Adam & Eve's Temptation

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Augustine3

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I’m curious…

Adam and Eve were created from God, hence they were very good. If they were very good, why on earth were they tempted by the fruit of the tree of knowledge in the first place? Why won’t they repulsed by the idea of disobeying God?
 
Because God gave them free will. He didn’t want to make them robot-like. Being tempted in itself is not sinful or bad. Our Lord was tempted in the desert by Satan. Being good, God gave then intelligence, gave them choice, even if that choice involved them possibly hurting Him.
 
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I think it would be more accurate to say God gave Eve 100% and she wanted 101%.
 
But He knew beforehand that those particular people would sin. If that is the case why not try another two and foresee if they would sin or not (using their free will) and then create those two instead of Adam and Eve. You would still have a result of the first people having free will but choosing not to sin. This was the case with Mary.
 
Augustine3 said:
I’m curious…

Adam and Eve were created from God, hence they were very good. If they were very good, why on earth were they tempted by the fruit of the tree of knowledge in the first place? Why won’t they repulsed by the idea of disobeying God?
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They were good, but still left in the hands of their own counsel as to whether or not they would be perfect. Man’s perfection is intrinsically connected to our justice, our moral rectitude, which is only fully realized to the extent that we choose and are partnered with the ultimate Good, which is God. So the catechism teaches:

1730 God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. "God willed that man should be ‘left in the hand of his own counsel,’ so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him."26

Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts.27

1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.

1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.

The very purpose of our free will is to make this right choice, without force or coercion.
 
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Its a fascinating question IMO. Its hard to imagine for us what it would be like to live without concupiscence, the tendency to sin. Adam and Eve did not have this, nor did Mary. They chose sin, Mary did not. How could they have done so? They neither had concupiscence and they were in close communion with God. I think the first answer was that the devil worked really hard at the temptation, it was not perhaps as simple as many of us read the story in Genisis. He was likely very persistent, just as he was with Jesus when he tempted Him. He promised great things.
If one is really curious about this, I cannot recommend enough the second book of C.S.Lewis’s space trilogy Perelandra. Its a really good read, and much of the book illustrates Satan’s temptation of the first man and woman on Venus. Fascinating. Of course it is fiction, but I think it really lends a lot of insight into the question.
 
Our Lady also had free will. I’m fact, she probably faced worse temptations than we ever have because the devil had to try harder with her than he has to do with any of us.Any other people the Lord would have made had just as much a chance as Sdam and Eve to sin.
 
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KevinK said:
But He knew beforehand that those particular people would sin. If that is the case why not try another two and foresee if they would sin or not (using their free will) and then create those two instead of Adam and Eve. You would still have a result of the first people having free will but choosing not to sin. This was the case with Mary
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You suggest a ‘trial and error’ period. God that isn’t omniscient that would be. Also it would be a deception or an untruth about God’s nature and man’s.
 
All possibilities that come to being are a finding of the fullness from God.

But, it’s the “happy sin” of Adam, in a deeper theology, that sees the fall as a bad that ultimately leads to a good. Indeed, bad occurs for a greater good, so why would one expect the fall to be any different?
 
Free Will…God in His love created us as rational beings…He wants our love and obedience, but leaves the decision to us.

I had a friend whose father was a tyrant and demanded total obedience, but the relationship was one of fear without love…God gives us the benefit of the doubt, knowong that when we are exposed to the truth we will accept it, and see His love.
 
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Be that as it may, would you agree that God knew what Adam and Eve would do if He created them? If yes, my question stands. If no, you have serious problems with God’s omniscience.
 
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They were in state of grace and fell.

We too fall from state of grace sometimes. Now ask yourself. Why do you fall to temptations?
 
I have always had trouble with the thought that the almighty, omniscient, omnipotent Creator made beings that could and would reject Him, even as He has the power to change that. Why create a world of chaos, misery and struggle? Why create such flawed beings that lack the wisdom to always make the right choice? Why give us the curse of free will when He wishes for all to be saved?

I despise Adam and Eve and the fallen nature of humanity. I also understand that it will never be mine to understand why things are how they are, and that our limited, finite, linear capacity of knowledge is vastly insufficient to grasp the reasoning of God’s will. But even so, the questions never go away, even as I know that it is useless to ask them.
 
I second the suggestion by @tafan2 about reading C.S. Lewis’ book Perelandra. This question always makes me think of that book because it answers the question so well. I think it’s helpful for those struggling with this dilemma. I’ve read it several times, never gets old. Excellent series.
 
ShowerofRoses, am I correct in assuming you are a woman? If so, your post makes my day. I had always thought that the Space Trilogy would primarily appeal to men, I suppose I might be wrong.
 
We know they were good because God Himself said so in Genesis when He declared everything that He made good. They were tempted, and they fell into the trap. This doesn’t mean they were evil.
 
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God does not exist in linear time. He is not sitting looking at a timeline that stretches from ‘the past’ through ‘the present’ into ‘the future’ and saying, :slight_smile:OK, it’s May the fourth 2018, let’s see, today Laura is going to shoplift but she won’t get caught until September 12, 2019. Today Jim-Bob is going to rape his girlfriend, too bad she won’t listen to her best friend’s warning about him. Now here’s a cute little baby going to be born in Peoria; 32 years and 6 months from now he is going to be killed by a drunk driver who will be born 14 years from now because his teen mom will be ‘forced’ into continuing the pregnancy --too bad that she wasn’t given the ‘choice’ to terminate because then this cute baby would still be alive 32 years from now but oh well". .

God did not decide ‘one day’ to create Adam and Eve, out of many possibilities (“Hey, I really kind of liked the idea of BJ and the chimp but I knew the fundies in the 21st century would go nuts, and Adam and Lilith had even MORE problems, so let’s give Adam and Eve a try, because if you think original sin was a bad idea, you should have seen what the others turned out like. And when I tried Wally Cleaver and Pollyanna, sure they never sinned, but they were so boring and saintly that ALL their descendants wound up nuking the planet out of terminal angst”)

It’s hard for us humans to realize, but we are so limited in comparison to God --not just physically but mentally as well–that all our “Well, if I WERE GOD I’d have DONE IT BETTER/RIGHT” blatherings are just that. . .not even comparable to Koko the gorilla signing ‘kitten’, and our puerile attempts to justify our own failings and elevate our own selves to godhood are simply delusions of grandeur.
 
Augustine3 said:
I’m curious…

Adam and Eve were created from God, hence they were very good. If they were very good, why on earth were they tempted by the fruit of the tree of knowledge in the first place? Why won’t they repulsed by the idea of disobeying God?
Click to expand...
Satan is very sly and cunning. When you examine the text you’ll notice that he worked slowly, one step at a time. It’s good to ponder it, because he uses the same method on us!

Genesis 3:1, 4-5 ““Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” … You will not die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The devil is indeed cunning.
  1. “Did God say…?”
    He begins his temptation by asking a question in order to get Eve to interact with him.
    We almost instinctively feel a need to respond to a question addressed to us. I find it interesting that Jesus so often used this same technique, but for the opposite reason - but to lead His listeners to make good choices.
  2. Then Satan tells them “You will not die”
    He begins to undermine Eve’s faith in God’s goodness, getting her to consider the possibility that God might not have been truthful with them.
  3. Next he says: “God knows … your eyes will be opened,”
    Sort of a double whammy: getting them to doubt God’s love for them and His trustworthiness to do what is best for them.
  4. “You will be like God…”
    And last comes the temptation to rouse the sin of pride and get her to act on it.
 
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