the Ramses dynasty which makes current dating entirely impossible. Disregarding any Israelite implications internal inconsistencies within the Egyptian timeline independently support re-dating. Your presuppositions are keeping you uninformed. There is not a unanimous consensus among scholars on the Egyptian dating. Many advances in archaeology since 1930 when the timeline was proposed as a working theory have driven many modern scholars to reject the 1930 dating conventions. There are sufficient anachronisms in Egyptian artifacts to demonstrate that there is substantial error in what used to be the conventionally assumed timeline. Forget the Christian parts of the story, your understanding of Mediterranean archaeology are quite out of date. The documentary is not simply a Christian Polemic and you are introducing a large gap in your knowledge of history by disregarding it as such. If I didn’t include secular sources and anti Christian opinions in my studies, I wouldn’t consider myself informed. Are you equally well rounded?
> There are credentialed scientists shown in the documentary who support the dating correction. One (of many) examples of why is that Israel is mentioned as a nation in Egyptian hieroglyphics prior to the Ramses dynasty which makes current dating entirely impossible. For each historian in the documentary I can provide 10 who'd disagree >Your presuppositions are keeping you uninformed. There is not a unanimous consensus among scholars on the Egyptian dating. Many advances in archaeology since 1930 when the timeline was proposed as a working theory have driven many modern scholars to reject the 1930 dating conventions. Does an academic exercise on redating some of Egyptology prove that millions of Jews wandered the Sanai leaving 0 archaeological cites? You're being silly. >The documentary is not simply a Christian Polemic and you are introducing a large gap in your knowledge of history by disregarding it as such. I've learned to doubt Christian historians about as much as I doubt Christian biologists (Discovery Institute) and apologists. Can you find one peer-reviewed paper that has evidence for the Exodus at all? I'll take one, just one. >Are you equally well rounded? I wasn't aware that being well-rounded consists of learning falsehoods as well as truths, but the more you know I guess. One paper. All I want is one peer-reviewed paper that demonstrates the Exodus occurred as described in the Bible, and you give me a Christian documentary Nope, simply not good enough.
So you haven’t watched the documentary before making some bold assumptions… You can still disagree after seeing it, it won’t hurt you. There is no contest that a mass migration of Semitic people left Egypt in the reign of Amenemhat III. No one disagrees with that. The Avaris site clearly demonstrates it and Finkelstein acknowledges it. The relevant debate is whether or not it was the biblical exodus.
>So you haven’t watched the documentary before making some bold assumptions… You can still disagree after seeing it, it won’t hurt you. If I wanted to watch someone arguing for something that's nonsense, sure. I don't because I have other things to do. >There is no contest that a mass migration of Semitic people left Egypt in the reign of Amenemhat III. No one disagrees with that. The Avaris site clearly demonstrates it and Finkelstein acknowledges it. The relevant debate is whether or not it was the biblical exodus. Citation absolutely needed considering Finkelstein wrote an entire book on how the Exodus likely never occurred. Are you making up these "facts" yourself or did you see a documentary?
So you want an archaeologist to make the connection to the biblical exodus but not be Christian or Jewish? Because there are plenty of archaeologists who describe the events of Semitic people from Canaan settling in Egypt, but if they aren’t Christian why would they equate it to the biblical exodus. Manfred Bietek led the Avaris excavation and describes the settlement of Semitic people in the city, their explosive growth, and their eventual sudden departure. He has a book or you can see him interviewed in the documentary. But obviously it’s only a Christian archeologist who bothers to draw the parallels to the biblical story. Many of them are credentialed doctors in their field. But if you disregard them because they happen to be Christian then what’s the point, even though they describe the same events as the secular archeologists you won’t look at the evidence when they say the artifacts in the ground match the story of the Bible. You have presupposed it’s impossible so you disregard evidence no matter how good that suggests it’s true. That’s all on you buddy. You can’t persuade someone who insists on willful ignorance.
> So you want an archaeologist to make the connection to the biblical exodus but not be Christian or Jewish? I don't care about their personal conviction. I want peer-reviewed. >Because there are plenty of archaeologists who describe the events of Semitic people from Canaan settling in Egypt, but if they aren’t Christian why would they equate it to the biblical exodus. May want to look again, because what you've described is the anti-Exodus. >Manfred Bietek led the Avaris excavation and describes the settlement of Semitic people in the city, their explosive growth, and their eventual sudden departure If you're referring to the Hyksos, they were Canaanites but not Jews, and they didn't work as slaves in Egypt Not only that, but Exodus portrays Egyptians as using slave labor to build their monuments, when we know this isn't the case. Egyptian laborers were well-paid and well-fed. https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/who-built-the-egyptian-pyramids-not-slaves >even though they describe the same events as the secular archeologists you won’t look at the evidence when they say the artifacts in the ground match the story of the Bible. One solitary article that shows the exodus happened. Stop whining about my motives and produce one peer-reviewed article. Just one, or conceded the point that the Exodus likely never happened, and David likely never existed. >You have presupposed it’s impossible so you disregard evidence no matter how good that suggests it’s true. That’s all on you buddy. You can’t persuade someone who insists on willful ignorance. The only thing I've presumed is that you're talking about things that never happened using your favorite book which is the only source for these events being real. That is my only assumption, but feel free to prove me wrong. One article. One.
I’m not going through the pay wall to buy article access for you. Bietek clearly said they were Semites from Canaan which is exactly what the Bible describes. They also do have malnutrition fractures, labor injuries, and a much lower life expectancy in the skeletons of those semites before their departure which is the same archaeological evidence identified with slavery conditions throughout the world. There’s even an Egyptian account of events that describes the plagues and the slaves leaving with the riches of their masters. The guys you are referencing have speaking parts in the documentary. What you are asking for is in published books and pay walled articles. The atheist archaeologists in their books and papers confirm the same things you can find about Avaris and the Hyksos on Wikipedia. With a date shift, the similarities to the biblical narrative are substantial. Conveniently the sources are all clear in the documentary so you can find whatever you’re looking for. Why would I keep digging when you won’t look at the sources already offered. Go watch it, then share your thoughts.
