Trying to understand the temptation in Eden

[Heliotropium]

Sure, they could generalize about harmful things from other experiences of injuries without experiencing each kind of injury. The question is, had they ever disobeyed God on other occasions to learn it had bad consequences? How could they have generalized, then?

That question is irrelevant sincere you haven’t shown that Adam and Eve needed this or that the source of their information was not trustworthy!

Do you really think Adam and Eve didn’t have enough knowledge to know that to eat the fruit was to disobey God and that disobeying God was a bad thing? Read the temptation the serpent Gave Eve. The devil always minimizes seriousness of sin and it’s consequences; and, in this case the devil knows he is dealing with some intelligent beings who know the seriousness of the consequences if they are to eat the fruit. So, what does the devil do? He attacks the consequences, not by minimizing them since he knows this will not work, but by denying they will even happen! He says " you will not die." Yet even this isn’t enough to completely sway them so he goes on further to say " your eyes will be opened and you will be as Gods, knowing good and evil." He tells them they will not die because they will be as Gods and God cannot die, moreover, he tempts their intellect by saying they will know good and evil as God knows it. Adam and Eve knew their greatness and they were in love with themselves. This pride lead them to now want to be Gods. Just think of the pride involved in a creature believing it can know something as the Creator knows it!

I disagree, there is no way I would have a nuclear device in my kitchen knowing that if my daughter forgot one time to turn off the switch before coming into the room, or got in a hurry, or whatever, that it would surely give her and all her descendants a painful, heritable mutation, I would not have the stupid thing in the house. ?!]

Again your trying to paint Adam and Eve as victims. The reality would be more like you’re the Father of nuclear science, and you put a nuclear appliance in your house, where your two adult children live who are also nuclear scientists and who know the consequence of misusing a nuclear appliance, because you, the Father of nuclear science have educated them of the consequences. You’re saying you still wouldn’t trust your adult scientist children to do the right thing? Not only would I trust them, there would be no reason not to!

Again, here, what “sufficient knowledge of the consequences” did God give them? In the story he doesn’t say, hey, if you don’t fess up, and you did this thing, then . . .

He doesn’t say because it’s irrelevant! Listen, it sounds a lot like you’re saying the only reason to not disobey God is because we will have to face a disastrous consequence if we do. The only scenario in where God would be required to inform us of every single consequence that will befall us if we disobey Him, is if He made a world without love. Not sining simply because you will be punished for it is another way of saying you would sin if there was no punishment involved. Love on the other hand prompts us to not sin not because we will be punished for it but because it hurts the one we love; God. Love chooses not to sin even if there were no consequences for sining. God wasn’t even required to tell Adam and Eve of the consequence of death. If they truly loved God more than themselves they would have simply been ok with God saying " don’t touch this".

 

[Neoplatonist]

I think you’re giving a stretched reading to equate them with adult nuclear scientists. Even if we put that aside, though, the more important point remains: where do we see that they had the chance to learn that disobeying God would hurt Him or make him sad or themselves unhappy for letting Him down, or any of those things?

Again, were there no lessons and corrections available on the scale between zero and cursed for all future generations?

 

[Jon_S_1]

Interesting points. Really. Yet, we cannot say he was inclined to the good because he had no conception of good or evil - isn’t that part of the point in the story? It seems a little like penalizing a kid for mistaking an integral and a derivative when they have never studied calculus. Of course, in this case it is self-referential, so approaches a paradox. Why would we expect a kid to know calculus if we hadn’t taught them? And why would we land on them with a whole pile of consequences when they got it wrong?

In this case, as well, it is not even like a baby step, it’s like that dream where you show up to class and it’s the final exam, and you haven’t been there all semester. 1 question exam, integral or derivative? If you fail, you are out of college and go work as a day laborer on a farm somewhere.

You make a fundamental error here. They had knowledge of Good. God is Good and they knew him!

They did not have knowledge of evil.

This is an important distinction to make.

God gave them free will. But what good is free will if it’s not exercised? If I told you you were free to do whatever you want. Go and enjoy the world. And them I make it so you have no choice on what you do , perhaps shackle you to a fence, where is your free will?

Similarly if God creates a world with no free choice requirements, there is no free will.

