The myth of Adam and Eve

[Bahman]

You fail to consider the possibility that He did.

To summarize the great G. K. Chesterton:

God wrote a perfect play and gave it over to a fallible cast and crew.

So… If the producer is stealing from the production funds, and the casting director doesn’t know how to find talent, and the actors refuse to learn their lines, and the set manager doesn’t follow the blueprints, and the costumer is lazy, and the director doesn’t show up…

You’d really blame the writer for the result? The result of such epic mismanagement would be a truly terrible play - but you can’t judge the writer if the play was never carried out as he intended.

You may say he should have chosen a better cast and crew, but that doesn’t really stand up, because there’s no such thing as a perfect cast or crew. The difference between a puppet show and a good play is the fact that the puppets are forced to perform and the actors perform from the heart - from their choice. There is more risk, because the actors could have a bad day and do badly - but when the actors throw themselves into the story, the result is truly epic.

This world is not a puppet show. We’re on stage, and every act counts.

We could have a very much better life if God has removed tree of knowledge from Garden. Wasn’t that impossible? Instead we have a situation that tree was there, Satan was constantly tempting them…

 

[Bahman]

But what stops a person’s curiosity? For example, you might be curious to try meth or heroin, but you know it can lead to a horrible addition and mental and physical breakdown. So unless you lived in a vacuum, most people, no matter how curious, wouldn’t try these drugs.

Why Adam and Eve didn’t stop to consider the consequences is because they were seduced by the evil serpent. Likewise a young person can be seduced into trying drugs by evil friends and pushers.

That is true. But what devil, falling angle was doing in the garden?

 

[Bahman]

Good Morning,

Well, I could only say that from a position of omniscience, which I do not have.

I hope that I have communicated to you that there is nothing to be gained by wallowing in complaint. I am not trying to be pushy about it, though, there is a time for wallowing.

One of the phrases that has guided my own approach is “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” It is a Truth, is it not? It is the answer to apathy, I put the energy of complaint into trying to make a positive difference. Questions like “what is your vision?” help. What is your vision? (Did I already ask that?)

Are you part of the solution? If so, in what way?

And here’s another one: Are we actually helping, or are we attacking windmills?

Yes he could create a better world. The simplest one is the Garden without tree of knowledge and Satan.

 

[Bahman]

Seduced, or not, they were, and we are, free to resist temptation, whether that temptation comes externally, or as a consequence of original sin, internally. The “devil made me do it” is a false claim.

You don’t claim that you sinless. Do you?

 

[Bahman]

Its goes something like this: The entire universe comes into existence through an act of ongoing love. At the foundation of our relationship with God, reflecting His nature, all is infinite beauty and joy. All is Life, where one finally knows Truth. That is heaven, a view of the cosmos from God’s loving perspective, a view, we forsake when we choose ourselves and return to when we give of ourselves. Love sees the perfection in all that is. For the most part, we are so lost that we have forgotten this, our eternal address. Where we are in relation to the Ground of our being is the reality of Adam, ontologically here and now as ourselves, and who in time was the earthly father of all humanity.

I don’t ask for much. Heaven is too much. The Garden without tree of knowledge would be a perfect place.

 

[Bahman]

Of course, you did not respond to my last post there:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=13814645&postcount=105

I am sorry. It seems that I missed that post.

 

[Aloysium]

I don’t ask for much. Heaven is too much. The Garden without tree of knowledge would be a perfect place.

It seems that you who come here to impart your understanding of the world, which includes no less the abolition of free will, are now revealing that your wish would be for a world without knowledge and choice.

The garden can be understood as our existence in the world. The tree of knowledge belongs to God, who is at the Centre of all existence.

When we appropriate for ourselves what belongs to God, several things happen:
We make ourselves a god, to follow and worship.
What we think becomes the truth, which casts us into ignorance.
What we do becomes the good; “Our will be done” and with that we fall into evil.
Our finiteness, is all we have and consequently death surrounds us.
In reaching for that fruit, our hand drives the nail into our own hand on the cross

God gives us the garden, and we His creatures do not give what little we are asked to give.
With that turning from love, our connection to He who is love is wounded.
We are cast out from the harmony, goodness, truth and beauty that is the world when our lives are in right relation to God.

