Adam or Eve? Who to ultimately blame for the fall?

[DominvsVobiscvm]

Of course, Adam was ultimately to blame. According to Saint Ireneaus:

How is it possible to say that the serpent, created by God dumb and irrational, was endowed with reason and speech? For if it had the power of itself to speak, to discern, to understand, and to reply to what was spoken by the woman, there would have been nothing to prevent every serpent from doing this also. If, however, they say again that it was according to the divine will and dispensation that this [serpent] spake with a human voice to Eve, they render God the author of sin. Neither was it possible for the evil demon to impart speech to a speechless nature, and thus from that which is not to produce that which is; for if that were the case, he never would have ceased (with the view of leading men astray) from conferring with and deceiving them by means of serpents, and beasts, and birds. From what quarter, too, did it, being a beast, obtain information regarding the injunction of God to the man given to him alone, and in secret, not even the woman herself being aware of it? Why also did it not prefer to make its attack upon the man instead of the woman? And if thou sayest that it attacked her as being the weaker of the two, , on the contrary, she was the stronger, since she appears to have been the helper of the man in the transgression of the commandment. For she did by herself alone resist the serpent, and it was after holding out for a while and making opposition that she ate of the tree, being circumvented by craft; whereas Adam, making no fight whatever, nor refusal, partook of the fruit handed to him by the woman, which is an indication of the utmost imbecility and effeminacy of mind. And the woman indeed, having been vanquished in the contest by a demon, is deserving of pardon; but Adam shall deserve none, for he was worsted by a woman,–he who, in his own person, had received the command from God. But the woman, having heard of the command from Adam, treated it with contempt, either because she deemed it unworthy of God to speak by means of it, or because she had her doubts, perhaps even held the opinion that the command was given to her by Adam of his own accord. The serpent found her working alone, so that he was enabled to confer with her apart. Observing her then either eating or not eating from the trees, he put before her the fruit of the [forbidden] tree. And if he saw her eating, it is manifest that she was partaker of a body subject to corruption. “For everything going in at the mouth, is cast out into the draught.” If then corruptible, it is obvious that she was also mortal. But if mortal, then there was certainly no curse; nor was that a [condemnatory] sentence, when the voice of God spake to the man, “For earth thou art, and unto earth shall thou return,” as the true course of things proceeds [now and always]. Then again, if the serpent observed the woman not eating, how did he induce her to eat who never had eaten? And who pointed out to this accursed man-slaying serpent that the sentence of death pronounced against them by God would not take [immediate] effect, when He said, “For in the day that ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die?” And not this merely, but that along with the impunity [attending their sin] the eyes of those should be opened who had not seen until then? But with the opening [of their eyes] referred to, they made entrance upon the path of death.

{Fragment 14 from The Lost Writings of Ireneaus}

Eve played an essential role in the Fall of man, but it was seconday nonetheless. Mankind was a unity in Adam, not Eve. Had Adam not sinned, Eve would have been punished for her personal fault, but the human race as a whole would not have suffered punishment.

 

[AnAtheist]

God has created Adam, Eve, and Satan in a way that it is possible for them to fall. Furthermore A&E were deliberately created *without *the sense of good and evil, i.e. they cannot judge that their deeds are evil, as they have no knowledge of evil. After commiting something evil they gain the knowledge of it and get punished for it. BTW, while the fall is underway, God silently observes it without interfering.

Within the logic of the story, God is to blame and noone else.

 

[DominvsVobiscvm]

I’m not exactly sure what Scripture means when it describes the forbidden tree as that “of knowledge of good and evil.”

All I can tell you is that Jews and Christians have never interpreted this text to mean that Adam and Eve had no sense of what is right and wrong. They were, in fact, culpable for their sins.

BTW, while the fall is underway, God silently observes it without interfering.

Dude, it’s called “free will.”

 

[AnAtheist]

DominvsVobiscvm:

All I can tell you is that Jews and Christians have never interpreted this text to mean that Adam and Eve had no sense of what is right and wrong. They were, in fact, culpable for their sins.

As I am neither Jew nor Christian, I am free to interpret it otherwise, like how it is written there.

DominvsVobiscvm:

Dude, it’s called “free will.”

Dude, “free will” is incompatible with an omniscient god.

