I do not want to comment in detail on everything you wrote, but it sounds like you are learning well.Shame is Satan’s game.
At the risk of going around in circles (I know we’ve been here before) my question was not whether or not free will is necessary, of course it is. Adam and Eve already possessed free will or they could not have been held responsible for their disobedience, which they certainly were. The question is was their disobedience (sin) necessary?Hi, SteveVH,
Here are simple answers:
- No, but free will choice is, which includes knowledge that there is such a thing as “good” and such a thing as “evil”, and that there are consequences from choosing the one or the other.
Do you not believe they had free will prior to eating of the tree? You must admit that they did not receive what they had bargained for. I still maintain that they already had the knowledge of “Good”. Being tempted by the serpent they lost trust in God and desired to be equal with Him by gaining the knowledge the tree offered. But the serpent had lied to them. What they obtained instead was shame, suffering and death, for them and their posterity. Instead of becoming more “god-like” they became less “god-like”.
- It is a good idea to understand that God really and truly, always desires our free will choice. He gives us an important opportunity to understand how much He does indeed preserve free will choice by the very fact that there was such a tree as the tree of knowledge of good and evil with its fruit.
You do not have to convince me or anyone else of the importance of free will. The question revolves around the choice they made using this free will. The reason I asked the question is that what I have gathered from our previous conversations is that you believe it was necessary that they disobey God, by eating of the fruit, in order to grow in knowledge. If God’s plan was for them to gain knowledge by eating the fruit and at the same time He forbade them to eat of it He left them no choice but to sin and therefore is complict in their sin. I don’t know how to put it more clearly. Do you understand this point?He really did give Adam and Eve a choice, and really did give them three commandments which expressed “His will”. He would not, being Perfect and perfectly good, begin the progress of humankind by not having free will choice operative at the very outset of Adam and Eve being on earth. He also knew perfectly Eve and Adam’s personality traits and innocence.
Yet, if eating the fruit was the only way to gain knowledge so that they could be “vibrant learners” and it was God’s will that they become “vibrant learners”, then He also desired that they disobey Him. That is what makes this line thinking a fallacy. God never wills that we disobey Him.He desires the progress of His children, and desires them to love Him while also learning to love our neighbor including our family, to serve others as well as serve Him, and to be “vibrant learners”. He gave Adam and Eve the choice of how they would find ways to progress and to be “vibrant learners.” It was their choice to decide what they wanted to do, what seemed best to them to do. He did not impose a choice on them–that would have deprived them of free will choice.
The only knowledge we should be seeking is God’s will which includes being obedient to Him. Adam and Eve chose to disobey by eating the fruit of which they were explicitly forbidden to eat. They did not become “higher beings”, they became lower beings, loosing immortality.We can each make such a choice, as well. “Am I here to be a vibrant learner, or not?” “Do I seek a static condition and situation, or do I seek to learn, grow, change, and progress as best I can with all my heart toward a “higher” state of being?” It’s a choice we make either consciously or unconsciously.
As do all Christians.
- The LDS believe that there really is a Plan of salvation…
I suppose the “pre-mortal life” issue is one that should have its own thread. This is a doctrine that has no basis in biblical Scripture and requires the acceptance of “another gospel” in order to believe.…which God explained to us in pre-mortal life…
Well, I certainly don’t believe that God was complicit at all. That has been my point. It is the scenario that you have presented which makes God complicit, which is why I disagree with that scenario.So if a person thinks that by the fact that God had foreknowledge that humankind would make mistakes (sin), then if this person thinks that means He is “complicit” by having sent us here anyway knowing full well that we would sin, then I suppose that is a way a person can look at it.
It was the “bad thing” that caused us to need a Redeemer in the first place. You are making the case that the “bad thing” was really a “good thing” and that God desired the “bad thing” so that we would have the opportunity to grow.But I don’t. I look at the situation as that He really does want us to be a vibrant learner, but we are not being forced to do that. Part of the “growth” we are being offered is to even be aware that we have this wonderful opportunity, and that it is not a “bad thing”. The need for a Redeemer and Savior is not a “bad thing”. It is a wonderful thing, a splendid thing–a divinely planned opportunity for us, with the love and perfection of the Savior at its very center.
