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CentralFLJames
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What you are arguing here is that Adam & Eve did not fully know the consequences of their actions. In taking this line of reasoning you are essentially recognizing that Adam & Eve were created beings who did not have the omniscience of God. This is a good start since it acknowledges that God as Creator is above all that He creates. But you make a departure from logic when you assume that because God did not tell them every aspect of the consequences not only to themselves (that they would die) but to others down stream of them.They did not know it was wrong, they couldn’t.
They did not know that not doing as you are told by God was wrong.
They did not know that doing what the cunning serpent (God’s creation and surely God knew the serpent would do this when he made him) said was wrong.
They had no concept of good and evil.
You can’t get out of the logical flaw in the story of Eden.
Here is the problem with this faulty thinking. God did in fact tell them they would DIE. Adam & Eve knowing that God was their Creator and profoundly greater then them elected to IGNORE and not trust God. Over God (who they knew as friend) They trusted Satan (the snake), a perfect stranger who did not create them! This was the sin of pride and greed. Even if Adam & Eve knew fully that not only would they die (self defeating in itself) that there would be consequences to all of Creation and their offspring they would have made the same choice. Doubt that? Why would somone who wanted to risk death to be “like God” (the lie) care about anyone or thing beyond themselves.
They were selfish and rebellious - plain and simple. They elected to believe that God lied about the penalty and instead take the chance that the stranger told them the truth. They traded their current paradise and happiness and good relationship with God for a lie that they could be “as God”. By electing through freewill to trust the lies of a perfect stranger over God, as created beings they broke the covenant of friendship, respect, trust and fealty that is naturally formed and obliged to the Creator for giving them life. Apart from pride, greed and lack of loyalty to God this rebellion was also extremely disrespectful to God’s hospitality and His free gift of life. Given the offense it is a wonder that God even chose to let humanity live as a fallen race. It becomes unimaginable that God would then later elect to intimately bond himself with humanity by sharing in our sufferings in His second person to become one like us in all ways save sin in order to save us.
There is no logic error here.
James
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BlaineTog
Guest
Ok, so do you want to actually argue, or just be contrary without giving any reasons to be?They did not know it was wrong, they couldn’t.
They did not know that not doing as you are told by God was wrong.
Yes they did. Where does it say “the tree of knowledge of knowing what you should do?” They had compasses, and the compasses were labeled very clearly, and they knew what the labels signified (ie “do this,” or “don’t do this”). They didn’t understand what it was about a given action that made the needle point north or south, but this shouldn’t matter.No they didn’t, they had no moral compass.
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Subrosa
Guest
You are absolutly correct to say it is logical nonsense! Present day scholarship tells us that it is mythological.How could it be sin if they didn’t know it was wrong?
How could they know that doing what the serpent said was wrong?
If you have a child and you see then reaching for a hot pan… what do you do?
Well it looks like God would let them burn themselves and kick them out the house afterwards and then punish all their offspring as well.
is God ominscient or not?
Is he culpable or not?
This story is logical nonsense.
What you should understand as the point of the story is that somewhere at the beginning of humanity man fell away from God. From that time on we humans feel the consequences of that original sin. This is what you should bring out of this story.
A note on mythology - Mythology speaks of truths in creative terms. It is neither fiction nor non-fiction, but it also is both.
Consider this - the written language was not invented until the 11th chapter of Genesis. No one was there to write the story of Adam and Eve and could not have written it down anyway. The stories are oral tradition and tribal lore. The trick is to find the truth hidden inside.
You may also want to know that there are two creation stories in the bible. The first is from Gen 1:1 to 2:3. The second from 2:4 to 2:25. Read them seperately, compare the two and you will see.
Subrosa
I
inthecloud
Guest
And the Jewish understandig of that passage is different too. Combines elemets of the EO and CC position.The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox do not believe in Original Sin, and the theological interpretation of Eastern Catholics is similar, although compatible with Catholic belief while maintaining union with Rome, so there is some wiggle room for understanding…
And some existentialism.
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pprimeau1976
Guest
How could Adam and Eve be punished for doing wrong when they didn’t know right from wrong before they did it?
I don’t know for sure whether or not they knew right from wrong in a general sense. You are assuming that they were totally ignorant of the concept of goodness and wickedness which is something that affects your interpretation. From the text itself, I can assume that they did know the concept of goodness and the concept of wickedness. But for right now let me show you how they knew in a particular way that eating the fruit was wrong.This implies that the concept of original sin is based on a logical absurdity.Is it?