God had to know that Adam and Eve will fall before he even created them, otherwise he is not omniscient. If he knew that, he deliberately created them to fall, the fall was therefore already predestined, hence no free will.

 

[DominvsVobiscvm]

As I am neither Jew nor Christian, I am free to interpret it otherwise, like how it is written there.

Yeah, but it’s ludicrous to think that you can understand a text, especially one so ancient, by “just reading it how it is written,” without any regard to its interpretation and understanding by those to whom, and for whom, it was written. This applies to the Bible as much as it does to Homer, Virgil, or Dante.

God had to know that Adam and Eve will fall before he even created them, otherwise he is not omniscient. If he knew that, he deliberately created them to fall, the fall was therefore already predestined, hence no free will.

Knowing that something will happen is not the same as making it happen. Philosophy 101

 

[AnAtheist]

DominvsVobiscvm:

Knowing that something will happen is not the same as making it happen. Philosophy 101

Right, but he did make it happen. He is the creator of everything, isn’t he?

 

[SteveG]

AnAtheist:

As I am neither Jew nor Christian, I am free to interpret it otherwise, like how it is written there.

And this is exactly how fundamentalists read the bible. They read it as literalists. Are you sure you want to dismiss it based on the same grounds for which they accept it, a simplistic literal reading?

Scripture is not meant to be read by modern readers as if it was plainly written for them. One needs to know the cultural context , and how that would have played into the writers choices. One need understand the issues regarding the hebrew langauage. One need understand the mindset of Pre BC semitic writers who were obsessed with neither our individualistic view of man, nor our chronological view of history. These are just a few of the myriad factors that need to be considered. This is exactly why as Catholic we reject the notion that the bible is open to interpretation of each individual. Few if any individuals have such a breadth of knowleged and understanding to handle these issues.

No even moderately serious bible scholar (secular or religious) would read these passages in the simplistic way you are.

AnAtheist:

God had to know that Adam and Eve will fall before he even created them, otherwise he is not omniscient. If he knew that, he deliberately created them to fall, the fall was therefore already predestined, hence no free will.

Could not an ominiscient God ‘know’ of all the possible infinite paths that might be chosen? Could such a being not see both paths (fall and no-fall) running to their full conclusion and still allow for either to be chosen? This would satisfy omniscience (as ‘knowing’ everything), and the ability for individuals to choose which path they will follow.

 

[DominvsVobiscvm]

Right, but he did make it happen. He is the creator of everything, isn’t he?

You’re asking some very, very basic questions, none of which are exactly original. They’ve all been answered. I don’t mean to come across as being rude or uncharitable, but there are books that treat these questions masterfully. For example, Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli’s Handbook of Christian Apologetics: Answers to Crucial Questions.

Short answer: God is the creator of everything. But evil isn’t a thing. It’s the lack of the good.

God created the mateiral and spiritual world, but what his creatures do is another thing entirely. My parents are my procreators, but they are not the author of my actions. DItto with God, except he is creator.

 

[patg]

AmandaPS:

patg: It seems that you are holding your own private interpretations of the text above the teaching Magesterium. I pray you reconsider.

I’m just working through my own doubts and questions as best I know how. I’m sure the people of the Magesterium had to do the same thing.

Pat

 

[AnAtheist]

SteveG:

And this is exactly how fundamentalists read the bible. …] No even moderately serious bible scholar (secular or religious) would read these passages in the simplistic way you are.

Granted. Please add “I am also free to interpret the bible otherwise than any religious authority” to my argument. Like regarding Genesis a nice fairy tale.

Could not an ominiscient God ‘know’ of all the possible infinite paths that might be chosen? Could such a being not see both paths (fall and no-fall) running to their full conclusion and still allow for either to be chosen? This would satisfy omniscience (as ‘knowing’ everything), and the ability for individuals to choose which path they will follow.

Yes, sure if was nearly omniscient. The point is, that a truely omniscient (and omnipotent I might add) god knows what path his minions will choose before he even creates them. They do not have a chance to choose the other path, that would prove god’s assertion wrong.

 

[AnAtheist]

DominvsVobiscvm:

Short answer: God is the creator of everything. But evil isn’t a thing. It’s the lack of the good.

Let me quote “out of context” again:
God (Isaiah 45:7) ASV:

I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I am Jehovah, that doeth all these things.

