I think Satan is short sighted. He is an enemy to God and 24-7 is tryign to mess stuff up, but God is (thankfully) a whole lot smarter. God’s ability to understand things allows him to out smart him.
So you believe Satan does God’s work?
Oh my. If the fall was God’s plan, then why did Christ suffer, die and rise again in order to atone for His own plan?
Also, this is the same sort of “reasoning” you have in re: to polygamy as well. That is, God allowed it. So is polygamy also like the fall, that is, Satan’s desire that God allows polygamy because he has a “plan”?
As a test for Adam and Eve. The tree of knowledge itself was not a bad thing. God doesn’t create anything bad. What was bad was Adam and Eve freely choosing to disobey God’s commandment to not eat its fruit. He gave them a list of “do’s” and one big “don’t.” They chose to disregard the “don’t.”
Nothing. But Adam and Eve were told not to eat that fruit, and they chose to disobey. It was their disobedience that was bad, not the fact that they gained knowledge.
Again, that’s not a bad thing. The bad thing was the disobedience. Why God didn’t want them to eat that particular fruit is His business. I don’t question why.
I certainly think Adam and Eve knew the difference between obeying God and not obeying God before they ate the fruit, otherwise God’s threat of death would have had no meaning. It would have been meaningless to them. In some way Adam had to have known that eating the fruit would lead to very unpleasant consequences. The whole story makes no sense otherwise.
That is a ridiculous argument to bring. First of all, why should He want to “test” them at all—knowing that they would fail and end up dying? Why not let them live happily in the Garden forever? Second, what kind of test is that, giving them something that is essentially desirable, but telling them not to partake of it? That is like cheating and being dishonest. Would you “test” you son by saying to him: “Here is a good book. It is called the Bible. It is the best book you will ever read. I am going to put a copy of it in your own bedroom, on your bookshelf. But I don’t want you to read it, because the minute you read of it, I am going to expel you from my house, and you will no longer be called my son.” Would you “test” your son that way? Why should any honest, decent person waht to?
I think you are unnecessarily simplifying the whole thing. There is clearly more to it than that. The whole of God’s dealings with mankind throughout history can be summarized in one sentence: choose to do good, and eschew evil. That is what God has commanded mankind to do—with a day of judgment set aside in which all mankind will be judged according to their works:
you start with the false assumption that the forbidden fruit was good. this is only a mormon belief. the tree of life was presented to Adam and Eve as the “good fruit”, teh “best fruit yo will ever eat”.
more mormon misinterpret ion of scripture mingled with JS own invented writings that try to foist off the belief that sin can be good. only satan taught these concepts. the fall wasn’t necessary. adam knew good from evil. he chose not to eat the fruit originally because he knew it was wrong. eve knew too but fell for satan’s line that they could be gods. they had plenty of joy in the garden.
Interesting, is it possible that God allows evil that good may come from it, I wonder.
So you believe Satan does God’s work?
No. That is not the assertion being made by your fellow Mormons. They are saying that God indirectly caused evil, as part of some sadistic plan involving double binds and God in collaboration with Satan.
But isn’t “testing” the whole idea in LDS theology? After all we all lived with the Heavenly Father(and presumptively our Heavenly Mother) prior to our earthly existence and were sent to this life to be tested. Why not let them simply continue to live as spirits with the Heavenly Father without all the “testing” that mortal life brings?? Your version is just as much questionable “testing” as the non LDS version yours just pushes the decision to “test” back into the pre-mortal life and lays the decision on the “council of gods”.
Same kind as telling someone do this (be fruitful and multiply) when they can’t unless they disobey a don’t do (eat from the tree).
I think that it has to do with the plan of salvation. We are on this earth to be tested and to learn. There is no free road to heaven. We have choices between good and evil and we can freely chose between the two.
Simple. Because in mormon theology we needed to obtain a physical body to become more like our father in heaven. And for satan who has never had a physical body to call his own, his jealousy is immense. Hence Mormons are cauttioned not to abuse their bodies as satan would wish them to. The body is a ‘spiritual temple’.
Until the fall there was no need for a plan of salvation. If Adam and Eve had obeyed God and not eaten the fruit God forbidden them to eat we have to assume that all of mankind would be living in the world today with no evil and that the world world would be as the garden, Or that at some other time by some other person Satan would have been able to to sin and at that time caused the fall. To believe that the fall had to happen is wrong in do think that it was going to happen at some point regardless because of free will, but that it is not Gods plan for it to happen.
And that’s why I ask if it’s right that God demand our obedience. If A&E had stayed in the garden, He would have our obedience but we would not have been able to exercise our free will and know the difference of good and evil. So what’s more important to a loving father, that his kids grow up and develop to be everything they can be, or to keep them subservient?
I can’t agree with this notion as you have presented it, my fellow Mormons can thrash that out with you. What I see is that God allows evil, he does not condone it, encourage it, sanction it, but allows events to play out. I think there are examples that God uses the consequences resulting from evil to further his will.
Choosing to exercise your free will to disobey is not what God ask God ask the we exercise it in obedience. Yes it is right for God to Demand our obedience. We would still have our free will if Adam and Eve had not disobeyed the Knowledge of Evil is not needed to be all we can be for it is evil that keeps us from becoming all that we are capable of being. I look over human history and see all that would not be ( that need not have been) if only we could have obeyed. I can only imagine the sadness that it brings to God for it saddens me so. If we look at History It has alway been God that has found ways for us to come back to him from our sin and always been man finding new ways to exercise his free will to turn from God. If not for the fall we would have walked with God in our mist just as in the garden. He did not will the fall to bring about salvation the fall brought on the need for salvation. Mormons are looking at this wrong.
What you are presenting is that God was indirectly involved in a mortal sin. God gave us free will, He did not create sin and does not act in a manner that encourages us to sin.
Wow. You really have gone off the deep end. Did you read what you wrote before you posted it? Not even your fellow Mormons will agree with what you just said. Maybe you should break away from Mormonism and start your own religion, because that’s what you just did. God tests us all the time, does He not? The first test was a test of obedience for Adam and Eve. He created something desirable and told them to leave it alone. That was a test, and if you can’t see that, I don’t know how to help you. God has to test us like that. Without the possibility of choosing evil, free will doesn’t exist. It’s by choosing good over evil that we grow. Is that not MORMON TEACHING as well???
Ouch. Are you really suggesting that God told Adam not to do something, but secretly really wanted him to do it in order that His plan might be fulfilled? If that’s what you think, then the god you worship is most certainly not the eternal God of the universe, but is something much less. You need to do some serious soul searching on this one, my friend.
Because it was a part of the plan.
Let see here is what you call his plan. Create man without sin, have them fall into sin, so I can send a savior to save them from sin. Think real hard about that. It makes no since at all.
