The serpent's question in the Garden of Eden

[nanisco]

Genesis 3:5 describes what the serpent said to Eve in the Garden of Eden. “God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like the gods who know what is good and what is bad.” When Mormon missionaries come to my door and ask me if I want to be a god, who am I talking to?

 

[mormon_fool]

nanisco:

Genesis 3:5 describes what the serpent said to Eve in the Garden of Eden. “God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like the gods who know what is good and what is bad.” When Mormon missionaries come to my door and ask me if I want to be a god, who am I talking to?

Definitely not mormon missionaries! or the author of Gen. 3:22 for that matter.

 

[Tmaque]

nanisco:

Genesis 3:5 describes what the serpent said to Eve in the Garden of Eden. “God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like the gods who know what is good and what is bad.” When Mormon missionaries come to my door and ask me if I want to be a god, who am I talking to?

A LDS missionary would never ask you that question. It’s not official church doctrine(anymore), but even when it was, it was not discussed with investigators.

Now, before I get criticized by the LDS in this forum because I said it once was official church doctrine let me say this. If a doctrine is widely held by the faithful for more than a century and no attempt to discourage the belief was forthcoming from the leadership during that time, I say it can be called official.

 

[mormon_fool]

Tmaque:

A LDS missionary would never ask you that question.

Agreed.

It’s not official church doctrine(anymore),

I would think that it is [1] [2]. But it would depend on what the definition of “it” is.

but even when it was, it was not discussed with investigators.

The missionary discussions used to refer to the potential of a child of God to become more like God. I don’t know how it is discussed now. Some investigators I brought to Gospel Principles class were introduced to the 2nd passage linked above.

Now, before I get criticized by the LDS in this forum because I said it once was official church doctrine let me say this. If a doctrine is widely held by the faithful for more than a century and no attempt to discourage the belief was forthcoming from the leadership during that time, I say it can be called official.

Well thanks for defining your terms. That tends to help more productive discussion. Here is the definition I used which is also the one published in the New Era in 1998 by Stephen Robinson:
The official doctrine of the Latter-day Saints is clearly defined and readily accessible to all. Doctrines are official if they are found in the standard works of the Church, if they are sustained by the Church in general conference (D&C 26:2), or if they are taught by the First Presidency as a presidency.
later,
fool

 

[nanisco]

An LDS missionary DID ask me that question. I would appreciate a reply(s) that more directly addresses the crux of my question.

 

[nanisco]

nanisco:

An LDS missionary DID ask me that question. I would appreciate a reply(s) that more directly addresses the crux of my question.

 

[nanisco]

An LDS missionary DID ask me that question.

 

[mormon_fool]

nanisco:

An LDS missionary DID ask me that question.

I apologize for my incredulity expressed in my earlier post then. My thoughts were indeed foolish . I thought your were throwing your question out as a hypothetical situation and expecting us to reason that a missionary is just repeating a part of a lie originally uttered by Satan (but curiously acknowledged and affirmed by God in v. 22).

While there are obvious differences between the mormon concept of deification and Catholic deification, you may wish to check out CCC #460. I am not in position to say much about the beliefs that man may become [like] god in either tradition. The LDS tradition because little has been revealed and the RCC beliefs because I can’t do a good job representing .

Some smart people weighed in on a thread a long time ago.

later,
fool

 

[silverwings_88]

I always thought and knew that we become Partakers of the Divine Nature, but not necessarily gods in the way Yahweh God is, rather the bible expresses how we, through Jesus, share His divinity as much as we share His priesthood, share His Mediatorship, etc…

 

[catholic-rcia]

**460 The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature":“For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”

This cannot be compared to LDS Theology in way shape or form. The Christian God is one God, we as Christians come to know our God as Father, as Son and the love between them eternally the Holy Spirit. In the above “Partakers” is a big word as it means we can share as His creation in what He, Christ has always had in the Father. The Word is another huge word as the Word spoken of here is God, has always been God, with God the Father, one in being together. John 1 usccb.org/nab/bible/john/john1.htm

So that we might become God is also huge as we are, as a Church part of the Body of Christ.

usccb.org/nab/bible/1corinthians/1corinthians12.htm

We are adopted children of God through Jesus.
newadvent.org/cathen/01148a.htm

, to share in what the Son has always shared, to be in God, with God forever. To become adopted into the Trinity.

