Fall of man and Moses

[DonQuichote1235]

Dear all, yesterday I spoke with a friend about religion. He had two questions I couldn’t find an adequate answer for:

1. Why did God, when He is omniscient and omnipotent, allowed Eve to eat from the tree, knowing, that by doing so original sin would come into the world and every human being after Eve (except for Maria) would be stained by orginal sin. Why did God not intervene? Why even create the possibility of eating from that tree (even when told not to do so). Why not placing the tree away from them. He did guard the garden of Eden by angels after Adam and Eve were dismissed so why not guarding the tree?

I heard one answer for this: it was His plan to send His Son to redeem the world. But if this was a preset plan by God (i.e. fall of man → original sin → Jesus Christ → new world) wouldn’t that be somewhat strange?

Is this the only answer for it? Why did God let man fall?

1. Why do we believe in for example Moses as a genuine prophet? Why not some other man that said he was a prophet. There were many people who said that. In other words, why do we specifically believe in Noah, Moses, Elia etc…as prophets and not other people who said the same (i.e. being a prophet)?

Thanks in advance!

Gr. DonQuichote

 

[GLam8833]

He valued our FREE WILL more than anything,
so he left it up to US to choose obedience to His
Laws and Commandments!! His LOVE is Covenanting
Eternal and Infinite so that there IS the possibility of
hell. Same w/ Satan, He chose to violate that Love
and so did 1/3 of the angels in heaven.

 

[grannymh]

Dear all, yesterday I spoke with a friend about religion. He had two questions I couldn’t find an adequate answer for:

1. Why did God, when He is omniscient and omnipotent, allowed Eve to eat from the tree, knowing, that by doing so original sin would come into the world and every human being after Eve (except for Maria) would be stained by orginal sin. Why did God not intervene? Why even create the possibility of eating from that tree (even when told not to do so). Why not placing the tree away from them. He did guard the garden of Eden by angels after Adam and Eve were dismissed so why not guarding the tree?

I heard one answer for this: it was His plan to send His Son to redeem the world. But if this was a preset plan by God (i.e. fall of man → original sin → Jesus Christ → new world) wouldn’t that be somewhat strange?

Is this the only answer for it? Why did God let man fall?

1. Why do we believe in for example Moses as a genuine prophet? Why not some other man that said he was a prophet. There were many people who said that. In other words, why do we specifically believe in Noah, Moses, Elia etc…as prophets and not other people who said the same (i.e. being a prophet)?

Thanks in advance!

Gr. DonQuichote

First. I have no clue how to answer your second question.

I do like discussions about Adam and Eve because I always learn something. What I need to share with you is that Catholic teaching is that Adam, because he is the original first human on planet earth, is the one who committed the Original Sin. Both Adam and Eve freely seriously disobeyed God’s command. But the Original Sin belongs to Adam. Sorry, guys.

In my humble opinion, the key to the answer to the question – “Why did God let man fall?” lies in the nitty-gritty of the original relationship between Adam, the creature, and God, his Creator. It is not exactly necessary to find out everything about that relationship. We only need to find reasonable answers (plural intended) to the question.

Personally, I would like to start with Adam and compare him with what you learn about Adam. Here are the links to the first three chapters of Genesis. Would you mind sharing what you find out about Adam? Me, I like to think of Adam as the strong handsome type because he knows a lot about agriculture. Genesis 1: 15. Someone pulling weeds and pruning trees in the great outdoors appeals to me.

usccb.org/bible/genesis/1

usccb.org/bible/genesis/2

usccb.org/bible/genesis/3

 

[John_Martin]

God created man (male and female) in his image.
Were he to stop Eve from being able to think about and choose the fruit for its seeming benefit, he would have changed his mind - “I made man in my image, but now I am going to take my image away so she does not sin”.

So, you have either an eternal and unchanging God, or a God who himself changes his intentions in time, and therefore would be a contingent being himself.

It is God’s plan to have “fellow beings like him” to enjoy each other’s goodness, that they share his goodness. It could not be with angels, who upon creation know all they know and either turned to him or faced away into themselves. But it could be true with humans, who actualize their knowing in time, actualize their self-understanding in time, and come to know all things (including themselves) from material experience rather than from spiritual apprehension, as is with the angels.

This allows God to present himself to them not in his compelling being, but in other creatures materially present to them, so that they can come to desire and unite with God without violence to their being. Be clear, it was not “GOD” walking in the garden calling to them, but his Angel, having taken on a human form, who called “Where are you?”

Then at the right time, God himself, taking on human flesh, presents himself to be desired for union of love, a form that we can love because he is “like us”. And when we seek to join with him (“Might I be your disciple? Will you baptize me?”) he acquiesces, and joins to us, but fully, giving us divinity, his Spirit unites to us, so that now we are capable of loving the Majestic Divinity without the shock and awe that would kill us - we have become sons of God, loving our Father, and are like him.