 

[Jon_S_1]

I think you’re giving a stretched reading to equate them with adult nuclear scientists. Even if we put that aside, though, the more important point remains: where do we see that they had the chance to learn that disobeying God would hurt Him or make him sad or themselves unhappy for letting Him down, or any of those things?

Again, were there no lessons and corrections available on the scale between zero and cursed for all future generations?

Are you a literal fundamentalist ?

Do you really think that While God was dwelling with man in the garden he only spoke a couple paragraphs to man?

The authors wrote the gist of the story. I have no doubts God Adam and Eve had many many long conversations and discussions as any friends would.

 

[Neoplatonist]

Are you a literal fundamentalist ?

Do you really think that While God was dwelling with man in the garden he only spoke a couple paragraphs to man?

The authors wrote the gist of the story. I have no doubts God Adam and Eve had many many long conversations and discussions as any friends would.

We certainly see no indication of any punishments or corrections or whatever short of the extreme case that is given. No “teachable moments.” In fact, we never see him teach them anything - but surely anything he taught them would have been incredibly important and should have been mentioned by the writers trying to capture the high points, no?

No, not a literal fundamentalist. The whole point of the exercise is to understand the parable so I can translate it to my life and those of the people I teach, counsel, and mentor.

 

[Jon_S_1]

We certainly see no indication of any punishments or corrections or whatever short of the extreme case that is given. No “teachable moments.” In fact, we never see him teach them anything - but surely anything he taught them would have been incredibly important and should have been mentioned by the writers trying to capture the high points, no?

No, not a literal fundamentalist. The whole point of the exercise is to understand the parable so I can translate it to my life and those of the people I teach, counsel, and mentor.

I’m just trying to understand your frame of reference.

Genesis was written by Moses. It was anywhere from 3,000-100,000 years after Adam and Eve.

No doubt many if the details of the previously oral tradition had been lost. There are some Jewish legends in Kabbalah primarily that talk of more details of Adam and Eve such as his first wife Lilith that taught him plenty about evil.

Although no way scriptural it may help with some speculations.

Certain concepts such as the serpent being identified as Satan, Eve being a sexual temptation, or Adam’s first wife being Lilith, come from literary works found in various Jewish apocrypha, but not found anywhere in the Book of Genesis or the Torah itself. Writings dealing with these subjects are extant literature in Greek, Latin, Slavonic, Syriac, Armenian and Arabic, going back to ancient Jewish thought. Their influential concepts were then adopted into Christian theology, but not into modern Judaism. This marked a radical split between the two religions. Some of the oldest Jewish portions of apocrypha are called Primary Adam Literature where some works became Christianized. Examples of Christianized works are Life of Adam and Eve, Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, (translated from the Ethiopic by Solomon Caesar Malan, 1882)[26] and an original Syriac work entitled Cave of Treasures[27] which has close affinities to the Conflict as noted by August Dillmann.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_and_Eve

 

[Heliotropium]

I think you’re giving a stretched reading to equate them with adult nuclear scientists.

I disagree since the devil wouldn’t have bothered removing the threat of the consequence of eating the fruit if Adam and Eve were stupid and unknowing of the seriousness of such a consequence. Nor would he have tempted them with a temptation of the intellect if they were stupid and ignorant. Sorry but your theory that they were ignorant is disproven by the very method and nature of the temptation presented by the serpent.

Even if we put that aside, though, the more important point remains: where do we see that they had the chance to learn that disobeying God would hurt Him or make him sad or themselves unhappy for letting Him down, or any of those things?

The more important point is you have not shown how it is necessary that they needed this chance in order to do the right thing? Again when it comes to love the fear of suffering a consequence should not be the motivating factor as to why you do not disobey or hurt the person you love. Secondly you haven’t shown why Adam and Even would have just cause to doubt the trustworthiness of God? If you love and trust someone and this person asks you not to do this or that, do you really need any more of a reason to not do it? God however went above and beyond by even making them aware of the consequence of eating the fruit since He shouldn’t even have had to do that.

Again, were there no lessons and corrections available on the scale between zero and cursed for all future generations?

Again there would have been no need for such lessons nor have you provided enough evidence to show that such lessons were needed.

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

God loves us and wants us to love and obey him, but such is predicated on the ability to choose.