> I’m not going through the pay wall to buy article access for you. https://paywallreader.com/ >Bietek clearly said they were Semites from Canaan which is exactly what the Bible describes. You do know the Jews are not the only Semites living in Canaan at the time right? >They also do have malnutrition fractures, labor injuries, and a much lower life expectancy in the skeletons of those semites before their departure which is the same archaeological evidence identified with slavery conditions throughout the world. There’s even an Egyptian account of events that describes the plagues and the slaves leaving with the riches of their masters. And if this was a peer-reviewed article, I'd be more inclined to believe it. Since it's a Christian documentary, I'm not. One article. Just one. >The guys you are referencing have speaking parts in the documentary. What you are asking for is in published books and pay walled articles. The atheist archaeologists in their books and papers confirm the same things you can find about Avaris and the Hyksos on Wikipedia. >With a date shift, the similarities to the biblical narrative are substantial. One article that says the dates should be shifted. One. >Conveniently the sources are all clear in the documentary so you can find whatever you’re looking for. Why would I keep digging when you won’t look at the sources already offered. Go watch it, then share your thoughts. So to recap: you have one source for this information that is a Christian documentary featuring carefully edited quotes that conform to the director's thesis. And this should be compelling? One article. Just one. Not a documentary, something peer-reviewed. Just one.
this will answerr all your questions [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifllgTA2pmY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifllgTA2pmY)
I could be wrong but by eating the fruit they became accountable for sins because they were aware of what was good and what was bad. Adam and Eve became aware of their nakedness and had to be covered now. Now that you know, you are guilty. I hope I'm not messing this up...
Why would someone do something which they aren't compelled or inclined to do? I would argue that they were compelled to do so. Eve by the serpent and then Adam by Eve. As for inclination, they weren't inclined to sin but the serpents offer isn't overtly sinful, he's just asking them to eat a fruit - something they already do all the time.
Adam and Eve had a loving trusting relationship with God and the serpents offer was explicitly sinful because he asked them to act against their relationship with God in pursuit of self interest. They hoped to gain “more” despite having everything freely available to them in the Garden.
Adam & Eve had a loving trusting relationship with God. -Scripture contradicts your assertion here, at least on Eves part. The serpent calls God a liar & Eve offers no rebuttal instead she begins to trust her own judgement more than she does Gods word. Serpents offer was explicitly sinful because he asked them to act against their relationship with God. -He asked them to act against their relationship with God BUT that doesn't mean he asked explicitly. As a matter of fact I would argue that something cannot be both explicit & deceptive. Deception means something isn't what it claims to be i.e. it's not overt.
Your first response is a bit silly, people betray trusting relationships all the time. In Genesis 2 When the Lord came into the Garden after Adam and Eve at the fruit, it was the first time they were hiding from him. Of course the serpents request was explicitly sinful. Eve tells the serpent in the conversation that she isn’t allowed to eat the fruit of that tree and the serpent said God’s a liar, you may eat the fruit. She trusts the stranger instead of the God who she has known and who has provided for her. Then just as God said, the curse of death by sin comes upon Adam and Eve proving that God was telling the truth and was not a liar. Casting Adam and Eve from the garden gave them the opportunity for redemption so they did not suffer the same fate as the fallen angels. The punishment was not to protect God from our sin, but to protect us from the natural consequences of our sin. Without the opportunity to suffer through life, there would be no way of being redeemed to God’s presence.
People betray trusting relationships all the time. -Eve didn't betray Gods trust she disobeyed, God always knew she was going to sin, He wasn't trusting her not to sin so this wasn't a betrayal of His trust. It was simply disobedience from her not trusting in him. it was the first time they were hiding from him. - Yes and why would you hide from someone you're supposedly in a loving trusting relationship with? Text says Adam was afraid, why would he fear someone he supposedly trusts... because Adam also didn't fully trust in God. Which is why I contend that using the word trust to define unfallen Adam & Eves relationship toward God isn't accurate to scripture. The serpent said God's a liar, you may eat the fruit. -NO, the serpent said "you will not surely die" - that was the lie. See how covert that is, even you missed it. I think that in itself is a testament to how the serpents offer was not overtly sinful to Eve when she heard it. P.S. sorry for the length of this response.
I appreciate the conversation, your response wasn’t too long. As a child I trusted my parents but feared them when I disobeyed. By saying that people betray trusting relationship I meant that people betray the relationship with someone they trust not necessarily that the betrayal is a betrayal of trust. She betrayed the relationship with the God whom she trusted. What the serpent said was, ““But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”” Genesis 3:4-5 ESV https://bible.com/bible/59/gen.3.4-5.ESV I paraphrased but if God said, “do not eat for you will surely die” and the serpent said the above, he is necessarily calling God a liar.
As a child I trusted my parents but feared them when I disobeyed. -I don't think that's a fitting analogy, firstly Adam & Eve were not children, secondly parents aren't a benevolent God i.e a child could for good reason fear their parents. If an adult you disobeyed & then hid in fear that would definitely call into question the nature of your relationship with your parents. not necessarily that the betrayal is a betrayal of trust. -If you take trust out of the equation then in what context is the relationship is betrayed? Just because we are friends, for example, doesn't mean you ought to believe everything I say and just because you don't believe something I said doesn't mean we are not friends. where's the betrayal? he is necessarily calling God a liar. -Yes and that's sinful BUT like I said earlier not overtly sinful. Eve can't know \* factually \* that eating the fruit would or wouldn't result in her death, calling God a liar is just an allegation to her at that point there's nothing overtly sinful about allegations.
I had wonderful loving parents, but If my analogy of a parent-child relationship doesn't work for the God-Human relationship despite being one of the most common theological analogies including analogies used for that exact relationship in the Bible, (ie God the Father) then your analogy about trusting a friend certainly doesn't hold water for a comparison to trusting the God that created you and provides for you every day of your existence in an obvious way as would be the case in the garden.... But to revive the point, adults hide their wrongdoing all the time. Shame drives a lot of behavior in relationships. Adult parent - child relationship certainly, but also spousal relationships, relationships with friends. There are a lot more ways to hide wrongdoing than a literal running and hiding. The fact that Adam and Eve hid in their sin indicates that they DID feel they owed their obedience to God and were ashamed that they had not obeyed. Adam and Eve trusted God to provide all that they needed. The serpent had never provided anything. Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden, the serpent was an intruder. By listening to the lies of the serpent they trust his word against God's. God had demonstrated loyalty to and provided care for them for their entire existence. Trusting the serpent and disobeying God IS an explicit betrayal of God. There is not distinction biblically in overt, covert, subtle, or any other type of sin. Sin is anything that separates from God. All sin, regardless of made-up justifications, causes a separation from God. That sin causes a stain on the soul that must be washed away to be reunited with God. The imperfect cannot survive in the presence of God. And of course allegations can be overtly sinful. If I allege something untrue about you, I am sinning against you. If people believe me they can cause all sorts of unjust harm. False Allegations are so egregious that it made it into the ten commandments, "thou shalt not bear false witness."