Above: “wanting to make us sharers in his divinity”

“so that he, made man, might make men gods." To be back in the Grace of God forever

We get to share in all of this, a great gift given to creation out of love. He will be our God and we will forever be His children, he is our goal.

Continued-

 

[catholic-rcia]

Full Context

**In Comaprison to **
scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p7.htm#390

---

456 With the Nicene Creed, we answer by confessing: “For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”

457 The Word became flesh for us in order to save us by reconciling us with God, who “loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins”: “the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world”, and “he was revealed to take away sins”:70

Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again. We had lost the possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us. Closed in the darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captives, we awaited a Savior; prisoners, help; slaves, a liberator. Are these things minor or insignificant? Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state?71

458 The Word became flesh so that thus we might know God’s love: "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him."72 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."73

459 The Word became flesh* to be our model of holiness*: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.” "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me."74 On the mountain of the Transfiguration, the Father commands: "Listen to him!"75 Jesus is the model for the Beatitudes and the norm of the new law: "Love one another as I have loved you."76 This love implies an effective offering of oneself, after his example.77

460 The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”:78 "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God."79 "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."80 "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."81

 

[catholic-rcia]

398 In that sin man *preferred *himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, **against the requirements of his creaturely status **and therefore against his own good. Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God”, but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God”.279

“fully “divinized” by God in glory,” this is what your posting on CCC #460 is referring to Mormon Fool. Creation to be full divinized by our one and only Creator. The Gift!

God Bless

 

[mormon_fool]

398 In that sin man *preferred *himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, **against the requirements of his creaturely status **and therefore against his own good. Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God”, but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God”.279

“fully “divinized” by God in glory,” this is what your posting on CCC #460 is referring to Mormon Fool. Creation to be full divinized by our one and only Creator. The Gift!

God Bless

Rich,

Thanks for posting these thougths and explanations as well as highlighting the most pertinent information. How do you personally reconcile the CCC 398 passage above with Gen. 3:22?

Thanks,
fool

 

[catholic-rcia]

3:22-23** **The fact that God is a Trinity of three Persons is set out more fully in the New Testament. But by the words “one of us” God made clear from the beginning that the eternal oneness of God is of a relational nature. For to love one has to be loved. This would be the only Son of God, the love between them. From the Father and the Son proceeds the third person of the Trinity, The Holy Spirit. That which was later given to the Church at Pentacost to sustain it through good times and bad times. That which is given as a free gift to each of us, to be clothed in the blood of Christ in our Baptism. To be immersed into the death and resurrection of our lord. To become a new creation through Him.

The first humans were in the safe nest of the Garden of Eden where they were in a state of Grace, in that state they were not subject to physical death. But things did need to be learned. (See the next post)

Whereas God knew good and evil without the need or desire to sin, humans had now tasted the destructive power of evil by actually engaging in it. Something that God would never do as He is God. Having lost their perfect status they were expelled from the garden to face the world outside, to be tempted in all ways by Satan outside of Gods grace, being outside of this grace one dies. Because they now knew good an evil they became gods, (little g) judging gods in search of their / our own glory. I repeat because it is important, God Himself would never commit evil. He knows evil but does not partake.

This fallen nature would prevent Adam and Eve and all of their descendants from ever getting back to the grace of God, they would all die, and we all do die. But then Comes Jesus (God the eternal Son) that through His death and resurrection, through him paying for our penalty we are saved from eternal damnation, given a hand up, forgiven our trespasses even while we are, were still sinners because being God, he is love, and love triumphs over evil.

