Did Adam and Eve know Good and Evil before they ate the fruit?

[Khalfan]

There were two trees in the garden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil.

Some believe that evil is in animals as the serpant’snake’ Do you?

Dessert

Serpent is not necessarily, a snake. But a creature that came in to Garden in the form of a snake. Serpent/Satan/Devil its all the same. Satan can only temp us, to do evil. Doing evil is our choice. We can’t blame Satan for what we do.

 

[Khalfan]

Because Adam’s blood was tainted with sin, he wasn’t pure, his soul ( the breath of life God the Father breathed into him) was doomed. Cain and Abel brought the first fruits of their labor to God as penance and offering as Jesus ( the Word made flesh)had not come to the world as yet. Adam and Eve were on speaking terms with the Creator. Adam and Eve ate the animals they just didn’t just sacrifice them. Jesus is the first fruit of the Father we eat or commune with Him at the Eucharist and recieve Him into our body as the fruit of the vine(tree). Only can we do this because He gave His pure blood as the sacrifice on the cross as He was conceived by the Holy spirit and knew no sin. He was tempted in a garden also. Did God set this all up? I do not know the mind of God or the will, I follow the shepherd of my life Jesus the Christ.

Dessert

Are you answering me? If yes, my question is, if God knew, Jesus is the perfect sacrifice, why would God demand some imperfect sacrifices of all those animals?

 

[Khalfan]

My point was that the fruit did not CONTAIN any secret knowledge. It was merely a signal to God and to man that if it were “bitten into” man would realize that he had disobeyed God, and that that realization (by man) is the KNOWLEDGE (experience) of good (which man suddenly “left”) and evil (which man suddenly “entered”).

The reason that it was important to know that Satan spoke Gen3:5 was that the verse that you quoted was the “enticement” portion, which was proceeded by the “lying” portion, Gen3:4, which was “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die’…”

My overall point in this exchange with you is that Satan used lies mixed with truths (Gen3:4 & Gen3:5) to “convince” Eve that she could do something, against God’s wishes, which she KNEW was an evil.

Why was she convincable? Not because she was “unprepared” for Satan’s tactics, because his tactics were worthless against someone who knew what she knew, UNLESS by free choice (free will) she simply puts herself above God, which she did.

In other words, she KNEW (experienced) that it was GOOD to obey God before she partook of the fruit, and she was AWARE (but did not KNOW {experience}) that it was EVIL to disobey God before she partook of the fruit.

Once she partook of the fruit, she KNEW (experienced) BOTH good and evil, which only God “KNEW” before that time.

You contend that man was unprepared for Satan. I disagree with that, because if that were true then man’s first sin was not commited out of free will, which makes it “NOT a sin”, but rather an inevitability.

If man’s fall was an inevitability, and not a CHOICE, then free will simply doesn’t exist.

Allah runs (would run if he were God) the world by predeterministic means, meaning the means of a slave (robot) master.

God runs the world as a Father, supporting above all things the free will of those creatures with free will, by rewarding those who deserve reward and correcting (“punishing”) those who deserve correction.

My dear, I already explained what I believe in regards to this.

Adam’s sin and its outcome are depicted in the following verse of the Quran:

"O Adam, dwell with your wife in the Garden and enjoy as you wish but approach not this tree or (if you eat) you run into harm and transgression. Then Satan whispered to them in order to reveal to them their shame that was hidden from them and he said: ‘Your Lord only forbade you this tree lest you become angels or such beings as live forever.’ And he swore to them both that he was their sincere adviser. So by deceit he brought them to their fall: when they tasted the tree their shame became manifest to them and they began to sew together the leaves of the Garden over their bodies. And their Lord called unto them: ‘Did I not forbid you that tree and tell you that Satan was your avowed enemy?’ “(Quran 7:19-22).

Please note that, the Satan was lying to Adam and Eve, about the power they get if they eat the fruit and in the Bible Serpent was not lying. As per Bible, they got the knowledge of good and evil after they eat the fruit which GOD confirms by saying ”The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil” which made me think that, haven’t they had that knowledge before? As per Quran, they knew good and evil. Still Adam and Eve disobeyed GOD and felt shame of sin once after they ate the fruit. As per Bible, GOD was not supposed to claim that disobeying a sin, since Adam and Eve haven’t had the knowledge. But as per Quran, when GOD asked ‘Did I not forbid you that tree and tell you that Satan was your avowed enemy?’; God had a point. Quran gives me the logic which I lack in the statement of Bible.

Adam and Eve were perfect creatures. They knew good and evil even before eating the fruit.

 

[Khalfan]

Yeah, well, it is also illogical to me that my son took some LSD and saw things that were not there. How can something so tiny as a sticker produce so much havoc in his life and cause so much tragedy?