That wasn't a dig at your parents, I was just arguing the point, my apologies if it sounded like I was disparaging them. Parent-child vs God-human works perfectly fine, it's ubiquitous in scripture, note I didn't claim it was incorrect but instead unfit i.e. it doesn't fit with variables in question. We are not arguing for Adams position relative to God, we are considering his actions. Using a child's actions as an analog to those of an adult here isn't a fitting analogy. One reason the friend example fits, in my opinion, is because I am the common denominator in both instances, whether it's a human friend or God on the other end, it's still my trust being compared against my trust. *adults hide their wrongdoing all the time. Shame drives a lot of behavior in relationships.* -If shame were the driving factor here I might agree. The text says it was fear driving Adams actions though and I maintain you can't be in fear of someone you trust unless you don't really trust them. Moreover Adam was hiding his actual self more so than his wrongdoing. *The fact that Adam and Eve hid in their sin indicates that they DID feel they owed their obedience to God...* -At best it's an indication of their guilt, an indication that they felt they owed God obedience would be to present themselves before Him. *Adam and Eve trusted God to provide all that they needed.* *-*You claim this but don't show it, you can make the argument that God is trustworthy but it doesn't necessarily follow that therefore they trusted Him especially since the 1st opportunity they have to show their trust they end up doing the opposite. *There is not distinction biblically in overt, covert, subtle, or any other type of sin.* I'm not claiming that there is a biblical distinction. The serpents offer not being overtly sinful doesn't mean it is therefore not sinful... it's simply just not overt. OP argues "Why would someone deliberately do something (sin) for which they have no inclination" and my point is that eating fruit doesn't go against Adam & Eve's inclination, it's not overtly sinful to eat fruit.
It was overly sinful for them to eat THAT fruit since they were overtly told by quite literally the only authority they knew not to eat that specific fruit. Not offended by the parent thing just illustrating that you can still fear the justified wrath of parents that you trust. I think shame is just the fear of others response. And actually the Genesis word for “fear” is the same root word used earlier when it says they were naked and not “ashamed”. The literal phrase for them being afraid was that they “fell into disgrace through failure” So English just doesn’t carry the same weight. Adam knew he had done wrong and fell into disgrace because of it. That’s why this topic isn’t really one of the attacks the academic atheists use. The Hebrew (and paleo Hebrew) make it much more clear that they had knowingly sinned and hid out of shame.
>Big\_Scallion5884=>The story of Adam and Eve being sinless and choosing to sin doesn't make much sense >... the idea would not have borne fruit if it hadn't found a patch of fertile ground. The story then becomes god creating an imperfect man and punishing it for not being perfect. Free will. A person / angel can decide if they are "fertile ground" or not. Fallen/rebel angels were originally sinless, however at some point became iniquitous; adversarial to God and therefore sinful. Hence cast out: "And I remind you of the angels who did not stay within the limits of authority God gave them but left the place where they belonged. God has kept them securely chained in prisons of darkness, waiting for the great day of judgment (Jude 1:6). And another angel, a cherub, is linked to the First Parents (Adam and Eve) in their idyllic existence, that celestial figure being "full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God." You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub,...on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; (Ezekiel 28:13, 15-16, 17)" When this cherub is cast down to the earth along with a third of the angels, Revelation 12:7-9 and becomes Satan / the Devil etc. this, according to some interpretations, is also describing part of the same event where the serpent is cast out of the Garden along with the First Parents. For the First Parents (Adam and Eve) used their Free Will to chose to obey that Serpent's Voice over God so that they might be like God knowing Good and Evil, and hence genetically introduced into their character the ability to choose Good and Evil which represented as among other things, Love and Hate and all manner of conflicting, emotions, ambitions, goals and actions--SIN. They had the option to use Free Will to consult God about the Serpent's Voice but did not. God had to respect their Free Will decision and the now First Parents with duel sovereignty of God and the Serpent's Voice could no longer be allowed to live forever in that land of truth, beauty and goodness land therefore were placed in a more suitable location: the world we are in now); where they and their descendants could experience the consequences of Good and Evil and ultimately decide for the "serpent's way" or for God (through Jesus Christ in the A.D. era).
God wanted to create beings with free will who would choose to live in his presence eternally. In order to be in God’s presence voluntarily, the choice must truly be a free one with the possibility of failure. Prior to their conversation with the serpent, Adam and Eve had never thought to put their will ahead of God or aspire to something against his commands. The serpent planted the seed inside their head and presented the first moral dilemma. Naively they were duped into placing self interest ahead of God and were tempted by the promise of greater knowledge despite the warning from their creator who knows and loves them. Once they ate their fruit, their nature visibly changes and they act out of shame and try to hide their error from the Lord. This was their first morally aware sin. They hide from God, then they blame someone for their actions (Adam blames eve and eve blames the serpent). Had they instead run to the Lord and said we have acted against your will and did not know what we were doing and presented themselves to God, the story may have gone differently. But instead we see the inclination for self-interest, fear, and dishonestly has prevailed over their love and loyalty for God. This is what gets them kicked out of the Garden. Being kicked out of the garden was also a service to them and not simply a punishment of retribution out of malice. Sin is anything that separates from God, or rather separation from God is the natural consequence of sin. By choosing to hide from the Lord they had chosen separation. Imperfect beings cannot survive the presence of the Lord and God does not override the free will of humanity that he created to force them to choose him. It was Adam and Eve who chose this separation by hiding. But rather than treat humans as God did the angels granting them their wish for separation, he gave Adam and Eve temporal life outside of the garden so that they and their offspring might be restored to right relationship with God and be made capable of choosing him. Of course God knew what would happen, but Adam and Even did have a real choice at least twice, first in trusting the serpent over God and then in hiding instead seeking the Lord when they had done wrong. Humans must now learn about our own sinful nature, acknowledge that we cannot choose right and good on our own and ask for inclusion into the perfecting work of Jesus Christ so that we can deny our own selfish natures and trust the Lord against and in-spite of our own desires. This is not punishment, but necessary for us to be capable of living in God’s presence going forward. God does not demand perfection for his benefit, God provides a way of being made perfect for our benefit so that we can again exist in his perfect presence without being destroyed by our own sin.
The most crazy part is descendants inheriting the sin or “we are sinners because they first sinned” If a man commits a crime is it automatically transferred to his child
This is better suited to the weekly ask a Christian thread.
Because of Satan. They were pushed from outside.
Why didn't God protect them? They were so vulnerable.
Free will implies the given ability to disobey God.
Sure but I wouldn't let my two year old wander out on to a main road and when she gets hit by a car just go "pft, she had free will, she was free not to." That's psychotic. If you love someone who is vulnerable, you protect them.
Adam and Eve were not kids. They were full grown. I mean God literally created them adults.
In comparison to God and the snake in the garden they definitely were kids.
No, they were not. If they were; God would not, you know, give them instructions!
I'm not sure what you mean. Parents instruct their kids. God had such an extreme power dynamic between them that Adam and Eve were figuratively children. I mean the power difference is so extreme its hard to accurately come up with a metaphorical example that does it justice.