When it came down to particular acts (i.e. eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge) they did know that not eating the fruit was the right thing to do and eating the fruit was the wrong thing to do. The reason for this at a minimum is because God told Adam plainly the consequences of what eating the fruit meant:
Adam and Eve knew that there were good consequences - eternal life - and bad consequences - certain death. So at least in this instance they knew what was right and what was wrong based on the consequences.“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Gen 2:16-17
When it comes down to a general sense of right and wrong, I can deduce from the text itself that Adam knew what was good and what was evil because of how God described the tree. He did not tell Adam to not eat the tree in the “middle of the garden,” (Gen 3:3) as Eve referred to it. God told Adam what the tree was, not *where *the tree was. He referred to the tree using the terms “good” and “evil”. This implies that Adam knew the concepts of good and evil and therefore had some idea of what was right and what was wrong.
WhenI think of what the “knowledge of good and evil” is, I don’t take it to mean the knowledge of the concepts of goodness and wickedness. It’s having intimate familiarity with what was good and what was evil. Consider what happened immediately after they ate the fruit. They both became aware and ashamed of their nakedness. Why? Nakedness is not evil. If nakedness was evil, God would have clothed them. Rather, they probably became intimately familiar of sins that were associated with nakedness.
Does this mean therefore that God created *evil? *No! Evil is not a thing or an action, it’s a word used to describe certain things or actions. And evil things aren’t evil in and of themselves, they just get called that because they either commit evil acts or they are used to commit evil acts. Given modern societies’ embracing of choices, it’s amazing that God gets blamed for “creating” evil. In reality, we “create” evil whenever we reject God’s goodness and the good things He created.
This is just the way I have come to understand my faith.
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Gottle_of_Geer
Guest
How could Adam and Eve be punished for doing wrong when they didn’t know right from wrong before they did it?
This implies that the concept of original sin is based on a logical absurdity.
Is it?
Original sin is a reality - the story is just that, a story. If it were about Janet & John, the factual status of OS would not be affected in the least. Because the historical link traditionally made between A & E, & us, is not the same thing as the logical link between sin, & its effects. So if an ancient caveman in Africa a million years BC were the first sinner, & the ancestor of the human race, OS would still be a fact.
Jesus overcome sin decisevely & finally - OS is not dependent for its actuality on the accuracy of a Hebrew myth which has nothing to do with it in any case. So Jesus Christ is still Our Saviour from sin, & from everything about it - He is not made unreal by the non-factual status of Adam & Eve.
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mlchance
Guest
You keep saying that as if mere repetition lends a false statement weight. Adam and Eve certainly had a “moral compass” since they walked and talked regularly with God. They had one rule to not break, given to Adam directly by God.No they didn’t, they had no moral compass.
God told them: Don’t eat the fruit of that tree.
Even a young child could understand that much.
– Mark L. Chance.
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VociMike
Guest
This is a brilliant point. If one says “do not touch the red button” that implies that the hearer knows what “red” means and what “button” means. This, combined with the analogical fact that they were alive even though they had not eaten of the tree of life, would seem to answer the question decisively.When it comes down to a general sense of right and wrong, I can deduce from the text itself that Adam knew what was good and what was evil because of how God described the tree. He did not tell Adam to not eat the tree in the “middle of the garden,” (Gen 3:3) as Eve referred to it. God told Adam what the tree was, not *where *the tree was. He referred to the tree using the terms “good” and “evil”. This implies that Adam knew the concepts of good and evil and therefore had some idea of what was right and what was wrong.
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tm30
Guest
They didn’t need to know “right” from “wrong” because their will was united to God’s. Thus, when God said, “don’t eat from that tree,” there was no protest. Not until the serpent tempted them into asserting their own will INSTEAD of God’s - deciding right or wrong for themselves - did they commit sin. By choosing the privation of good, by definition, they knowingly chose the opposite, which is “the bad”.It is not a false premise, Adam and Eve did not know what was good and what was evil, they didn’t know that disobeying God was evil. The were not given ‘all the knowledge they need’ they didn’t have the knowledge of right and wrong.
The story makes no sense.
And christians have been controlled by the doctrine of original sin for centuries based upon it.
It seems you think Original Sin is a swell thing.
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tm30
Guest
They knew guilt after they ate the fruit. The mere fact they realized they had a choice of listening to God or the serpent demonstrates they had a conscious understanding of opposites - God being good, the serpent contradicting Him, and so, the privation of God, or “evil”.They only knew good and evil after that ate the fruit.
So they couldn’t know what was good or evil before that act.
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tm30
Guest
They knew that the serpent was contradicting God, and therefore privated of God’s goodness. If they did not realize this, the serpent would not have had to convince them to eat the apple. Eve would have simply obeyed the serpent if it said, “Do this!” and no further coaxing would be necessary. The coaxing of the serpent infers an initial reticence on the part of Eve, and therefore, an initial recognition on her part that the serpent was not following the will of God.they could not know that disobeying God was evil.