To tell you the truth, I don’t understand how shiploads of folks died of scurvy because of one vitamin.

In fact, it is illogical to me that a heart beats at all, or that a virgin can have a baby without a man, or that someone cloned a sheep.

For me, there are just some things that don’t warrant questioning and if eating that fruit from that tree caused all of mankind to genetically pass down Adam’s death trait and sin --then it was indeed SOME FRUIT, but then again, we are talking about Almighty God and a place that none of us have ever been nor seen.

Then the forum is not for you. You are believing what you want to believe.

 

[Khalfan]

Man’s “immortality” did die THAT DAY.

The death that they “got”, by sinning, was the death of the body, to be applied when they had “worn out” their physical bodies.

You may believe as you wish.

Before eating of the Tree of Good and Evil, man was not capable of physically dying.

The moment man ate the fruit, he lost his “perfection”, which allowed him to never die, and became mortal.

He DIED that very moment as an immortal being, but continued to live (physically) as a mortal being.

Got it? You DON’T have to agree with it, but do you simply understand what I’m saying?

No. Because it is simply your imaginations. No scripturel support. No scientifical suppport. The immortality were in the other fruit.

How long you will misinterpret and misquote scripture to prove yourself?

 

[Khalfan]

You may believe as you like, buckeroo.

Islam is a weird complex of materialism and “spiritualism”, in my opinion.

I don’t say my openion. When I say established facts of science contradicting the ‘truths’ in your scripture, I mean it. It is not an allegation.

If the sun was created on the third day (Genesis 1:13-18), how possibly the first 2 days and nights came into existence without the sun? May be God was the source of the light for the first two days; but the earth doesn’t move/rotate (1 Chr 16:30, Psalms 93:1, 96:10), how the day and night, morning and evening happened?

You might want to read up on what the Church (Catholic) says about:

Genesis: CCC390
Faith and Science: CCC159
(( CCC Search ))

God is the creator of everything, and the beauty of all things seen and unseen are His beauty.

You won’t see anything at all my dear, until you open your eyes.

 

[Khalfan]

(Continued)

And Genesis continues with a story which expressed a fundelment truth, namely, while our reason can be deceived and we mistake what is not good to be “The Good” (again as symbolized by the fruit) it is actually the act of the Will that causes sin. The women was deceived in her temptation however the man made the free choice to go again his nature - he understood through his intellect, that is his immediate knowledge of the “Good” - God, that he was a creature and not the author of what is truly good of best for him, known immediately from his intimate relationship with God.

This brings me back to my first point, that evil does not exist in and of itself. Rather, it is a lack of good. It is the gap that comes to exist the more we move away from God (The ultimate Good). The more an act moves us away from our intimate relationship with God the greater is the lack of true goodness and we call this evil. The act of freely choosing to reject what man innately knew to be the good could be called evil because of it’s total lack of the good or separation from God.

Thus the ultimate evil is death because death is the total absence of life. For a people and culture that had no metaphysics as was the case of the Hebrew and later Israelite people this could only be expressed as a physical death. But I think the theology of the Eastern Tradition of the Church expresses the meaning of death in a way we can all understand. The ultimate death is the absence of God’s life or grace in a person’s life. I think this builds well on the Christian understanding of physical death - life has not ended but merely changed.

As I wrote before, after the story of “The Fall” Genesis continues to relate the effects on human nature once man had so fundelmentally rejected God in order to become his own god. Actually this is the story of the rest of the Bible.

However, I cannot end this post without pointing out that the ultimate end of the Biblical Story is God’s unending and unconditional Love expressed beyond human understanding and imagination in the Incarnation.

You are pointing to another mystery in Christianity.

 

[kaysette]

So now you are in the position to tell people who should and should not be here.

The reason I am here is to learn what the Bible DOES say and does NOT say. Too many people have too many differing opinions about doctrines – and usually these discrepancies lie in the things that the Bible does NOT say. There is a lot of “reading between the lines” so to speak.

There are a lot crazier “fables” and “myths” around the creation story than what surfaces on this forum. St. Paul warned believers to stay away from fables and to stick with what they taught. That makes the real task for us to study and find out what the early church really taught. Most of the fables and creation tales are quickly eliminated by this study.

I honestly came with real questions, some of which have been answered – and some of which I may have to “shelf” until I see our Lord face to face. I have read all your posts, and I am not so sure you came with any real questions at all. It seems to me that you came with preconceived ideas and already had many suitable answers in your own mind – and are more concerned with convincing US that our Bible, our traditions and our knowledge is somehow less credible than your sources.