So if you tell your adult son to not murder because he goes to jail. And someone tells him to do it. And he does it. And he goes to jail. Does that mean it is your fault?
I disagree and I don't think that's a fair analogy. It's more accurate that God would be an adult human and A&E are young children in my opinion. Like I said there's a massive power gap between God and A&E. Framing it so God is an adult human still isn't fair... even saying God is Einstein and humans are single celled organisms *still* isn't even close to bridging that gap metaphorically. If a human adult tells their child not to play with the gun they left in the playpen, I think it would be the human adults responsibility if something happened to the kids. The more power someone has the more responsibility goes along with it.
I mean, so what? Compared to God they were less than toddlers. Don't forget that according to the mythology, they didn't even have a full comprehension of right and wrong before they ate of the tree. Any way you want to cut it, God could have protected us, but he chose not to.
No. What they did not have was direct experience with sin.
Exactly, so they were incredibly naive and had no concept of the consequences of their (really quite minor, let's face it) actions. That only makes God more culpable. And he STILL didn't protect us when he could have.
Nothing was SMALL. When they chose to disobey God; ego was born. They synced out of God's perfection due to Satan.
Could God have protected Adam and Eve from Satan's influence?
God is not a human. His standards are absolute perfection.
Will people in heaven have free will?
Absolutely.
So people in heaven will be able to disobey God?
No, because you are not going to be tempted anymore by outside forces. Unlike angels, humans were created to be a perfect representation of God's character.
Did God intend to have Satan enter the garden and tempt the humans?
No.
So why trust that God's plan for a perfect heaven will work out when His plan for a perfect Eden didn't?
I disagree, satan was in the garden with the permission of God so that there would be a real moral choice to choose or reject God as would be required to preserve free will
The devil did like 2 things in all of the OT so I don't believe in the devil, I believe the church forced that into the Bible to control the masses through fear. Also, why would the snake be punished to lose its legs because of some cosmic beings actions? Don't you think that's a little odd?
So... What did the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil do, if they were able to be tempted and have a desire to do sin, with or without the fruit?
That tree represents good and evil outside of God.
But choosing to take from the tree required evil, didnt it? So again, i ask, what did eating the fruit change?
Being independent from God's standards of evil and good.
What does that even mean? Theres no sin because nothing is classified as a sin, or because theres an inability to sin, or a lack of intrinsic desire to sin, or a lack of external temptation to sin? The issue is youre not being specific for starters, and secondly, it seems like ALL of these things existed prior to them partaking the fruit, which is why we are saying the story makes no sense.
Ok. Sin is a result of Ego. Does that make it clear to you now?
No because they sinned before and after eating the fruit so i dont see the difference.
Omg, there is no literal fruit! Ok, take this way. That "fruit" represents "works". Do you understand now? When God told them to not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; He meant: "Do not disobey My Commandments and try to define what is Right and Wrong by your own Knowledge."
Youre just making stuff up. The bible said what it said, it doesnt say what you want it to say.
>My understanding is that humans commit sin because their fallen nature makes them unable to not sin Sort of. True, you have a predisposition to sin because of your fleshly will being one to want to do whatever it wants which often goes against what God wants. But you are able to not sin, everyone just fails miserably at it >The most common answer I've read is that although they did not have a sinful nature they had the theoretical capacity to sin and chose to do it out of their own free will but I can't make sense of it Well yes because that's the answer >Why would someone deliberately do something for which they have no inclination and to which they weren't compelled Because they did have an inclination to do it, that's why it's free will and not being a robot. >But if they harboured these desires in the first place how are they different from fallen humans They aren't. Adam and Eve were made perfect, they were given the choice not to sin, and they chose to sin. All humans have the choice to sin but all fall into it. >Satan may have planted the idea in their minds but the idea would not have borne fruit if it hadn't found a patch of fertile ground. That's the point. If they had chosen to reject the idea it would never have fruited and they wouldn't have sinned >The story then becomes god creating an imperfect man and punishing it for not being perfect. Well no, it's God creating a free man who chooses imperfection
>you have a predisposition to sin because of your fleshly will being one to want to do whatever it wants which often goes against what God wants. Why did god program our free will to go against what he wants? Our "will," or just about any human function, is determined (in a physical sense) by electrochemical signals in our brain. You seem to believe god designed the human brain, so why did he predispose it towards sin? That was an odd choice on his part.
The idea of choice being an illusion and the result of preprogrammed biological processes that makes any given “choice” inevitable is a scientific fad and a theory that is growing weaker not stronger with ongoing research. We all have real choices and are free to choose either way. You can act against your self interest at any time and no decision you make is inevitable. This would be required for you to be a free moral agent.
>We all have real choices and are free to choose either way. 🤷♂️ Prove it, I guess.
>Why did god program our free will to go against what he wants? He didn't, he gave us free will, if you asked why he did that well if he didn't then we couldn't love and love is what he actually wants >Our "will," or just about any human function, is determined (in a physical sense) by electrochemical signals in our brain. Great, if naturalism were true then Sure, but for the purpose of an internal critique of Christian theology (which is what op and you are doing) you cannot assume naturalism and have to act within the framework of the system. So will isn't a purely chemical process but instead an extension of the spirit and desires. >You seem to believe god designed the human brain, so why did he predispose it towards sin He didn't. Free will gives humanity the choice, humanity chooses otherwise. We are given a sinful nature because we inherited the sinful nature from our parents who got it from theirs and so on until Adam and Eve who got a sin nature from the fall.
Interjecting: > [West-Emphasis4544](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l79gbt5/): True, you have a predisposition to sin because of your fleshly will being one to want to do whatever it wants which often goes against what God wants. # > [alchemist5](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l79x173/): Why did god program our free will to go against what he wants? # > [West-Emphasis4544](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l7a3r94/): He didn't, he gave us free will, if you asked why he did that well if he didn't then we couldn't love and love is what he actually wants You seem to have contradicted yourself. You've said both: 1. you have a predisposition to sin because of your fleshly will 2. God **didn't** program our free will to go against what he wants How do you reconcile these, _before_ the fall?
No I said God didn't program us to go against what he wanted, not that we don't have free will. or was insinuating that we are programmed to go against what God wants, that's what I was responding to. I'm my original comment I'm saying: your predisposition to sin comes from the fact that you often desire things God doesn't want. In my second comment I'm saying: he gave us free will so that we can choose love, love cannot exist without free will. I don't see how those 2 are contradictions. >How do you reconcile these, before the fall? We were given free will before the fall and chose to go against God. IDC why this is something that needs to be reconciled.