The garden cannot but have the tree of knowledge and the tree of eternal life. They represent the Word of God - the wood of the cross and the Eucharist. That is what we chose. We could have had an easier go of it, choosing otherwise. In us, through our presence in the universe, God reveals His love and power, becoming one of us that we might join Him in heaven, in peace.

 

[OneSheep]

Yes he could create a better world. The simplest one is the Garden without tree of knowledge and Satan.

Good Morning,

Okay, am I assuming that you are taking those two literally? What do those represent to you?

Tree of knowledge =

Satan =

I do like your short responses, it really gets down to the heart of the matter.

Thanks

 

[simpleas]

The tree was not just of knowledge, it was knowledge of good and evil. There was also the tree of eternal life. We can’t eat from both tree’s?
But in order to freely eat from the tree of eternal life, one would need to eat from the tree of good and evil in order to make a informed choice? It’s the experience of good and evil rather than just knowledge that would help one choose the better path, the goodness of life rather than death. Surely Adam and Eve had to gain such experience of life to become aware of light and dark, they didn’t know this if they were only human.

I think understanding the tree of knowledge of good and evil explained as humans gaining consciousness of good and evil is easier to understand than saying they were proud and wanted to be like God, in the negative, they may have thought it was a good thing they were doing. Yes they should have listened to God, but they were curious I suppose.

God could’ve created us to know only good, experience only good, and so live in a very different world. Or maybe this is the world in which he desired to create and it is us that for some reason can not fully embrace it. We can only move forward in order to slowly change the world, in hope and love…looking back isn’t doing us any favours.

 

[SilverShadow22]

I don’t ask for much. Heaven is too much. The Garden without tree of knowledge would be a perfect place.

One enlightening interpretation is that they were supposed to have the fruit of that knowledge.

They took it too soon, without permission, proving their lack of trust.

The garden could not have been perfect without that fruit, which, whether literal or figurative, represents something that was supposed to be there.

So the garden could not have been perfect without it. Since they were always supposed to get it.

You’re missing the whole point of the play analogy. He could not have made the garden without the tree, he could not have kept Satan out of it without violating free will.

I can’t understand your rather unique disdain for the entire notion of freedom. You appear to be saying that you’d rather be a happy, ignorant puppet than ever have a chance to be yourself. I wouldn’t choose that. Most people wouldn’t choose that.

 

[Vico]

The tree was not just of knowledge, it was knowledge of good and evil. There was also the tree of eternal life. We can’t eat from both tree’s?
But in order to freely eat from the tree of eternal life, one would need to eat from the tree of good and evil in order to make a informed choice? It’s the experience of good and evil rather than just knowledge that would help one choose the better path, the goodness of life rather than death. Surely Adam and Eve had to gain such experience of life to become aware of light and dark, they didn’t know this if they were only human.

I think understanding the tree of knowledge of good and evil explained as humans gaining consciousness of good and evil is easier to understand than saying they were proud and wanted to be like God, in the negative, they may have thought it was a good thing they were doing. Yes they should have listened to God, but they were curious I suppose.

God could’ve created us to know only good, experience only good, and so live in a very different world. Or maybe this is the world in which he desired to create and it is us that for some reason can not fully embrace it. We can only move forward in order to slowly change the world, in hope and love…looking back isn’t doing us any favours.

It is a Catholic teaching that Adam and Eve had supernatural grace and preternatural grace from the beginning. Modern Catholic Dictionary has this:

GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
The seven forms of supernatural initiative conferred with the reception of sanctifying grace. They are in the nature of supernatural reflexes, or reactive instincts, that spontaneously answer to the divine impulses of grace almost without reflection but always with full consent. The gifts are wisdom (sapientia), understanding (intellectus), knowledge (scientia), fortitude or courage (fortitudo), counsel (consilium), piety or love (pietas), and fear of the Lord (timor Domini).

PRETERNATURAL GIFTS.
Favors granted by God above and beyond the powers or capacities of the nature that receives them but not beyond those of all created nature. Such gifts perfect nature but do not carry it beyond the limits of created nature. They include three great privileges to which human beings have no title -infused knowledge, absence of concupiscence, and bodily immortality. Adam and Eve possessed these gifts before the Fall.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

That is true. But what devil, falling angle was doing in the garden?

What are they doing in the world today?

The story of Adam and Eve is also the story of good and evil. It is a tale to explain free will, seduction, and the evil mess you can get yourself into turning away from your maker.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

I don’t ask for much. Heaven is too much. The Garden without tree of knowledge would be a perfect place.