If we can come to see our God for who he is and what he has done for us we would understand the price paid by the way of the Cross and forever be humbled. Accept that there is nothing we can do to achieve salvation as it is not about what we do or how often we do it, Jesus said all bets are off, trust in me I have redeemed you. Its only because of His mercy and love that we are saved. Then the relationship begins, healing begins through the Sacraments given to the Church by Christ.

Trying to climb some sort of ladder to become worthy is also sin against God, what He has done for you and I. It mocks the power of the Cross for us, but really has no power over it. As this power of Satan is a fleeting power.
Yes Mormon Fool we did become little created gods knowing good from evil, right from wrong, for we act on evil as we are sinners condemned. Jesus brings us home one by one, the lost Lamb caught in the barbed wire fence. He carries us home to be with God, to be fully divinized without the desire to ever disobey God again because we now know what we have been delivered from. That would be ourselves, are earthly pursuits to become a god.

 

[catholic-rcia]

O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, Which gained for us so great a Redeemer! The power
of this holy night dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy.
Night truly blessed when heaven is wedded to earth And man is reconciled with God
. –liturgy of Holy Saturday

Somehow, original sin, that inner anguish and brokeness that is even beyond our own doing, can become the place where we come in touch with our original blessing. Somehow our broken father, our limited mother, our neurotic brother, our confused sister and our own inner struggle push us and create in us a hunger to go beyond the pain. “My soul is restless,” as St. Augustine says, “until it rests in you, O Lord.”

When we begin to know intimacy with God and to accept others and ourselves as we are, we then begin to speak about “happy guilt” or “happy brokenness.” Our inner struggle is no longer such a burden, but a way to the truth, to the light, to the life. How could we ever become children of God, embraced by the love of the Father, the Son and the Spirit, and be let into the intimacy of the triune life if God hadn’t shown compassion with us, as we are? Through Jesus’ incarnation we come to know about the inner life of God. It is in our fragile and mortal flesh that God’s original blessing is revealed to us.
–Fr. Henri J.M. Nouwen

 

[ben_dy]

Tmaque:

A LDS missionary would never ask you that question. It’s not official church doctrine(anymore), but even when it was, it was not discussed with investigators.

I’m fairly sure that it is still official church doctrine and, although that I know that my experience with the missionaries that I talked to was not what most people experience (as I now understand, my 6-8 hour conversations and being given permission for me to take the boys out to dinner and stay out past the curfew is not ‘usual’ from what I have heard from others: I cannot say what would have made me such a ‘catch’ - perhaps the fact that the ‘senior’ missionary was in his final weeks and had not one baptism in two years? That a neighbor was ‘in charge’ of the missionaries in this stake? I don’t know…) those boys did speak of becoming gods.

But, as I said, I realize now that my experience with these young men (two lessons at which my neighbor was present) was unusual both in the time spent and the topics covered.

 

[mormon_fool]

C-RCIA,

Thanks for your research and thoughts, you are helping me rethink what can be established from Gen. 3. If I understand your position man can be considered a “little g”, “created”, “judging” gods in the sense that he usurps divine perogatives and there is an uncrossable gap from created to uncreated.

Carrying this idea forward, when “god” is used in CCC 460 it loses the baggage of usurption, and replaces it with participation in the divine nature of the one true God.

I will have to ponder somemore so I can compare this to a mormon position.

later,
fool

 

[catholic-rcia]

These things are really great things to ponder. I feel as if these are some of the most important things about Christianity that we can share with one another and try to understand. This is the very area that I discovered Christ myself. A lot of my so called testimony can be found in this stuff. As I came to know the many Saints of the Church I found a lot of this ground covered in them. Much of it has to do with pride and humility. I have my very own pursuits of being my own god daily. The Sacraments, mostly the Eucharist and confession have a way of bringing you down far enough that you can see these things about yourself and then work on them throughout ones life by allowing Christ to be the doctor in all things.