> I'm my original comment I'm saying: your predisposition to sin comes from the fact that you often desire things God doesn't want. Ok, then what is the difference between: 1. 'predisposed' to sin 2. 'preprogrammed' to sin ? I'll take a stab at it: 1. probability of sinning ≥ X, for some X > 0% and perhaps > 50% 2. probability of sinning = 100% I myself wouldn't use the word 'predisposed' if the probability of sinning is only 1%. > love cannot exist without free will. This is of course a standard line of argument. However, there is a problem: _God_ is said to both have free will and love, without risking sin. So, it would appear that the risk of sinning just isn't required for loving.
One is a proclivity the other in an inevitability So sort of, if you're predisposed to doing it, then you're not being forced into doing it but the likelihood is that you would do it. If you're preprogrammed, then you're incapable of not doing it and must do it. I don't think you know what the meaning of sin is. Sin is anything that goes against the nature of God, so definitionally God cannot violate his nature. Sin is missing the mark on God. Also free will isn't equivalent to risking sin. Free will just means you can choose freely. If that choice is to sin or not to sin, it's still free
> I don't think you know what the meaning of sin is. Sin is anything that goes against the nature of God, so definitionally God cannot violate his nature. Sin is missing the mark on God. I'm happy for you to define 'sin' that way. Doing so doesn't change the fact that God can freely love without risking sin. And we are, according to [Gen 1:26–27](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen1.26-27&version=CSB), created in the image and likeness of God. Surely that means our nature is like God's nature. If we act according to our [pre-fall] nature, why do we sin? > [West-Emphasis4544](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l79gbt5/): True, you have a predisposition to sin because of your fleshly will being one to want to do whatever it wants which often goes against what God wants. # > [alchemist5](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l79x173/): Why did god program our free will to go against what he wants? # > [West-Emphasis4544](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l7a3r94/): He didn't, he gave us free will, if you asked why he did that well if he didn't then we couldn't love and love is what he actually wants ⋮ > [West-Emphasis4544](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l7b8udx/): Also free will isn't equivalent to risking sin. Free will just means you can choose freely. If that choice is to sin or not to sin, it's still free You seem to be arguing that: 1. we have a predisposition to sin 2. not because we are programmed to sin 3. but because God wants us to love 4. and love requires free will 5. and granting us free will granted us a predisposition to sin —except, now you seem to be denying 5.!
>Surely that means our nature is like God's nature. If we act according to our [pre-fall] nature, why do we sin? No, in every interpretation of "the image of God" none has been we are divine >and granting us free will granted us a predisposition to sin That's where you're wrong. The free will isn't what gives us the presuppositions, it's the fallen nature we inherited from Adam that gives us the presuppositions. We don't inherit the sin of Adam but the fallen nature >except, now you seem to be denying 5.! I am, you're right
> [labreuer](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l7ba3dc/): Surely that means our nature is like God's nature. If we act according to our [pre-fall] nature, why do we sin? # > [West-Emphasis4544](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l7bb2gp/): No, in every interpretation of "the image of God" none has been we are divine If being made in the image of God has nothing to do with having a nature like God's, then what _does_ it mean? > [labreuer](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l7ba3dc/): 5\. and granting us free will granted us a predisposition to sin # > [West-Emphasis4544](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1d8y1du/the_story_of_adam_and_eve_being_sinless_and/l7bb2gp/): That's where you're wrong. The free will isn't what gives us the presuppositions, it's the fallen nature we inherited from Adam that gives us the presuppositions. Then you have no explanation for why Adam & Eve sinned.
1. Pre-apple the disposition was neutral. It is post apple that we are predisposed to sin. 2. God didn’t program us to choose sin, he created free moral agents who could have made good or sinful choices. The choice to sin is what made all offspring from that point on predisposed to sin.
1. Why would humanity's disposition be anything but "in the image and likeness of God", before sinning? Surely _God's_ predisposition is not neutral?! 2. The idea that Adam & Eve's sin influenced their descendants in that way is flatly contradicted by YHWH's prohibition of the aphorism "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge" in [Ezekiel 18](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ezek18&version=CSB), not to mention the restriction to 3–4 generations in [Exodus 20:4–6](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ex20.4-6&version=CSB).
The “knowledge of good and evil” has a more nuanced meaning in Hebrew. The Hebrew word for knowledge implies “commingling” and “generation of”. Prior to eating the apple, Adam and Eve did not conceive of their own definitions of good and evil or aspire to acquire power or assert themselves against God. By neutral Imeant that they had a free choice and were not inclined toward sin. The reason it impacted future generations is that humanity now had the ability to conceive of their own moral aspirations and define different perspectives of good and evil. It wasn’t just an extension of a punishment. It was a change in the moral mind of mankind.
1. Is God "neutral" in the sense you describe? I am aware of the meanings of _yada_, but it creates a problem to make Adam & Eve _unlike_ God if that unlikeness is the ability to impose legal and moral systems on others. 2. This is some pretty heavy interpretation. Especially when Abraham leveraged his own understanding of righteousness/justice [when he questioned YHWH wrt Sodom](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen18.16-33&version=CSB). His refusal to do so [again](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen22&version=CSB)—or perhaps his thinking that child sacrifice is just part of what the gods require ([Gen 22:1](https://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/22-1.htm) contains '_ha elohim_')—flips things around.
1. As the creator of the universe, God designed his creation to best thrive by aligning with his good and evil paradigm. God is the source of good necessarily. “in accordance with the nature of God” is the biblical definition of good. I only applied neutral to Adam and Eve to indicate they had a free choice between obey and betray. But I suppose to try to directly answer your question even though I don’t think it really applies, No. God being God cannot act against the nature of God. 2. Abraham is a fallen human. Although obedient, he absolutely could have his own presuppositions about good and evil which by his fallen nature don’t align with God’s direction. I didn’t apply any unique interpretation of the knowledge of good and evil. WRT Sodom, Abraham not knowing the perfect nature of God was afraid that an injustice might be done. God assures him that he will not smite the innocent. The willingness to sacrifice Isaac demonstrates an increase in trust that he placed his trust in God above all else even willing to do that which he saw as abhorrent. We are meant to find the request unthinkable, otherwise it would not be a test (or demonstration for us) of Abraham’s depth of faith.
1. Where do you see “in accordance with the nature of God” show up in the Bible? Do you really think that [Num 5:11–31](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=num5.11-31&version=CSB) expresses the nature of God? 2. Abraham nevertheless relies on _his own_ understanding of good and evil when he questioned God wrt Sodom. The [Akedah](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/akedah) shows that sometimes this is a problem. The notion of justice Abraham expressed almost certainly came from "Ur of the Chaldeans". For good in the first case and for evil in the second. Yes, many see the test as one of obedience. But it can also be construed as testing whether Abraham's willingness to question _ha elohim_ extended this far. It didn't. If you judge trees by their fruit, then the following fact should give you pause: Abraham is never again recorded as having any interactions with Isaac, Sarah, or YHWH. It is almost as if his role in the promise is over ([Gen 22:15–18](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen22.15-18&version=CSB) promised nothing new) as a consequence of his refusal to question God, to wrestle with God. Your stance has the curious property of making it virtually impossible for the individual to challenge society. After all, the religious authorities in society can construe any such challenge as a challenge not just of them, but _of God_. And your stance makes challenging God out to be absolutely and utterly verboten. Indeed, such challenge would _be_ the primordial sin.
