How do Mormons View Eve & the Fall vs Catholics?

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I’m in an ongoing discussion with one of my children, who’d converted to Mormonism around 2013. We seem to have different - even divergent - beliefs about Adam & Eve & the Fall. She seems to think that Eve has gotten a bad rap by Catholics & other Christians about the whole fruit issue.

My understanding of the Fall is that is was sinful & that sin introduced death & suffering into the world along with other negative things. But listening to my daughter, it appears that Eve is a heroine.

Can any LDS elaborate on this?

Thank you.
 
I grew up in that and was a missionary for two years. Don’t even bother . They don’t think critically and then just start blabbing about their feel good testimony. After I left my mission I wrote to people I was responsible for converting to that and told them I sinned against God for that and sent them links to all of the errors historically and theologically. They talk about an apostasy but there was one right in Mormonism after Smith died. Seriously why is the church in Utah right and not the one in Missouri?
I cannot believe people join that with its errors. If there weren’t so many people who actually believed it it would have no more merit than Scientology. I feel like even my parents don’t believe it anymore .
Put simply though Mormons have a huge reverence for Adam and Eve mainly stuff stolen from Freemasonry.
Who cares if the BOM makes someone feel good? Just because Marx is nice to read doesn’t mean I’m going to become a Communist.
 
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I was a Mormonite for decades. Mormonites have this verse of scripture that they all rehearse often:

Adam fell that man might be and man is that he might have joy.

They believe that had it not been for the fall, Adam and Eve would have remained in their innocent state forever in the Garden of Eden. It was necessary that they partook of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil so that they would become fully mortal and be able to bear children. So Eve, being the more wise one of the two, did what needed to be done to bring man into the world so that man could enjoy happiness. And, as Mormonites say, there must be opposition in all things. Were it not for pain, we would not know what it was to feel joy. Being cast out of the Garden and having to deal with sweat and pain, briars and noxious weeds, famine and pestilence, temptation and sin, sickness, etc., is all part of their “plan of happiness.”

I spoke with my uncle who was a temple president and we had a discussion about Adam and Eve. He believed that partaking of the forbidden fruit was literal and changed their bodies from a state of immortality to mortality. Until then, there was no death on the earth. Adam was the first. But then, this gets into earth sciences and paleontology, a subject which is very divisive among Mormonites.

This is a good question, but one of which you won’t get a definitive answer.
 
kainosktisis said:
My understanding of the Fall is that is was sinful & that sin introduced death & suffering into the world along with other negative things.
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Adam and Eve committed a transgression, not a sin. They are different. Adam and Eve were commanded to multiply and replenish the earth. They were also commanded to not partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. These were contradictory commandments. They had to choose one or the other. Eve made the decision for them.

This is me, speaking for my former Mormonite perspective. It’s not a reflection of what I now believe.
 
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My daughter has reiterated this same view to me, but it makes no sense to me because God commanded light to be, & it was - as with other things that He’d commanded into being, & they were. So both would’ve already been capable of reproduction because of His command to be fruitful. But as it happened, they knew one another after they’d sinned so as bear Cain. As far as I can see, they had it all only to throw it all away because the Devil put doubt into their minds about God. Pride took over.

I was listening to “Fr. Simon Says”. Fr. took the position that death was merciful. It was an interesting point. She doesn’t agree.
 
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Mormons are technically atheists because their definition of “God” isn’t what we mean by that word. In Mormonism, God is just a creature who became really powerful, in other words a small-g god. Now, who created the Mormon god? Some other gods.. They have an infinite recursion, a train of endless cabooses with no engine.

Now, because Mormons don’t believe in big G God, when you talk about God you are talking about something totally different than them. You could bring into play all the heavy-duty arguments against atheism with your daughter but I would not recommend that. I just posted an argument about Mary’s Immaculate Conception that touches on the above and which might be helpful as a starting point if your daughter ever had a relationship with Mary.
 
MarysLurker said:
Mormons are technically atheists because their definition of “God” isn’t what we mean by that word. In Mormonism, God is just a creature who became really powerful, in other words a small-g god. Now, who created the Mormon god? Some other gods.. They have an infinite recursion, a train of endless cabooses with no engine.
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Please define what you mean by “creature”. If you mean the Catholic definition of a being created ex-nihilo, then you are mistaken about the teachings of The Church of Jesus Church. Latter-day Saints believe that God, and each of us have existed eternally is some form.

And believe me, Latter-day Saint talk about big G God when we talk of The Father.
 
kainosktisis said:
I’m in an ongoing discussion with one of my children, who’d converted to Mormonism around 2013. We seem to have different - even divergent - beliefs about Adam & Eve & the Fall. She seems to think that Eve has gotten a bad rap by Catholics & other Christians about the whole fruit issue.