We were born into the world to come to know our God In Him we move, breath and have our being Eph 4:5-6. We were born out of our One God’s love for creation. That which He alone has created. Isaiah 43:10: Deut 6:4
For God is not part of His Creation, God is Creation itself. John 17-3


John 1:17 “…For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

We can only come to know grace and truth, on the other hand Jesus is Grace and Truth.
Jesus is one Spirit with God, God is Spirit, we on the other hand have been gifted this Spirit in us.

 

[ben_dy]

catholic-rcia:

These things are really great things to ponder. I feel as if these are some of the most important things about Christianity that we can share with one another and try to understand. This is the very area that I discovered Christ myself. A lot of my so called testimony can be found in this stuff. As I came to know the many Saints of the Church I found a lot of this ground covered in them. Much of it has to do with pride and humility. I have my very own pursuits of being my own god daily. The Sacraments, mostly the Eucharist and confession have a way of bringing you down far enough that you can see these things about yourself and then work on them throughout ones life by allowing Christ to be the doctor in all things.

C-RCIA,

I just wanted to drop a note, here, to say how very much I enjoy reading your messages. You have a unique gift for expressing succinctly that which I would belabor until the actual point would become lost in the mass of words. I will not even attempt to explain just ‘how’ very personal what you wrote above is for me - suffice it to say that I feel the same.

 

[catholic-rcia]

“I would belabor until the actual point would become lost in the mass of words”

If you only knew?

I was once told by a women who leads are RCIA class that it is very easy to sink deep into the mud when discussing our faith with others if our focus is not directly on Christ. That we need to find the simplicity in what Christ is…simply His love to us. When we speak we need to speak about Him. Conversion comes by way of the heart, not by the number of words spoken she said. In the last six years as a new Catholic in Utah I to have been in the mud many times, and for all the wrong reasons. But God can use this perceived failure well:

“I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” – Pablo Picasso

She tells a story about a new Priest who came to an Old Parish where the Priest there was retiring on Sunday after the Mass. The young priest was about to give his first Homily as a Priest. and the retiring Priest Father Branson was going to follow up and say goodbye. The young Priest had studied for this moment for years. He knew that his Homily was going to awaken all those souls in the pews on this day. He was ready and he was confident. He was going to speak on Psalm 119. While he was speaking he noticed that some were yawning, he even saw another who looked as if he was asleep, the children seemed to get louder, when he finished he humbly sat down. Father Branson rose and for the next few moments had the whole congregation in silence and had left them in tears. The young Priest was told by a Deacon that this was not about Him leaving, or retiring, this is just Father Branson.

The young Priest walked over to Father Branson and said to him “ I have been preparing for this Homily for a long time and I put the Church to sleep, you spend two minutes with them and they become inflamed with the Holy Spirit. Father Branson said to him “You have come to know Psalm 119 very well, I have come to know our Lord and Savior.” The young priest understood and gave Father Branson a hug, but Father Branson being Father Branson tenderly pushed him away and said “Save all your hugs for Jesus”, I do not deserve one, as the young Priest began to turn away Father Branson embraced Him and said Peace be with in Christ, you will make a Fine Priest for God. For a moment Father knew himself well, in the last moment he allowed Christ in Him to do what only Christ can do, embrace each and every one of us.

“Lord, you are not pleased with someone simply because that person is knowledgeable. In fact, it would be possible for one to know everything there is to know in the whole wide world, except for knowing you, and consequently know nothing. Just as another person could live in blissful ignorance of the great sum of human knowledge, but know you, and be both happy and content. After all, who is better placed - the person who owns a tree and gives You thanks for all the good things it provides; or the one who owns a similar tree and knows its weight and dimensions down to the least leaf, but does not realize that You are its Creator and that it is through You that he or she has use of it? In essence, the latter person is ignorant, though full of facts, and the former person wise, though bit short on details. So in general we can say that the most important knowledge is knowledge of You, O Lord." **…**St. Augustine