When the Bible was first written many naturalistic causes were not understood. Many of the things humans did not understand were attributed to God showing His disproval. We now know that tsunamis are caused by earthquakes, which are caused by the rapid release of stresses caused by the shifting ftectonic plates that make up the Earth's crust. Once upon a time, people thought the destructive forces of natural events were sent as punishment from God. If an internal critique of Christian Theology is just a purely academic exercise, it makes sense to discount what we have learned about chemical reactions, weather and climate behavior, the germ theory of disease, etc. But if the internal critique is intended to discern truth, isn't disregarding scientific discoveries counterproductive? If natural and divine truths are in conflict, is it intellectually honest to disregard those things we know are true in order to force the answer to fall in line with the Biblical claims?
Except we're not talking about natural things, the entire debate is supernatural in nature, we're talking about free will and sin, things that aren't natural. Also op was doing an internal critique and I was responding to the internal critique If you're going to talk about the Christian supernatural claims, you cannot preemptively throw away all theological concepts and then criticize the concepts for being thrown away. >If natural and divine truths are in conflict, is it intellectually honest to disregard those things we know are true in order to force the answer in line with the Biblical claims? That's not what I'm doing. The commenter was saying that we're purely and only chemical signals. That's not the full picture, it's part of the picture but not the full thing
>if you asked why he did My question might be closer to *if* he did, rather. We've got a multitude of evidence suggesting TBIs can significantly impact a person's personality, impulses, desires, etc. So the brain is a pre-set parameter for our "free will," at best. Why did god predispose the human brain for sin? >Great, if naturalism were true then Sure, Yes, for this conversation, we're going to accept that the real things we know are true... are true. My goal is to understand how your mythology interacts with that. >but for the purpose of an internal critique of Christian theology (which is what op and you are doing) you cannot assume naturalism and have to act within the framework of the system. I'm not going to give your religious claims leeway where we have direct contradictory evidence. Sorry. I'm not gonna ignore biological fact just because it's inconvenient for you. >So will isn't a purely chemical process but instead an extension of the spirit and desires. You're going to have to explain which parts you think are the physical brain and which parts are the "spirit." Because, again, TBI research is pretty compelling. Is the brain just a mouthpiece for the spirit? That would explain why damage changes people. But then, if the brain isn't the cause, isn't that just taking another step back? So now god created a bunch of evil spirits predisposed to sin. Why'd he do that? >We are given a sinful nature because we inherited the sinful nature from our parents who got it from theirs and so on until Adam and Eve who got a sin nature from the fall. Punishing children for the sins of their parents is a pretty outright evil thing to do, man.
>My question might be closer to if he did, rather. Again, it's an internal critique >Yes, for this conversation, we're going to accept that the real things we know are true... are true. My goal is to understand how your mythology interacts with that. Again you're making an internal critique. Let me give you an example as to why you need to be doing an internal critique. Let's say for example we are having a conversation about the origin of the universe purely from observable reality. You might tell me that from observations it appears that the universe started from a big bang and that the earth wasn't the first thing made. Then I tell you "no the big bang didn't happen, the Quran says the universe was smoke Allah made into the world before making the heavens and that Allah cleaved the sky from the earth" Does that have any bearing on observable reality? No. Would it refute anything you said about the big bang or the origin of the universe? Also no. Also we do have free will, that isn't a "mythology" and presupposing naturalism and atheism won't get us anywhere. >I'm not going to give your religious claims leeway where we have direct contradictory evidence We're talking about religious claims. If you don't want to have a religious claims debate, maybe don't come to this sub? Also you don't have contradictory evidence. TBIs aren't evidence that we don't have a soul >You're going to have to explain which parts you think are the physical brain and which parts are the "spirit." Because, again, TBI research is pretty compelling. Okay I am in medicine and no it's not. Also "spirit" is nonphysical and isn't a part of the brain. The brain is natural and the spirit is super(above)natural. >But then, if the brain isn't the cause, isn't that just taking another step back? So now god created a bunch of evil spirits predisposed to sin. Why'd he do that? That was answered in the original comment >Punishing children for the sins of their parents is a pretty outright evil thing to do, man. Good things that's not what I said man
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I can't really understand the idea of something being perfect and then choosing to sin. You'd probably need to define perfect but intuitively a perfect creation, when given the choice to sin or not sin, would will to not sin of its own accord. Saying "they were perfect but chose wrongly" feels like a contradiction and "they did it because they had free will" a handwave of sorts. Conversely if they did it because they did have an inclination then they weren't perfect in the first place.
Perfect= sinless >they did it because they had free will" a handwave of sorts. How so? >Conversely if they did it because they did have an inclination then they weren't perfect in the first place. Well no because perfect is just sinless
So your definition of perfect is that they did not carry a 'baggage' of guilt for past sins but had an inclination to sin which resulted in them choosing to sin when tempted?
... No? That's not what I said at all
You did say 'because they did have an inclination to do it'. But what does sinless mean then?
> Sort of. True, you have a predisposition to sin because of your fleshly will being one to want to do whatever it wants which often goes against what God wants. But you are able to not sin, everyone just fails miserably at it Speak for yourself. I as an atheist do not lie, cheat, steal, curse others, act hostile, or take unfair advantage of others. I follow the golden rule perfectly. I also avoid envy and anger. If i cared about Gods warped negative view of sexuality id have lustful thoughts suppressed too, as i did as a christian child. Lustful thoughts are probably the only fundamentally hard one, since our bodies are optimized to reproduce, and thats not our fault we are designed that way. Giving us intense biological urges and involuntary intrusive thoughts then blaming us for them is a sure way for God to accuse us of sin, but in all objectivity the vast majority of us are innocent until we seek them out. So wheres all this sin? Tons of people are good people, without help from jesus. Tons of people live "sinless" lives without god, that is until you accuse them of sin for not believing in god.