What did Man do, Man chose to sin against God. I personally take the Eden account as a meta-
phorical tale explaining the statement about, saying essentially that we were perfect some point
in time, then we chose to wrongly against God’s will. What EXACTLY happened? I do not know,
but the essence of what happened in my eyes is that Man placed his judgement and will above
God’s own. We could have chosen to remain perfect with God, to bear the Image of God to the
world, that image of authority and holiness, but Man chose to set that aside, and we fell.

Perfect example is right now, to place God’s ways up to scrutiny. Don’t do it.

 

[Neoplatonist]

If they had the necessary knowledge and experience to be culpable for the choice, then how do you explain the new knowledge that was gained once they ate the fruit?

As for love and trust: the whole parable suggests a feeble grasp of human psychology and the effect of secrecy. I don’t care who you are or how wonderful your friend/spouse/parent is, if you live in a wondrous mansion and they tell you, “Don’t ever go in that one room upstairs,” that will automatically undermine your trust. One of the things I can’t grasp in this story is that the serpent seems far more insightful about human psychology than God, including the points you make in your own argument. ?]

And still we must ask: why would God need to keep a secret room or a forbidden tree? That smells like the kind of tests that people lay for their boyfriends/girlfriends in high school to make them show they love them. [also ?] If it was dangerous, why put the stupid thing in the middle of the garden? Do we leave chainsaws in the middle of the playroom?

 

[Jon_S_1]

If they had the necessary knowledge and experience to be culpable for the choice, then how do you explain the new knowledge that was gained once they ate the fruit?

As for love and trust: the whole parable suggests a feeble grasp of human psychology and the effect of secrecy. I don’t care who you are or how wonderful your friend/spouse/parent is, if you live in a wondrous mansion and they tell you, “Don’t ever go in that one room upstairs,” that will automatically undermine your trust. One of the things I can’t grasp in this story is that the serpent seems far more insightful about human psychology than God, including the points you make in your own argument. ?]

And still we must ask: why would God need to keep a secret room or a forbidden tree? That smells like the kind of tests that people lay for their boyfriends/girlfriends in high school to make them show they love them. [also ?] If it was dangerous, why put the stupid thing in the middle of the garden? Do we leave chainsaws in the middle of the playroom?

Are we even sure their was a literal tree? I’m not so sure.

 

[Neoplatonist]

Are we even sure their was a literal tree? I’m not so sure.

But they gained moral knowledge/insight that they didn’t have before, whether the tree was real or metaphorical. The issue is how to make sense of their capacities before they had that moral knowledge/insight.

 

[Jon_S_1]

But they gained moral knowledge/insight that they didn’t have before, whether the tree was real or metaphorical. The issue is how to make sense of their capacities before they had that moral knowledge/insight.

Ok,

So,

If I am told that murdering someone is wrong. That if I kill my neighbor I will be thrown into some strange place called jail. That I will never see my family again and that I will loathe the day I decided to do wrong.

But I had never seen any of this…

Would I not have full capability in the murder?

Of course I would.

In fact if argue, you need not know the consequences. It is intrinsically evil to murder. Everyone knows this truth as it’s part of Gods writing on the hearts of men.

But God did tell Adam and Eve something. He told them if they eat that fruit they will surely die.

So to use an example like yours.

I create a beautiful natural park for you to enjoy. I tell you go and enjoy it, eat the fruits and vegetables and all that it has is yours.

I warn you though that there is an area with poison mushrooms and if you eat the poison mushrooms you will die.

Would you feel this overwhelming burden to consume the mushrooms as if it was a locked room in your house?

I’d say no , it’s not too much to ask for us to enjoy the plethora of nature and not eat one mushroom.

 

[Neoplatonist]

Ok,

So,

If I am told that murdering someone is wrong. That if I kill my neighbor I will be thrown into some strange place called jail. That I will never see my family again and that I will loathe the day I decided to do wrong.

But I had never seen any of this…

Would I not have full capability in the murder?

Of course I would.

In fact if argue, you need not know the consequences. It is intrinsically evil to murder. Everyone knows this truth as it’s part of Gods writing on the hearts of men.

But God did tell Adam and Eve something. He told them if they eat that fruit they will surely die.

So to use an example like yours.