SteveVH,…Well, I certainly don’t believe that God was complicit at all. That has been my point. It is the scenario that you have presented which makes God complicit, which is why I disagree with that scenario.
It was the “bad thing” that caused us to need a Redeemer in the first place. You are making the case that the “bad thing” was really a “good thing” and that God desired the “bad thing” so that we would have the opportunity to grow.
SteveVH,… I still maintain that they already had the knowledge of “Good”. …
The key to this dispute is that Adam’s sin had nothing to do with whetehre or not he knew Good and Evil. Whther he knew good from evil or not, he failed to trust God. God told. Adam and Eve that if they ate of the fruit they would ide, and they did not trust that. I personally believe that scripture sipports their not knowing good from evil, which could lend a qualitative element to whether or not they trusted God. But eating the fruit against God’s prohibitionm they failed to trust Him.SteveVH,
Before trying to answer your questions and assertions, I should try and understand this comment. How did Adam and Eve know “Good” was “good”, as you perceive the situation?
What kind of knowledge of this did they have–intrinsic? A kind of “trust God because you love Him and know intrinsically that everything He has said one should do is good, and trust no one else (particularly not a serpent), or you might do something “bad””? A kind of “trust God that you have all you need in this garden to live wonderful lives, have wonderful children, and have immortality and all that is “good” with not the slightest thing “bad” ever happening in your lives, the lives of your children or their children or so on forever, and nothing bad ever happening anywhere in this wonderful garden”?
Finally, if they already knew “good” was “good”, then why did God place a tree in the garden with fruit growing on it that was specifically identified as the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Was it simply a test to see if they really trusted that what He had said was “good” was indeed “good”?
Why use the words “knowledge of good and evil”? Why not use only the words “knowledge of evil” if that is what you think was really meant in the situation?
You see, I need to understand what are your underlying assumptions in order to respond adequately to the kinds of questions you asked.
SteveVH,
I’ll try and get back to you on all the points you made, but for starters and to be able to understand the deeper thought processes behind the questions you asked, then I have a question as a follow up:
Since God is omnipotent, and the universe is vastly large, God could make another world and place you and a woman on that new other world and give you the same situation He gave to Adam and Eve, right?
So since He obviously hasn’t done that, but as you remarked He has a plan of salvation, then how is He not being complicit in that you (or anyone) who is born into this world and who becomes capable of sinning and then does indeed sin, in having allowed you to sin? Why not create a separate world for “you and her” who would not need a Savior, if that was a “bad thing”? Why wouldn’t a perfectly Perfect Supreme Being do the thing that would result in a “less bad thing” by creating a new world for the people (you and her) who would make the perfectly right choice every time?
Thanks for your response, Parker. Here is the point I am trying to make based upon my understanding of the Mormon view of “sin” in general.SteveVH,
Since God is omnipotent, and the universe is vastly large, God could make another world and place you and a woman on that new other world and give you the same situation He gave to Adam and Eve, right?
So since He obviously hasn’t done that, but as you remarked He has a plan of salvation, then how is He not being complicit in that you (or anyone) who is born into this world and who becomes capable of sinning and then does indeed sin, in having allowed you to sin? Why not create a separate world for “you and her” who would not need a Savior, if that was a “bad thing”? Why wouldn’t a perfectly Perfect Supreme Being do the thing that would result in a “less bad thing” by creating a new world for the people (you and her) who would make the perfectly right choice every time?
In fact – and this is the part that is so hard for us to understand – Before He created anything, His purpose in creating it was for the Atonement, His Passion. That is what He created everything for. That is why He was so impatient for it His whole life. When He asked for the cup to pass from Him, it was not the suffering itself. It was an expression of God in the flesh in the moment of perceiving in the flesh how those who reject His sacrifice would still suffer. It pained Him more that without forcing people to accept it some would still experience such unspeakable suffering.Thanks for your response, Parker. Here is the point I am trying to make based upon my understanding of the Mormon view of “sin” in general.
I do not disagree that God knew, before He ever created us, what the outcome would be. He knew Adam and Eve would disobey and He allowed them to disobey because He would never interfere in our free will.