 

[patg]

AnAtheist:

Yes, sure if was nearly omniscient. The point is, that a truely omniscient (and omnipotent I might add) god knows what path his minions will choose before he even creates them. They do not have a chance to choose the other path, that would prove god’s assertion wrong.

And god left the tree there where god knew the creations would find it…

If I leave a loaded gun out and my child finds it and uses it, I am punished forever - NOT my child. Sounds pretty similar.

(just playing along with the poll here…)
Pat

 

[SteveG]

patg:

I’m just working through my own doubts and questions as best I know how. I’m sure the people of the Magesterium had to do the same thing.

Pat

This is what confuses me. You are saying your are working through your doubts and questions, but I have seen comments of yours in three separate threads where you came across extremely agressively in your surety that ‘traditional’ views of topics (from Mary’s perpetual virginity, to the Gospel of Thomas, to your comments in this thread) were nonsense (a word you have used repeatedly). These comments don’t seem to fit with what you say above.

If for instance you doubt that the story of Adam and Eve has any viable historicity to it, you might open a discussion with something like…

*I don’t think there is any historical intent in the Creation accounts, could someone explain to me why/how they beleive this position is tenable.

…And then folks could give their thoughts, which you would be
free to accept as valid or reject. Instead your initial post was…
*
** Since this fictional story is an ancient attempt to explain how there came to be suffering in the world (i.e., what happens when God is disobeyed), I sincerely hope this is just a fun little exercise.*

*…showing little doubt or struggle in your take on this. Something doesn’t jive.

 

[patg]

SteveG:

Something doesn’t jive.

While I don’t always make sense to me either, my doubts and questioning have led me to a number of strongly held views and I have expressed those in posts here. I did lack subtlety with my expressions of absolute disbelief but that was only to counter the expressions of absolute belief I see here (no criticism intended - I’m sure it feels good).
Pat

 

[SteveG]

patg:

While I don’t always make sense to me either, my doubts and questioning have led me to a number of strongly held views and I have expressed those in posts here.

I would only sincerely ask then, are you certain you have ‘heard’ both sides of the argument on these issues? Might I ask what resources have you used in your study?

patg:

(no criticism intended - I’m sure it feels good).

This last dig is irrelavent. I am sure you position ‘feels’ good to you as well. What does that mean exactly, and what has it got to do with anything? Do you beleive that no one here besides you has looked at these issues deeply, studied them, and honestly come to a different conclusion? Or do you think we only hold our opinions on an emotional basis?

 

[DominvsVobiscvm]

AnAtheist:

Let me quote “out of context” again:

The Revised Standard Version translates this verse as:

I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I am the LORD, who do all these things.

Even supposing we translate this word as “evil,” it need not mean moral evil. In fact, according to the context, this appears to not be the case at all. If anything, this refers to certain “physical evils.”

Again, we need to understand this verse in light of the religious tradition of Israel (including the rest of the Tanakah), which never saw God as the originator of moral evil. According to Daniel Barns’s Notes on the Bible:

The parallelism here shows that this is not to be understood in the sense of all evil, but of that which is the opposite of peace and prosperity. That is, God directs judgments, disappointments, trials, and calamities; he has power to suffer the mad passions of people to rage, and to afflict nations with war; he presides over adverse as well as prosperous events. The passage does not prove that God is the author of moral evil, or sin, and such a sentiment is abhorrent to the general strain of the Bible, and to all just views of the character of a holy God.

 

[AnAtheist]

DominvsVobiscvm:

The Revised Standard Version translates this verse as:

I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I am the LORD, who do all these things.

Yup, and the NIV translated “disaster” and the KJV translated “evil” and Luther translated “Unheil”.

Again, we need to understand this verse in light of the religious tradition of Israel (including the rest of the Tanakah), which never saw God as the originator of moral evil.

Afaik, Jews (or at least some of them) see evil as a punishment from God for their sins, thus blaming themselves.

I don’t want to start just another theodicy discussion. But, as for the A&E story, God is obviously capable of creating a perfect place without sin and evil, i.e. heaven. Yet he creates another place where sin and evil is possible, and lets humans stumble into the trap he has laid out. Some thousand years later he assumes human form and undergoes this sinless life/dying/resurrecting-thing to safe us from a fate he himself has invented. That makes no sense.