Man was, you might say, “doomed to fall”. Without union with God, without infused Sanctifying Grace, man could not face God. And to give this grace to man “non-violently” it meant coming to man in a material presence that man could desire and seek. Before Jesus, men had this material union via promises / covenant, and in expectation - they desired to join to the promised Messiah, the seed of the woman. Since his Christmas, we do seek him and are granted union with him plus receive his Spirit and cry out, “Abba, Father”.

As for Moses, my Bishop and Pastor and Pope tell me he is the genuine prophet and that the others are not. Faith is assenting to what SOMEONE tells you, assenting to that SOMEONE who tells you something. Faith is not trusting some person-less idea. Moses is not the true prophet because ABC News says he is a prophet. He is nobody if the News says so. But he is the prophet because my Bishop, Pastor, and Pope tell me. He is your prophet if you are united in allegiance to the people who tell you that he is. In the same way, the Bible is Holy Scripture because my Bishop, Pastor, and Pope tell me it is so. It is not Holy Scripture sitting by itself in a bookstore, but only when a person is told so by someone with authority to speak for God gives it to you as Holy Scripture. The Ethiopian eunuch, reading the Prophet Isaiah, was not “happy” until Philip came along and “gave him the Scriptures” (explained), and baptized the Ethiopian. Then he went away singing - he was now a part of the people of the Scriptures rather than reading a foreign book that looked good. It was now his Scripture, and Isaiah was now his Prophet. Someone with authority gave the Prophet to him, and his new life of union with the Christ.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

God wanted to create a creature so great that he and she - that includes you and me - would have that capacity.

Thank you Lord!

The others have given great answers already but I just wanted to offer a nutshell.

As for prophets there have been very many but what we have are a combination of what has survived to come down to us, and what was discerned by the collective of Holy Spirit inspired scholars, even before the time of Popes and bishops.

 

[mikekle]

How does this explain the verse where God says he regretted creating mankind though?

 

[Vico]

How does this explain the verse where God says he regretted creating mankind though?

Haydock commentary has for Gen 6:6:

Ver. 6. It repented him, &c. God, who is unchangeable, is not capable of repentance, grief, or any other passion. But these expressions are used to declare the enormity of the sins of men, which was so provoking as to determine their Creator to destroy these his creatures, whom before he had so much favoured. (Challoner) — God acted outwardly as a man would do who repented. (Haydock)

 

[fhansen]

Dear all, yesterday I spoke with a friend about religion. He had two questions I couldn’t find an adequate answer for:

1. Why did God, when He is omniscient and omnipotent, allowed Eve to eat from the tree, knowing, that by doing so original sin would come into the world and every human being after Eve (except for Maria) would be stained by orginal sin. Why did God not intervene? Why even create the possibility of eating from that tree (even when told not to do so). Why not placing the tree away from them. He did guard the garden of Eden by angels after Adam and Eve were dismissed so why not guarding the tree?

I heard one answer for this: it was His plan to send His Son to redeem the world. But if this was a preset plan by God (i.e. fall of man → original sin → Jesus Christ → new world) wouldn’t that be somewhat strange?

Is this the only answer for it? Why did God let man fall?

1. Why do we believe in for example Moses as a genuine prophet? Why not some other man that said he was a prophet. There were many people who said that. In other words, why do we specifically believe in Noah, Moses, Elia etc…as prophets and not other people who said the same (i.e. being a prophet)?

Thanks in advance!

Gr. DonQuichote

Man’s justice, his potential greatness, his perfection, all that God wants for him, lies in his will, in his freely choosing the right thing, ultimately meaning to freely love God with his whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. If it might be necessary or beneficial for man to experience wrong things, evil IOW, that which is opposed to God’s will and the love of Him, so that we might learn to appreciate Him, the ultimate Good, and embrace Him first above all else, shunning evil, then God apparently deemed it worthwhile to allow man to do so, to fall. We experience life in a pigsty here on earth, relatively speaking, so that, like Prodigals, we might come to run from it back to the Father. As the Church teaches, God can bring an even greater good out of the evil which resulted from man’s abuse of his free will.

 

[grannymh]

May we all prepare our souls
for the true celebration of Christmas


Lorenzo Lotto, 1523

 

[grannymh]

Personally, I would like to start with Adam …
usccb.org/bible/genesis/1

usccb.org/bible/genesis/2

usccb.org/bible/genesis/3

Continuing from post 3.

I prefer to start with Adam as a strong handsome type gardener because he is not omniscient and not omnipotent.