Therefore, turning away from God and toward the serpent was a positive act of choosing evil (the absence of God) over good (their Creator).
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tm30
Guest
You’re hung up on biological progression. If there were something LIKE Adam moping around the earth, it would still fall exponentially short of the diginity of Adam, because Adam was created in the image of God, i.e., with a rational soul infused. It doesn’t really matter one way or the other, regarding evolution, because the starting line at which God made man in His image (the creation of Adam) cannot be moved by one theory or another.OK… if Catholics are allowed to believe the theory of evolution (with provisos - and I haven’t seen a Magesterial teaching that says we can by the way) then…
Who were Adam and Eve’s parents?
Did they die?
Was there death in the world before Adam and Eve?
Is the ‘you shall die’ part of Eden story another point we can dismiss?
It also doesn’t matter whether or not anything died before Adam was created, because the only beings who were designed to enjoy immortality were Adam and Eve, by virtue of their infused souls being united to God’s continual lifesource - His will - the Tree of Life. Death was not a punishment of plants and trees and insects and cattle. Those things lived, died, reproduced, etc. By sinning, Adam and Eve forfeited their dignity as children of God, and thus assumed the dignity of the lesser creatures who do not enjoy immortality, and here we stand today.
Through baptism, that dignity is restored to us, and we become the adoptive children of God. The sin is wiped away, although the temporal effects remain (i.e., bodily death). In God’s great mercy, He sent His only Son to suffer with us the punishment of death and atone for the sin of Adam. Since we are descendants of Adam, our death cannot appease God. But the death of the spotless Lamb, God Himself, does. Therefore the greatest act of love is self-sacrifice, since God is love, and His appeasement was sacrifice itself.
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tm30
Guest
No, that’s what the serpent told them would be the result; but they knew the contradiction of God, and therefore, they understood the turning away from good by turning toward the serpent. And so, they were aware of good and evil, if even by process of understanding opposites. The payoff, Adam and Eve discovered, was not knowledge of good and evil, but knowledge of innocence and guilt. You see… the serpent tricked them.Only after eating the fruit did they BECOME like God knowing good from evil.
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tm30
Guest
They understood the contradiction, otherwise there would be no need of coaxing. Since God was all they knew, all they knew prior to the serpent’s arrival was “good”. The contradiction he presented, by definition, was evil. If they did not recognize the serpent as evil, they would have recognized the serpent as God.Adam and Eve had no concept of what a lie was. Why should they think that doing what the serpent said is evil?
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tm30
Guest
They only knew good until the serpent tempted them to turn away from God and towards him. The verse you cite doesn’t state that they knew good from evil by eating the apple. God merely states that they know good from evil.No they didn’t! Gen 3;22
By merely listening to the serpent, they turned from God and assumed a knowledge of evil. If they ignored the serpent, his contradiction would not be present to their conscience, and thus, they would still only listen to the voice of God, knowing only good.
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tm30
Guest
God foresaw their sin, yet still created them. Sounds like a deal to me. Would you rather He foresaw the sin and decided, “Nah. I don’t need to share my love, so what’s the point of creating anything?” Your view presumes God owes us something - like a sullen teenager lashing out, “I didn’t ask to be created!”Christ was preordained before creation to be the saviour of mankind, before man was created.
God created Adam and Eve knowing they would need saving? Really? Adam and Eve were set up.
It looks like it was already mapped out that Adam and Eve would sin.
Are they really culpable?
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tm30
Guest
God didn’t have to put the tree where it was.
He didn’t have to leave it unguarded.
He didn’t have to create the serpent so cunning and deceitful.
He didn’t have to let the serpent into the garden.
He could have warned Adam and Eve about the serpent.
and so it goes on…
God is supposedly omniscient.
God didn’t have to create the universe. Period. Our existence under any circumstance is a gift because we can still choose to enjoy the bliss of eternal life (or not).It looks like Adam and Eve were manouvered into doing this.
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tm30
Guest
They were put to the test. How does that make God culpable for their choice? Again, “I didn’t ask to be created!”, seems to excuse us of all our wrongdoing, then, doesn’t it?It looks like Adam and Eve were manouvered into doing this.
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VociMike
Guest
Except I would not call it a test. They were allowed to make a choice. No true relationship based on love can exist without choice on both sides.They were put to the test. How does that make God culpable for their choice? Again, “I didn’t ask to be created!”, seems to excuse us of all our wrongdoing, then, doesn’t it?
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