He knew, before He ever created us, then, that we would require a Savior.
It was necessary that we be created with free will so that we may freely choose to love Him. Without free will love is impossible. A robot cannot love.
Having said all of this, it remains that sin destroys our relationship with God who desires to include us in His family. My understanding of the Mormon view is that the desire of Adam and Eve to be equal to God, by buying into the lie of the serpent, was a good thing. It is the view that their disobedience was necessary in order to grow in knowledge and therefore that their sin was not really sin at all, but rather God’s will. You have even said, in so many words, that they did not buy into the serpent’s lie, but rather their disobedience was more an innocent desire for knowledge and that God desired for them to have this knowledge. If I am wrong here please correct me.
The bottom line is the attitude toward sin and the misconception that the sin of Adam and Eve was necessary in order for us to have the knowledge that God desires we have. I maintain that Adam and Eve were created perfectly, not wanting for anything, unhindered by the effects of sin. They were created to live in the presence of God in a familial relationship and the knowledge of God is the only knowledge that they required and that they should have desired. It remains true fo us today.
Adam and Eve’s knowledge of “Good” was actual knowledge because they lived in the presence of “Good” Himself. God Himself testifies that His creation, including Adam and Eve, was “good”, and even “very good”. You are assuming that Adam and Eve, God’s crown of creation, were somehow lacking, somehow incomplete.SteveVH,
Before trying to answer your questions and assertions, I should try and understand this comment. How did Adam and Eve know “Good” was “good”, as you perceive the situation?
What kind of knowledge of this did they have–intrinsic? A kind of “trust God because you love Him and know intrinsically that everything He has said one should do is good, and trust no one else (particularly not a serpent), or you might do something “bad””? A kind of “trust God that you have all you need in this garden to live wonderful lives, have wonderful children, and have immortality and all that is “good” with not the slightest thing “bad” ever happening in your lives, the lives of your children or their children or so on forever, and nothing bad ever happening anywhere in this wonderful garden”?
If God desired that they eat of the fruit of the Tree, if this was His will for them, then why did He forbid them to do so?Finally, if they already knew “good” was “good”, then why did God place a tree in the garden with fruit growing on it that was specifically identified as the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Was it simply a test to see if they really trusted that what He had said was “good” was indeed “good”?
Its a great question, Parker. The serpent explained that the knowledge of good and evil was the knowldge of God. Since they were forbidden to eat of it, the implication was that God was holding out on them. The lie was that if they ate of it they would be like God. The truth was that when they ate of it they became less like God. The temptation was an opportunity to choose to remain faithful; to choose to love and trust in God. That was God’s will and, in my opinion, the reason for the presence of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil.Why use the words “knowledge of good and evil”? Why not use only the words “knowledge of evil” if that is what you think was really meant in the situation?
Understood. I hope I have given you my understanding and underlying assumptions.You see, I need to understand what are your underlying assumptions in order to respond adequately to the kinds of questions you asked.
What a brilliant thought. I have never heard it put that way before. It should have particular resonace for LDS because in MormonismFaith is belief without literal experience, and knowledge is what is actually measuerd, for lack of a better word. Empirically.Adam and Eve’s knowledge of “Good” was actual knowledge because they lived in the presence of “Good” Himself. God Himself testifies that His creation, including Adam and Eve, was “good”, and even “very good”. You are assuming that Adam and Eve, God’s crown of creation, were somehow lacking, somehow incomplete…
SteveVH,…
Understood. I hope I have given you my understanding and underlying assumptions.
With only knowledge of good there is no knowledge that it is good. It takes knowledge of both good and evil to know that there is anything exceptional about what is good. Evil was an abstract concept, that Adam only knew as something God referred to in the command not to eat of the tree. And God did not create them to recognize in what a good condition they were. He created them to be with him and to trust him.Why use the words “knowledge of good and evil”? Why not use only the words “knowledge of evil” if that is what you think was really meant in the situation?