I create a beautiful natural park for you to enjoy. I tell you go and enjoy it, eat the fruits and vegetables and all that it has is yours.

I warn you though that there is an area with poison mushrooms and if you eat the poison mushrooms you will die.

Would you feel this overwhelming burden to consume the mushrooms as if it was a locked room in your house?

I’d say no , it’s not too much to ask for us to enjoy the plethora of nature and not eat one mushroom.

1.Good. I wonder if Adam and Eve had the natural law written on their hearts - never thought about that before, but I’m open to that.

2.Culpability depends on moral maturity - that’s why children and those with certain developmental delays are held to a different standard than rational adults. From the story it still looks as if some aspect of moral reasoning or awareness was lacking.

3.What if you told me I would die, and then some wizened old scholar came by and said they would not kill me, but would actually give me the power to create other gardens even more amazing. You didn’t help me understand your reasoning, he did. One is understandable, one theory is not. Would I not lean toward the one that seemed reasonable?

4.Why in the world did God not bother to teach Adam & Eve about stranger danger?

5.Mainly, though: Why design a park for me and put poison mushrooms in it??

 

[dmwessel]

So, a parent sets up wondrous pile of presents under the Christmas tree, including one big one wrapped in the sparkliest gold paper you’ve ever seen. Inside that box is a rat carrying a disease that causes painful genetic mutation. Before leaving to go to the store on Christmas morning, the parent reminds the children, “Whatever you do, remember not to open the gold, shiny one.”

What kind of weird parenting is that?

As an important point of consideration, let us reflect on the fact that any need to test the child’s obedience or to respect their free will or whatever could have been accomplished with a present that merely covered them with skunk smell, or gave them burning itching hives, or whatever. Still a messed-up theory of parenting, but far short of kicking them out of the house and cursing them and their children and their grandchildren ad infinitum to shorter lives with more pain and more work and an innate tendency to make further stupid decisions.

You brought up an interesting point that a lot of people wonder about.

Genesis is only a very short overview of what happened as it only states that man was put into a garden. So we need to look elsewhere for other information to fill in the missing pieces. The Apocryphal books of Adam and Eve do just that.

God elevated Adam in the garden by having him name all of the creatures, which incensed the serpent (bright one/angel).

Now God knew that the serpent was angry at Adam and so he forewarned Adam, “do not eat of the tree (of wisdom) in the midst of the garden or you will die”. I recall taking my 4 year old son into a store that had a lot of very pretty glass ornaments. I said to him, “I know that you would probably like to touch every single one of these things but if you break them you’ll feel really bad and then I’ll have to pay for them and I don’t have money for that right now.” (if I had been really smart I would have held an ornament so that he could at least touch it) - he looked at me very intelligently and said “don’t worry mom, I won’t touch anything”.

We had the relationship of trust. Just so Adam knew that God was only looking out for his (Adam’s) best interests.

We can learn from the Books of Adam and Eve and Books of Enoch that a tree is an angel, there being many trees in the garden.

So the serpent being jealous was very sneaky and for whatever reason, decided that Eve was an easier target, and succeeded in convincing her that she needed to eat from this tree to become* wise*. And the rest is history.

 

[Mintaka]

What if you told me I would die, and then some wizened old scholar came by and said they would not kill me, but would actually give me the power to create other gardens even more amazing. You didn’t help me understand your reasoning, he did. One is understandable, one theory is not. Would I not lean toward the one that seemed reasonable?

What if some wise person did tell me that? So?

Who is more likely to know me and my needs and what is going to kill me – God, the one Who made me and the mushrooms, and who talks to me every day? Or some random guy who doesn’t have the same digestive system as me, even if he’s supposed to be the wisest entity around except for God?

Do you always believe random people who tell you that poison mushrooms aren’t poisonous? Even if you believe them or find their information worthy of debate, why would you chow down right away? Wouldn’t you take time to consider, or to run tests? Are they harmless to snakes and poisonous to humans, or are their effects slow instead of instant? Has the man identified the mushrooms properly? If the mushrooms are really so awesome and harmless, won’t they be just as awesome and harmless tomorrow?

No, what’s really amusing about this story is that it’s so true to human nature. There’s nobody as mindlessly trusting of strangers as somebody convinced that she’s being skeptical and an independent thinker.