God had to tell him that cultivating a garden would be necessary if he were going to eat. In addition, Adam was not omnipotent, that is, he was not a God. He had to live in free submission to his Creator God. In figurative language, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would test Adam’s obedience.

We might still ask the question – "Why did God not intervene when Adam freely chose to disobey God’s command? Here we need to ask ourselves --Who is Adam? What is it about Adam’s nature which allows God to step back and let Adam freely choose his own actions. First, from the dramatic shift from Genesis 1: 25 to Genesis 1: 26, we learn that Adam’s nature is entirely different in kind from all other creatures.
Genesis 1:

26l
Then God said: Let Us make* human beings in Our image, after Our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth.

27
God created mankind in His image; in the image of God he created them;
male and female* He created them.

In verse 27, Adam receives a spiritual rational soul which means that he shares in God’s life. At the same time, because of Adam’s intellective soul, he could freely choose to initiate and control his own actions. Catholics say that Adam had freedom of will. The human’s freedom of will cannot change the omniscient and omnipotent aspects of God’s immutable nature. God keeps His power to freely create creatures. God freely decides to let human creatures freely seek Him. Flat out, this means that human creatures could freely choose to separate themselves from the Goodness of God. Freedom is a key element when we ask "Why did God let man fall?

The better question is --Why did God give Adam the freedom to fall? I do not know the answer. All I know is that Adam and ourselves do have the freedom to fall and we need to deal with it. Either fight, flight, or freeze.

If Adam were the only person in the world, besides the fact that his descendants would not exist, God could have swooped him up into heaven without passing the tempting organic fruit tree. Your mirror and my mirror definitely tells us that God intended the whole human species.

God’s omniscience said that there would be millions and millions of human descendants of Adam who would choose to seek God, love God, and eventually arrive in the presence of the Beatific Vision after bodily death. Being omnipotent, God could bypass the failure of Adam, which failure destroyed Divinity’s relationship with humanity. God has the freedom to allow many others the freedom to choose.

 

[Della]

Dear all, yesterday I spoke with a friend about religion. He had two questions I couldn’t find an adequate answer for:

1. Why did God, when He is omniscient and omnipotent, allowed Eve to eat from the tree, knowing, that by doing so original sin would come into the world and every human being after Eve (except for Maria) would be stained by orginal sin. Why did God not intervene?

Ominiscience and ominipotence does not mean he must control everything, it merely means he can do so if he wishes. God created us “in his image” which means we are free to decide. God didn’t want puppets, he wanted companions with whom he would share his divinity and his love.

Why even create the possibility of eating from that tree (even when told not to do so). Why not placing the tree away from them. He did guard the garden of Eden by angels after Adam and Eve were dismissed so why not guarding the tree?

To see if man would remain faithful. The angels too were tested with the result that Lucifer and those angels who followed him, rebelled and became Satan and the demons. If there is no possibility that we can choose good over evil, there is no free will to decide.

The tree of life had to be guarded so mankind wouldn’t live forever in our fallen state–it was God protecting us from such a fate.

I heard one answer for this: it was His plan to send His Son to redeem the world. But if this was a preset plan by God (i.e. fall of man → original sin → Jesus Christ → new world) wouldn’t that be somewhat strange?

Is this the only answer for it? Why did God let man fall?

God certainly knew what we humans would do–that we would disobey, but that doesn’t mean he determined that we would do so. It’s a hard concept for many to grasp–the difference between knowing something will happen and willing something to happen. God knows what will happen but he never wills moral evil to happen. Rather, he brings good out of moral evil through Christ’s redemption.

1. Why do we believe in for example Moses as a genuine prophet? Why not some other man that said he was a prophet. There were many people who said that. In other words, why do we specifically believe in Noah, Moses, Elia etc…as prophets and not other people who said the same (i.e. being a prophet)?

Thanks in advance!

Gr. DonQuichote

It goes back to Abraham and his family. Abraham was a pagan who worshiped many gods, but God called him to himself and promised that he and his descendants would bring salvation to the world. Jacob and his sons were the descendants of Abraham through whom the promise was to be fulfilled. Of those sons Judah was promised to be the family of the Messiah. The Prophets and Patriarchs were all of the House of Israel, of Abraham’s descendants through whom God chose to speak to mankind. Israel existed to bring the Messiah into the world, therefore God spoke through the Prophets and Patriarchs of Israel.

This does not mean that no other peoples in the world had inklings of the truth. God instilled natural law into the human heart, which is why human laws and behavior are so similar throughout the world. Many spoke of these natural truths and were a blessing to humanity because of them. However, God’s direct revelation to man was reserved to the Prophets and Patriarchs of Israel, which were fulfilled in God’s final revelation to man, the Word of God, Christ Jesus.