That is the whole point of the story though. It is an attempt to explain how we got from perfect innocence, trust and safety to the kind of world we live in today. In a way, I feel it is a story of childhood and then what happens after a child loses his innocence and trust in the adults in his life and becomes sexually aware.

 

[Vico]

That is true. But what devil, falling angle was doing in the garden?

The serpent had access. The “great dragon”, the “serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan”.

From Job 1:6-7:
6 One day, when the sons of God* came to present themselves before the Lord, the satan also came among them. 7 The Lord said to the satan, “Where have you been?” Then the satan answered the Lord and said, “Roaming the earth and patrolling it.”

• [1:6] Sons of God: members of the divine council; see Gn 6:1–4; Dt 32:8; Ps 82:1. The satan: lit., “adversary” (as in 1 Kgs 11:14). Here a member of the heavenly court, “the accuser” (Zec 3:1). In later biblical traditions this character will be developed as the devil (Gk. diabolos, “adversary”).

Revelation 12:9So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Revelation 20:2He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

Genesis 3:1
1 Now the snake was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made. He asked the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any of the trees in the garden’?”

 

[simpleas]

It is a Catholic teaching that Adam and Eve had supernatural grace and preternatural grace from the beginning. Modern Catholic Dictionary has this:

GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
The seven forms of supernatural initiative conferred with the reception of sanctifying grace. They are in the nature of supernatural reflexes, or reactive instincts, that spontaneously answer to the divine impulses of grace almost without reflection but always with full consent. The gifts are wisdom (sapientia), understanding (intellectus), knowledge (scientia), fortitude or courage (fortitudo), counsel (consilium), piety or love (pietas), and fear of the Lord (timor Domini).

PRETERNATURAL GIFTS.
Favors granted by God above and beyond the powers or capacities of the nature that receives them but not beyond those of all created nature. Such gifts perfect nature but do not carry it beyond the limits of created nature. They include three great privileges to which human beings have no title -infused knowledge, absence of concupiscence, and bodily immortality. Adam and Eve possessed these gifts before the Fall.

Obedience isn’t among any of the above…that’s what was lacking…

 

[Vico]

Obedience isn’t among any of the above…that’s what was lacking…

No, with free will, all obedience must be voluntary.

Eve was punished more severely than Adam.

• Eve’s pride consisted in desiring to obtain something against God’s will, so her ignorance aggravated her sin rather than excusing it. Eve sinned against both God and Adam.
• Adam’s pride consisted in wishing to attain to God’s position by his own power, but it was somewhat mitigated by friendly agreement with Eve.

 

[guanophore]

Okay, am I assuming that you are taking those two literally? What do those represent to you?

I just want to throw in a Catholic perspective here.

The Church does not insist upon a literal interpretation of every detail of the story of creation found in Genesis. Catholics are bound, however to the truths contained therein, such as that that man and woman were created good but sinned against God, suffered punishment as a consequence, and that there is original sin passed from one generation to the next in each person.

Adam and Eve are not just symbolic, but refer to actual people. V. MAN IN PARADISE

374 The first man was not only created good, but was also established in friendship with his Creator and in harmony with himself and with the creation around him, in a state that would be surpassed only by the glory of the new creation in Christ.

375 The Church, interpreting the symbolism of biblical language in an authentic way, in the light of the New Testament and Tradition, teaches that our first parents, Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original “state of holiness and justice”.250 This grace of original holiness was “to share in. . .divine life”.251

376 By the radiance of this grace all dimensions of man’s life were confirmed. As long as he remained in the divine intimacy, man would not have to suffer or die.252 The inner harmony of the human person, the harmony between man and woman,253 and finally the harmony between the first couple and all creation, comprised the state called “original justice”.

377 The “mastery” over the world that God offered man from the beginning was realized above all within man himself: mastery of self. The first man was unimpaired and ordered in his whole being because he was free from the triple concupiscence254 that subjugates him to the pleasures of the senses, covetousness for earthly goods, and self-assertion, contrary to the dictates of reason.

378 The sign of man’s familiarity with God is that God places him in the garden.255 There he lives “to till it and keep it”. Work is not yet a burden,256 but rather the collaboration of man and woman with God in perfecting the visible creation.

379 This entire harmony of original justice, foreseen for man in God’s plan, will be lost by the sin of our first parents.