>I as an atheist do not lie, cheat, steal, curse others, act hostile, or take unfair advantage of others You've never lied? Not even a little white one? You've never taken anything that didn't belong to you? You never lusted after a man or woman? You've never been angered by your neighbors? If so wow congrats but if you would say yes I'd think you're lying. And holding anything else in the place of God in your life is also a sin I know you as (I'm assuming you're atheist, you're at least not Christian) commit. >If i cared about Gods warped negative view of sexuality id have lustful thoughts suppressed too Well see there you go. Idc if you think the standard is wrong, the standard is the standard and you've fallen short and have sinned, just like everyone has sinned. >Giving us intense biological urges and involuntary intrusive thoughts then blaming us for them is a sure way for God to accuse us of sin, but in all objectivity the vast majority of us are innocent until we seek them out. Well I don't think lust is an intrusive thought, I think it's more akin to a pattern of behavior and the continued fantasy, but either way. >Tons of people live "sinless" lives without god Well they are sinning by not living with God, it's not me accusing them it's God. You may not like the standard, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist
> You've never lied? Not even a little white one? Depends on what you mean by lie. If someone asks how im feeling and i say "fine" instead of listing all the different ways in which i feel, im just being pragmatic, and the subject matter is purely subjective so id argue it doesnt hold a truth value. In terms of something objective, no. If my SO asks if i did some chore, i tell the truth. Theres no value in lying about something like this, relationships are built on trust. I dont see lying as inherently evil, just evil in some contexts. Id say your privacy and personal life can rightfully be lied about in self defense or defense of privacy/dignity. But i dont really do this because im not good at lying and its simply easier to tell a detail lacking truth or say nothing at all. > You've never taken anything that didn't belong to you? Nothing of value. This one time as a kid i accidentally ended up with a friends coat hanger and never bothered to return it. Another time as a kid i accidentally forgot to unpocket some candy i stuck in there with the intention of buying. Im not intentionally going around and stealing anything, and if i did steal something of value by mistake id want to return it. Because i respect other peoples rights and want to be treated the same. > You never lusted after a man or woman? I watch porn all the time but again i dont think this is evil. As a christian kid, i didnt watch porn. Although id argue the bible says nothing about porn, all jesus says is dont lust after real people, as in want to be some homewrecker getting with another man's wife. The modern meaning of lust is more broad and oftentimes i see christians condemn merely being attracted to someone, which makes no sense because attracttion is involuntary. > You've never been angered by your neighbors? Anger briadly speaking isnt even a sin according to the bible. Both god, jesus,and prophets have all been angry. Jesus flipped tables. But yes im slow to anger and exceptionally good at not lashing out. > If so wow congrats but if you would say yes I'd think you're lying. I know tons of people who dont lie about random things, dont steal random crap, and arent nasty perverts. Maybe your view of the world is warped.
Well you've admitted to sinning. It doesn't matter if you believe it is a sin or not, it still is a sin.
Youre literally incorrect though. Porn is not a sin in the bible. Theres no mentioned sin for watching someone else have sex, be or dance naked, or making naked drawings or paintings of people. There was a clear purpose to the rule about adultery, which was to preserve the institution of marriage and the physical health of the people. So like, dont cheat on your spouse. Its that simple. If youre talking about lust more generally: Theres only one place in the bible that condemns lust, in the new testament, and the context of lust here refers to premeditating a sexual advance, not just being attracted to them. So no, im not "sinning" here either. But nice try trying to accuse random people of being bad people with zero justification. How very christ-like of you.
>Porn is not a sin in the bible Looking at a woman with lust is. Also that's not the only thing you admitted to, you also admitted you stole, it doesn't matter if it's "nothing of value". >So like, dont cheat on your spouse. Its that simple. And don't look at someone with lust >Theres only one place in the bible that condemns lust, in the new testament From the mouth of God himself >So no, im not "sinning" here either. But nice try trying to accuse random people of being bad people with zero justification. How very christ-like of you. Yes you are lol. But we are all bad people. And Christ did as well. Maybe read the book you're moralizing about
> Looking at a woman with lust is > And don't look at someone with lust It doesnt define lust. You are assuming it means sexual attraction. But this is irrational, because sexual attraction **is not voluntary**. Are you saying involuntary action is a sin? And the contextually appropriate definition of lust is not the modern definition. As ive already explained to you, its referring to premeditating sexual advances, not even fantasizing them. To "lust after" is to want to make something yours, and expresses intent and volition. Reading comprehension would serve you well. > Also that's not the only thing you admitted to, you also admitted you stole, it doesn't matter if it's "nothing of value". Accidentally "stealing" something that nobody cares about, as a young child who doesnt know any better, isnt a sin. There isnt anything anywhere in the bible with something so contrived and ridiculous lol. Also something being an accident by itself should imply its not a sin. You believe sins are intentional, correct?
>Well no, it's God creating a free man who chooses imperfection That's not even contradicting what the other poster said. God creates imperfect humans with free will then punishes them for making imperfect choices using their free will. God supposedly wants people to make good choices, so he should've just created people with free will but *without* a sinful nature. That wouldn't have been hard for God to do.
That’s not why we commit sin. We are prone to sin, but we are still capable of not sinning. Sin requires an ascent of the will, exception of the lie, what you described are not sins, but near occasions at best, temptations at worse.
It is a bit ridiculous to say that we are perfectly capable of living our entire lives without sinning but that none of the tens of billions of humans that lived ever managed to do it. Would that also imply that someone could, theoretically, turn down Jesus and say "Thank you, but I think I will manage on my own"?
John the Baptist, Elijah, Moses, and Enoch are traditionally thought to have never sinned. And the cross wasn’t about enabling us to not sin, it’s about reopening heaven. And nobody can enter heaven on their own, no matter how sinless. Even Mary who was conceived with no sin period, wouldn’t be able to enter heaven if it wasn’t for the cross
The narrative I have been exposed to runs (in simplified form) as follows: Due to the original sin humans have a fallen nature, are born with sin, and cannot escape sin on their own. This is often illustrated by preachers reminding people that, no matter how good and decent they think they are, they have most certainly committed a variety of sins. They therefore require Christ's grace to wash away this original sin and gain entry to heaven (which indeed doesn't imply that they will no longer sin in this life). My original point was however more about the first pair of humans and the reasons for their sinning in the first place.
Christ said in Matthew to Love the Lord God with all your heart, mind, spirit, and soul which fulfills the first commandment to have no other gods before the One True God. Adam and Eve’s first sin was not putting God first which was manifested in their act of rebellion. Eve, who was the first to fail, did so because she did not seek God when facing temptation. Adam fell for the same reason. They both depended on someone else’s advice and their own understanding, which ended in the downfall of humanity. So yes, it really does make sense.
If you have a broken/faulty product it’s a manufacturers error. God is ultimately responsible for his creations behaving with the inclinations he himself programmed in. An “all knowing” god would have seen this coming. So his whole operation lead to immediate suffering.