My understanding of the Fall is that is was sinful & that sin introduced death & suffering into the world along with other negative things. But listening to my daughter, it appears that Eve is a heroine.

Can any LDS elaborate on this?

Thank you.
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For information regarding the Latter-day Saint understanding of the Fall of man, please see this entry in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism.
 
Lemuel said:
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kainosktisis:
My understanding of the Fall is that is was sinful & that sin introduced death & suffering into the world along with other negative things.
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Adam and Eve committed a transgression, not a sin.

This is me, speaking for my former Mormonite perspective. It’s not a reflection of what I now believe.
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Many Bible versions refer to Eve’s act in question as a transgression.
 
From the Online Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

transgression​

noun

trans·gres·sion | \ tran(t)s-ˈgre-shən , tranz-\

Definition of transgression​

: an act, process, or instance of transgressing: such as

a : infringement or violation of a law, command, or duty

b : the spread of the sea over land areas and the consequent unconformable deposit of sediments on older rocks

Definition A fits the bill. To break a Commandment of God is to sin, which God said would result in death.

Also from the same dictionary - to transgress:

transgress​

verb

trans·gress | \ tran(t)s-ˈgres , tranz-\

transgressed; transgressing; transgresses

Definition of transgress​

intransitive verb

1 : to violate a command or law : SIN

2 : to go beyond a boundary or limit

transitive verb

1 : to go beyond limits set or prescribed by : VIOLATEtransgress divine law

2 : to pass beyond or go over (a limit or boundary)

Therefore, to transgress = to sin.
 
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gazelam said:
lease define what you mean by “creature”. If you mean the Catholic definition of a being created ex-nihilo, then you are mistaken about the teachings of The Church of Jesus Church. Latter-day Saints believe that God, and each of us have existed eternally is some form.

And believe me, Latter-day Saint talk about big G God when we talk of The Father.
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You’re referring to the pre-mortal existence which is an LDS distinctive. That just makes all of us cabooses in an infinite train—even God. (What is it with cabooses lately…) God the Father is referred to as the Heavenly Father but not the Eternal Father because for LDS, there is nothing particularly special about being eternal.

And the other thing about LDS… is the whole gap thing. When a person professes the LDS Faith they affirm their belief in the BIG STINKING GAP (“the apostasy and the restoration of the church.”). That gap really bothers me, how God is amazing and loving and yet would supposedly just walk off and let everything fall apart for over a thousand years.
 
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You can’t use today’s dictionaries to define something that was written hundreds of years ago. It doesn’t work that way. Just sayin’ . . .
 
 
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Here’s a clarification regarding Mormonite beliefs from one of the Mormonite leaders:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org.../1993/10/the-great-plan-of-happiness?lang=eng

A few key points from his talk about what they believe:

To the first man and woman on earth, the Lord said, “Be fruitful, and multiply”

When Adam and Eve received the first commandment, they were in a transitional state, no longer in the spirit world but with physical bodies not yet subject to death and not yet capable of procreation. They could not fulfill the Father’s first commandment without transgressing the barrier between the bliss of the Garden of Eden and the terrible trials and wonderful opportunities of mortal life.

For reasons that have not been revealed, this transition, or “fall,” could not happen without a transgression—an exercise of moral agency amounting to a willful breaking of a law. This would be a planned offense, a formality to serve an eternal purpose. The Prophet Lehi explained that “if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen” but would have remained in the same state in which he was created.

“And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin”

It was Eve who first transgressed the limits of Eden in order to initiate the conditions of mortality. Her act, whatever its nature, was formally a transgression but eternally a glorious necessity to open the doorway toward eternal life. Adam showed his wisdom by doing the same. And thus Eve and Adam fell that men might be

Informed by revelation, we celebrate Eve’s act and honor her wisdom and courage in the great episode called the Fall.

This suggested contrast between a sin and a transgression reminds us of the careful wording in the second article of faith: “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression ” . . . the act that produced the Fall was not a sin—inherently wrong—but a transgression—wrong because it was formally prohibited.
 
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Can you please show me where in the Scriptures this transitional state as well as any of these other beliefs unique to Mormon theology are shown?

If possible, would you please provide any available authoritative Hebrew/Greek texts with English translation supporting these interpretations?

As previously asked, God spoke things into being. They were already fruitful by His word. Had they had children in their state of innocence, they would procreate children who were also innocent. Nothing would’ve changed - short of sin & death entering into the equation.
 
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