 

[DominvsVobiscvm]

Afaik, Jews (or at least some of them) see evil as a punishment from God for their sins, thus blaming themselves.

This may be true with regard to physical evils, as noted above. And moral evils too, insofar as God permits them to happen, in order that a greater good might come from it.

I don’t want to start just another theodicy discussion. But, as for the A&E story, God is obviously capable of creating a perfect place without sin and evil, i.e. heaven. Yet he creates another place where sin and evil is possible, and lets humans stumble into the trap he has laid out. Some thousand years later he assumes human form and undergoes this sinless life/dying/resurrecting-thing to safe us from a fate he himself has invented. That makes no sense.

You’re right. It makes no sense. That’s because what you’ve just written is by no means an accurate portrayal of orthodox Christian teaching (though it does seem to fit in nicely with the Calvinist doctrine of double predestination).

If God had created man in a state in which he could not possily have sinned, our love of and deovtion to God would not be free, or the result of a choice freely made. If you were capable of “making” a woman love you, would that forced love mean anything to you?

 

[patg]

SteveG:

This last dig is irrelavent. I am sure you position ‘feels’ good to you as well. What does that mean exactly, and what has it got to do with anything? Do you beleive that no one here besides you has looked at these issues deeply, studied them, and honestly come to a different conclusion? Or do you think we only hold our opinions on an emotional basis?

It wasn’t meant to be a dig at all - I just meant that it is really good to have beliefs you can you can live with, especially when they are based on personal investigation and consideration. Sorry for the poor choice of words.

I acknowledge and understand that you and most others on this forum believe the only beliefs one should live with are those of the Church. I once believed that also.

I am not jumping into this lightly - I have read widely for many years and am close friends with several Franciscan theologians and bible researchers (even related to one).

Right now I can live with my beliefs, in spite of the heretic label. I have learned here and I appreciate those who took the time to have a dialog.

Pat

 

[hecd2]

Ghosty:

hecd2: Ahhh, in that case may I suggest that you might be reading too much into the meaning of the Pope’s writings, or perhaps not enough. The key term would seem to be true men, not simply biological humans. The stance that has been taken by many is that there were true humans, body and soul, before Adam and Eve. What Pius is saying is that all true humans claim descent from Adam and Eve (though not necessarily from only them, at least as far as I can gather), and that Adam and Eve were indeed actual individuals and not representative names of a larger population. The notion that there was a wide initial genetic pool that was not true human due to a lack of the soul does not seem to conflict with what the Pope is saying. These “half-humans”, to use a detestable term, could easily have interbred with the line of Adam and Eve, leaving a modern population that draws from a narrow spiritual line, but a wide genetic mix (genes being the only measurable factor for modern science).

Aha - I understand your point and see how the words can be interpreted as you point out which I had not considered before. Thank you. But, I can’t help but think that PiusXII had no such interpretation in mind and that he considered genetic and spiritual ancestry as one.

Let me ask you a question - do you think it is possible, possible not probable, that there exist today people who do not count Adam and Eve amongst their ancestors and who, although cognitively human do not possess souls? And if not, why not?

I can definately understand your apprehension if you take Pius’ wording to mean that, genetically speaking, modern humans derive ONLY from Adam and Eve. That would definately be a preposterous stance!

Indeed so, but many catholics and other denominations of Christians would disagree with you!

If we take your suggestion as right we are left only with the scientific problems that the mitochondrial coalescence date is 175,000BP, which is before the emergence of anatomically modern humans, and the Y-cchromosome date is 75,000BP, on the fringes of cognitively modern humans but separating Adam and Eve by 100,000 years

EDIT: Incidently, it wasn’t simply science that led to this kind of “clarification” by the Church. There was a time when it was becoming popular to suggest that there were “half-human” races still existing today, and those who made this argument would fall back on the theological suggestion I’m making to back up their argument. The Church took the stance it did to combat that “eugenic” heresy, as well as to reinforce the idea of common descent and transmission of Original Sin. That’s likely the reason that you don’t here the stance I’m taking pushed too often anymore; the eugenics craze made it distasteful for those who wanted to distance themselves from the idea of “half-people”, and with good reason.

Yes, but the argument only works if genetic and spiritual ancestry are identically narrow, as you’ll see if you try answer my questions above. Narrow spiritual and broad genetic ancestry can lead to this issue.

Alec
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