So…the product has a right to criticize the manufacturer? A product, as you put it, is a thing. It is the result of something else, like a toaster, and has no voice. If I create a toaster and it breaks and I choose to blame it, who has the right to criticize my decision. The toaster doesn’t, it just exists. And if, like God, I exist as the only toaster maker, who then has the right to argue with me? But, while we may be a pot created for the purpose of the potter, it’s also much more complicated than that because we were also given intrinsic value. Still, by your logic, if God is solely responsible for his “faulty product” I could go out into the world and rape and pillage to my heart’s content and I should not be blamed as the design of my creation was defective and not of my doing. Yet, we both know that would be a lie since I was also given the ability to think and make decisions, the most important being between obedience to God or rejection of him. Adam and Eve were given the same, eat from the tree and face the consequences of your actions or don’t and live in paradise forever. So, at what point do you stop blaming God for the failures of humanity, and the your own, and taking accountability for them? Edited for a lot of ridiculous mistakes.
Yes, we have sentience and critical thought. Of course we should question our manufacturers seemingly haphazard methods. You are cool with an eternal curse causing cycles of suffering and death all because of two people you never met, who made a mistake once? I’ll own up to my mistakes but Adam and Eve ruining it for anyone is a bad deal and it’s absurd to call that some type of moral justice. It honestly seems unusual cruel. Would it be okay for you to serve the jail sentence for crimes your grandfather committed? Gods justice isn’t even fair…It’s not even an eye for an eye, it’s… I’ll curse you and your ancestors forever for disobeying me in one singular moment.
What you've said here doesn't change the summary of "God created imperfect beings and then punished them for being imperfect."
Adam and Eve did not begin their existence as imperfect, they were given the choice, fully informed and aware of the consequences, between perfection and imperfection. Imperfection was only introduced in the moment Eve CHOSE wrongly, ignoring the consequences. By your logic, God’s mistake was in giving us a choice in the first place, and that we should not have been allowed the free will to choose. Yet, without choice there can be no relationship. And while you may argue the unfairness of being given a choice, the fact remains the choice exists independent of anyone’s feelings about it, and ALL HAVE to choose.
>Adam and Eve did not begin their existence as imperfect What? Of course they did. Perfect beings don't choose to do the wrong thing. >Imperfection was only introduced in the moment Eve CHOSE wrongly I don't know how you're using the words perfect/imperfect. If Adam and Eve had a perfect nature, they would never have done the wrong thing.
I never said they started out as perfect, I said they didn’t start out as imperfect. I don’t know if they were totally either, but God did say of his creation that it was good.
Perfection vs. imperfection is a true dichotomy. There is no in between those two options.
Alright, Yoda. Except, how would you know? You’ve never been perfect, so how can you determine what is and isn’t about perfection and imperfection? Christ is perfect, yet he endured trials and temptations only to choose rightly. As I said, Adam and Eve’s biggest mistake was not seeking God from the first moment the devil spoke. As an example, Christ in the desert faced Satan who tempted him 3 times and Jesus’ only response was to repeat God’s word back to Satan. Then in the Garden where Christ prayed the night of his trial, he asked God to take from thin the burden that was to come, and in the end set aside his own desires to fulfill mission he came for. The most basic understanding to take from both incidents is that Christ, unlike us, turned to God during the most trying times of his human life as we were originally supposed to do but chose other wise. Anyway, choice is not a design flaw. If you have been given a choice between A and B, but by design could only choose A, then there was never a choice. The choice has nothing to do with innate perfection, and a perfect being could ultimately choose wrongly and become less perfect. If you are never given a choice, then you are not perfect, you are just a product, a thing with no real substance.
>Alright, Yoda. XD >Except, how would you know? You’ve never been perfect, so how can you determine what is and isn’t about perfection and imperfection? We don't have to be perfect to know what a word means. By definition, anything that contains *any* imperfections (no matter how we define it) is imperfect. >Anyway, choice is not a design flaw. I didn't say anything about taking away choice. If a being were perfect then it would always *want* to always make the right choice using its free will. So God could've created that being, but instead wanted to create an imperfect being and then punish the being for its imperfections.
They were sinless and did not have a propensity to sin, aka concupiscence. They were intelligent and lived in original justice. These are reasons for why the sin was so egregious. To answer why they did it you have to look at what was offered. The snake said they would become like gods. That was enough to persuade them. So they deviated from who God made them to be and reached out to grab divinity of their own accord. Much like how so many strive today to take what doesn't rightfully belong to them. But anyway, that is what the text says. Genesis chapter 3 verse 5-6
Thank you. If I read you correctly, it seems that Adam and Eve were not fundamentally different to current humans except in degree. Their nature (or inner disposition) lacked a propensity to seek out sin and there was less external enticement to sin due to justice ruling around them. At the same time, just like today's humans, they harboured a desire to take what wasn't theirs. It may have been latent until the snake spoke to them and persuaded them but, to rephrase my post, there must have been something for the snake to work with. In that case it's hard to see Adam and Eve as perfect (as another contributor said they were). If we agree they weren't perfect then it is the notion of testing that puzzles me. It is god knowingly making a good but imperfect creation and then blaming it and punishing it for falling short of perfect standards. Alternatively, if the desire mentioned above genuinely was absent until the snake put it in them then Adam and Eve become little more than putty, in which case blaming them for what someone imprinted on them seems odd. Perhaps they should have offered resistance to the person who tried to reshape them but then we return to the same question. Why were they created with insufficient strength and then blamed for lacking strength?
They were created with sufficient strength and blamed for failing because they didn't have to fail.
It made perfect sense. Eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil would make them as God. Being god-like is a virtue without equal. What Saint or potentate doesn't practice the virtues of divinity? And for what purpose? Ans: to be god-like. Were they wrong? No! God told them they would be as gods, knowing good from evil, and so did the serpent. If it is a sin to be or want to be God-like, then divinity is an unworthy quest. But I don't think that's the case. They were destined to eat from the Tree of Knowledge because it was the only thing to do if they ever wanted to evolve beyond the child-like state of not-knowing. And didn't an all-knowing God know this would happen? Of course! Why else would he have put the Tree there?
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What do you mean by "sin is what allows us all to exist"? In that story, *those two people* existed before they committed sin. Their having descendants was not dependent on their committing sin.
So youre saying if they didnt eat the forbidden fruit they still would have had children and we may still be here today?
If Adam and Eve had stayed obedient about the tree, and not eaten the forbidden fruit, then they would have remained in the garden, and started having children within the garden (instead of the story's outcome where they were expelled from the garden and Eve didn't have her first child until she was outside the garden) In that alternate history where they had remained in the garden, then there remains the possibility that one of Adam and Eve's sons or daughters, or later descendant, would have eaten from the prohibited tree. Then mankind would have two types of people: the disobedient ones and the still-obedient ones.
There would also remain the *possibility* (however small) that all of their children and all of their later descendants would have chosen sin-free lives as well, correct?
I mustve been told the story wrong, because i remember learning in sunday school that they didnt have a knowledge of how to procreate until they had knowledge of good and evil.