I have been trying to make this point for a long time on various posts. They already had what they sought. They were created in the image and likeness of God, without the debilitating effects of sin. The Mormon posters here disagree that original sin resulted in the weakening of our will and a diminished intellect, but the Church has taught this from the beginning. Their intellects were perfect. Their wills controlled their flesh. They did not know sickness, suffering or death. Relative to us they were super-human, rather than half-smart.What a brilliant thought. I have never heard it put that way before. It should have particular resonace for LDS because in MormonismFaith is belief without literal experience, and knowledge is what is actually measuerd, for lack of a better word. Empirically.
Adam and Eve lived in the presence of God. They knew nothing but good, and what good they knew was perfect good. THerefore, the only thing the tree of knowledge of good and evil could add to that waqs knowledge of evil.
No wonder God did not want them to partake of it! There dd not need to even be anything about it that gave them that knowledge. Mistrusting God and partaking of any fruit he said not to would bring knowledge of evil, as the experience would be evil – in opposition to the will of God, an act of distrust in God in and of itself.
What a profound concept.They knew nothing but perfect good until they failed to trust God.
Correct.SteveVH,
If I understand you correctly, then God as you view Him is omnipotent, and created this world, the heavens, and Adam and Eve out of nothing.
The entire purpose of “free will” was so we might share in “love”. Love cannot exist unless we “choose” to love and we cannot “choose” anything unless we possess free will. I think He has proven, through his suffering, death and resurrection that he loves us in spite of our sins, or as you prefer to call them “mistakes”. Does God desire us to be free from sin (mistakes)? Absolutely. Yes, He “wanted” them to remain faithful and obedient. Do you believe he wanted them to make “mistakes”? Allowing and wanting are two different things.If I also understand you correctly, He wanted them to love Him and by loving Him, to never make a mistake because they loved Him so much that they would always obey Him.
Yes, and I fail at loving Him all the time. I am a sinner. But He loves me. It is about His goodness, not mine.Moving from that time to our time, it sounds like you love God very, very much.
Lets get this straight first of all. Sin is not a mistake. Forgetting to put a period after a sentence is a mistake. Sin is intentional and offends God or it is not sin. I sin out of my own pride, desires of the flesh, unjust anger and covetousness, for starters. I sin “in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do”. I am drawn toward sin because of concupiscience and my will to avoid temptation is weakened due to the sin of Adam and Eve. Nevertheless, each and every time I sin it is because I have chosen to sin.
- Why do you make mistakes, if you do? (Call it sin, or call it being less than perfect.) Whose fault are those mistakes/sins?
As I said above, I sin “in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do”.
- Are there such things as “sins of omission” in your perception of this world? Are they relevant to this discussion, or is the only relevance for you “sins of commission”?
This is like explaining to your wife “if God didn’t want me to have relationships with other women then why did he put all these beautiful women around me? Why didn’t He put me in a world without any other women?” God’s desire, as is your wife’s desire, is that you remain faithful. Are you saying that you believe God’s will is for you to sin? We cannot love God unless we choose to love God which necessitates free will. We are to use that free will for “good”, not evil. The fact that we have free will does not allow us, then, to sin.
- If God’s will as you describe His will, was and is for you to be sinless, then why didn’t He create you “out of nothing” and place you in a world where you would, by your deep love for Him, be sinless?
To answer your first question, no, He loves me no less than He loves Adam and Eve.Did He love you less than He loved Adam and Eve? Why was He “tied” to the world He had created for Adam and Eve, for you to come to that same world?
Again, I was placed in this world to love and serve God. While He allows me to be tempted, it is not God who tempts me. His desire is that I resist temptation and be perfect, “even as your Father in heaven is perfect”. We made the mess. God came to clean it up.Or, if He had a paramount reason to place you in this world, then why if His will is that you be sinless, did He allow that you be tempted?–just to see how much you really do love Him?
SteveVH,…
To answer your first question, no, He loves me no less than He loves Adam and Eve.
Not sure what you mean by God being “tied” to the world he created for Adam and Eve. The world he created for Adam and Eve was paradise; the garden. The world as we know it came as a result of their sin…
I thought I had explained that, Parker.SteveVH,
So why wasn’t another world created for you–“paradise; the garden”. That’s what I wanted to try and understand, since you are saying He loves you no less than He loved them–yet they evidently had what you seem to consider a much easier situation than you have, plus you seem to blame them for your situation.