That’s fine and the dialogue is interesting, but at least I don’t pretend to have all the answers under the guise of wanting more enlightenment from the Christians.

I have learned something on this discussion string – can you say you have?

 

[kaysette]

I would like to offer another idea for consideration. I have read in some of the responses that evil exist as something onto itself. But in the philosophy of St. Thomas, he offers that evil in itself does not exist. What we experience in evil is actually a lack of “The Good”.

This is a fascinating concept! It sort of goes along with the idea that darkness is actually the absence of light! If God is LIGHT, then to be separated from HIM is to be in darkness.

It also goes along with the teaching about the fruit of the spirit and the works of the flesh. It isn’t that the fruit or works saves a person, so much as that this is the characteristics of WHAT IS the character of the person. We can discern what and who we are, by examining our “fruit.”

Same with sin - we cannot be righteous and holy at the same time we are doing evil. The moment Adam and Eve started doing the wrong action, they could not longer be doing the RIGHT actions.

Or, that bitter and sweet water cannot flow from the same fountain. The scriptures say that bad communications cannot flow from the same mouth as evil communications.

This was a very good post and has given me a lot of food for thought! Thanks!

 

[kaysette]

Adam and Eve? and the Fall of Man?

C’mon, we all know who did it. Ladies, do you *have *to eat everything ?

You know the old adage: The way to a man’s heart…

 

[Khalfan]

I have no idea what you said means.

You said, God doesn’t choose people. I said, the God in the Bible, does choose people. You are contradicting the scripture. Why?

In your opinion, did God create evil?

No. It is our choice.

 

[Khalfan]

God experienced evil by the DOING of evil by Satan.

It is silly to consider that God doesn’t KNOW (experience) everything, isn’t it?

Why you contradict yourself? Did God know or not?

 

[Khalfan]

So now you are in the position to tell people who should and should not be here.

The reason I am here is to learn what the Bible DOES say and does NOT say. Too many people have too many differing opinions about doctrines – and usually these discrepancies lie in the things that the Bible does NOT say. There is a lot of “reading between the lines” so to speak.

There are a lot crazier “fables” and “myths” around the creation story than what surfaces on this forum. St. Paul warned believers to stay away from fables and to stick with what they taught. That makes the real task for us to study and find out what the early church really taught. Most of the fables and creation tales are quickly eliminated by this study.

I honestly came with real questions, some of which have been answered – and some of which I may have to “shelf” until I see our Lord face to face. I have read all your posts, and I am not so sure you came with any real questions at all. It seems to me that you came with preconceived ideas and already had many suitable answers in your own mind – and are more concerned with convincing US that our Bible, our traditions and our knowledge is somehow less credible than your sources.

That’s fine and the dialogue is interesting, but at least I don’t pretend to have all the answers under the guise of wanting more enlightenment from the Christians.

I have learned something on this discussion string – can you say you have?

I have and I agree with you. As you have reasons for believing what you want, I too have reasons for my ideas. I think, I am reasoning with others, in hope to choose the best.

 

[dessert]

Are you answering me? If yes, my question is, if God knew, Jesus is the perfect sacrifice, why would God demand some imperfect sacrifices of all those animals?

Genisis 4;4 Abel offered God an acceptable sacrifice
Hebrews 11;4 Abel’s sacrifice was acceptable to God because of his faith. If it wasn’t a command of God it would have been superstition.
They were the fruit(first born)
The custom was truly approved by God, and in the Mosaic Law ( Ten Commandments) it was adopted and elaborately developed.
Jesus had not come yet and the some Jews (or Israel) are still waiting for the messiah.

To call sacrifices to God imperfect is blasphemous and I would say heresy, but you are not a Christian by any means that I can tell. God does not want us to make sacrifices to idols and you are treading into deep waters.

Our Church does not lie and has the truth of the tradition yes for 2000+ years, I will more than likely not post either as I think YOU should have quit a long time ago.

If you continue to critizize the Catholic doctrine and now the Mosaic principles and you even mention the Israel Nation and Abraham what is left for you to mock in your nice peacefull is all I want way and intentions. Abraham ifs a church Father of our Faaith and I’m sure you will have something to say about this as I will come back with prayers fo chastisement on you and the peaceful Islam which you are not expressing anymore. Dessert

**

“Be Jesus, Share Jesus” Blessed Mother Teresa**

 

[Ferdinand_Mary]

As a reminder, this is the Sacred Scriptures forum. If a discussion is desired regarding the truth claims of the Bible versus the truth claims of the Qur’an, please start a thread either in the Apologetics or Non-Catholic Religions forums.

Thank you to all who participated, this thread is now closed.

Mane Nobiscum Domine,
Ferdinand Mary