Is this unclear? And please, never did I blame my sins on Adam and Eve. I went out of my way to take responsibility for them. Lets see what I said:Originally Posted by SteveVH
This is like explaining to your wife “if God didn’t want me to have relationships with other women then why did he put all these beautiful women around me? Why didn’t He put me in a world without any other women?” God’s desire, as is your wife’s desire, is that you remain faithful.
Originally Posted by SteveVH
I sin out of my own pride, desires of the flesh, unjust anger and covetousness, for starters. I sin “in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do”. I am drawn toward sin because of concupiscience and my will to avoid temptation is weakened due to the sin of Adam and Eve. Nevertheless, each and every time I sin it is because I have chosen to sin.
This is not a blame game, Parker. I may very well have made the same choice that Adam and Eve had made and I have never said differently. As a matter of fact I do make the same choice they did each time I sin. And my sins have consequences, not only to myself, but to the Church and the world at large. I think you have completely misunderstood me and the point I am trying to make, which is this: God does not desire us to sin even though He allows us to sin. He desires us to be faithful. And yes, Adam and Eve’s sin had its effect upon the world from that point forward. The fact that mankind no longer lives in the garden is evidence of that.I’m just trying to understand how all this would make sense to someone who believes in the Omnipotent Supreme Being, and yet believes that Adam and Eve’s sin left them in a world much less wonderful than the world they could have had if Adam and Eve had loved God enough to have made the choice someone such as yourself seems to think you would have made.
I do have my own consequences for my own choices. That is why we have heaven and hell. I am not forced to sin. I am tempted to sin. I’m not sure what your point is here.Why didn’t He go ahead and create another Garden of Eden and let you make that very same choice? Obviously, omnipotence means He could do that. Why not let you have your own consequences for your own choices?
SteveVH,…
I do have my own consequences for my own choices. …
You make it sound like Creation was allabout attending to SteveVH, or to you, or to me. Creation is about God’s own pleasure and desire for Incarnation as part of the Human family.SteveVH,
I’m not really trying to “make a point”. I’m trying to understand your thinking about the big picture of why you are here in a different world than Adam and Eve’s opportunity, since Adam and Eve had a garden of Eden and you don’t have the opportunity to make their same choice. You have said your “will to avoid temptation is weakened due to the sin of Adam and Eve.” That sounds like “blame” in the picture I draw from those words.
And the comparison you made about your wife and other women doesn’t make the kind of sense it seems to make to you, to me. Obviously, God “placed you” where He placed you in the world and it’s history. But omnipotence means He could have placed you in a garden of Eden, given you the very same choice they had, and not left you thinking your “will to avoid temptation is weakened due to [their] sin.”
I never specifically affirmed a Plan of Salvation involving the need for a redeemer. That represents our perception of it, an anthrocentric perspective. I have presented a Theocentrifc perspective, the only version that really matters, and that does not conflict with what SteveVH wrote. I discussed the Incarnation. From before God created the Heavens and the Earth out of nothing He planned on infusing Himself into that Creation and experiencing it from the inside. He knew what that experience would be. That was His entire reason for Creation, and he wanted to experience that as part of mankind from the very beginning – before He created any of us. He created humanity with the intent of incarnating as a human – he would be born a Man through Christ, hence within the Trinity Christ is the Son of Man.SteveVH,
The conclusion I draw from Peter John’s comment along with your comments is that there is confusion among Catholics about whether there was an original plan of salvation that included the need for a Savior, the promised Messiah and Redeemer. Peter John seems to be expressing that there was such an original plan, but I didn’t see that in your comments.
I can see why there would be that kind of confusion based on the approach to the topic of Adam and Eve and “original sin” and “love of God” and “pride” and the glossing over of the actual Bible text and replacing it with the original sin doctrine and making that doctrine into a need for infant baptism.
I still would be interested in why you think it wouldn’t have made more sense given your beliefs in God’s omnipotence and free will choice plus personal consequences for sin, that you would have more appropriately and equitably been created or conceived into a garden of Eden world and be given the same choice that Adam and Eve were given.