 

[Jon_S_1]

What if some wise person did tell me that? So?

Who is more likely to know me and my needs and what is going to kill me – God, the one Who made me and the mushrooms, and who talks to me every day? Or some random guy who doesn’t have the same digestive system as me, even if he’s supposed to be the wisest entity around except for God?

Do you always believe random people who tell you that poison mushrooms aren’t poisonous? Even if you believe them or find their information worthy of debate, why would you chow down right away? Wouldn’t you take time to consider, or to run tests? Are they harmless to snakes and poisonous to humans, or are their effects slow instead of instant? Has the man identified the mushrooms properly? If the mushrooms are really so awesome and harmless, won’t they be just as awesome and harmless tomorrow?

No, what’s really amusing about this story is that it’s so true to human nature. There’s nobody as mindlessly trusting of strangers as somebody convinced that she’s being skeptical and an independent thinker.

Or when hearing the mushrooms are fine to eat, why not go back to the Creator for guidance!

 

[Neoplatonist]

Ah, see, NOW we’re getting to the brilliance of the serpent: he didn’t merely convince Adam that the apples were safe, he convinced him that God had ulterior motives. Once that comes into play, the other pieces almost assemble themselves.

In fact, God’s apparent reaction fits the serpent’s story nicely. “What, you ate the knowledge fruit? I’d better keep you from eating the immortality fruit too!” Why? Why was God so threatened that Adam & Eve become even MORE like him?

See?

Of course, we also have the question parallel to the knowledge tree: why in the world would you put something in the garden that you were afraid for your kids to eat?

 

[fhansen]

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil wasn’t a “present”, as if it were an option for God, one that He decided to place in the garden to test Adam & Eve. Rather the tree is a symbol which describes a simple reality for a human being: man cannot detach himself/become autonomous from God without his whole world caving in, without losing the life God would have in store for him-a life truly worth living. He cannot reject God’s authority for his own without ending up in a sort of semi-misery, in a world of disharmony, with pain, sin, suffering, and no certainty of continued existence. Only with God do we know where we came from, what we’re doing here, and where we’re going, only with God are we not lost. This is from the CCC:

**396 God created man in his image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God. The prohibition against eating “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” spells this out: "for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die."276 The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil"277 symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his Creator, and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom.
**

 

[Neoplatonist]

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil wasn’t a “present”, as if it were an option for God, one that He decided to place in the garden to test Adam & Eve. Rather the tree is a symbol which describes a simple reality for a human being: man cannot detach himself/become autonomous from God without his whole world caving in, without losing the life God would have in store for him-a life truly worth living. He cannot reject God’s authority for his own without ending up in a sort of semi-misery, in a world of disharmony, with pain, sin, suffering, and no certainty of continued existence. Only with God do we know where we came from, what we’re doing here, and where we’re going, only with God are we not lost. This is from the CCC:

**396 God created man in his image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God. The prohibition against eating “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” spells this out: "for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die."276 The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil"277 symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his Creator, and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom.
**

A fair perspective. However at that point we should just drop the father metaphor altogether, because what kind of strange, needy parent would choose to create a child that would be forever completely dependent on them for any true happiness in life?

Similarly, what parent doesn’t want their child to grow up with a knowledge of good and evil - that seems to play into the dependency construct. ?] You can talk about the obedience aspect, but there was/is also clearly a change in understanding reflected in the story (and which would play out in our lives). Are me meant to be non-intellectuals just limiting our ability to reason to mere obedience like we’re forever 5 years old?

Appreciate that you’re giving me a different way to think about some of the issues, just not sure I see yet how they get us out of the quicksand.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Ah, see, NOW we’re getting to the brilliance of the serpent: he didn’t merely convince Adam that the apples were safe, he convinced him that God had ulterior motives. Once that comes into play, the other pieces almost assemble themselves.

In fact, God’s apparent reaction fits the serpent’s story nicely. “What, you ate the knowledge fruit? I’d better keep you from eating the immortality fruit too!” Why? Why was God so threatened that Adam & Eve become even MORE like him?

See?

Of course, we also have the question parallel to the knowledge tree: why in the world would you put something in the garden that you were afraid for your kids to eat?

I find it interesting that the personal values you display in this discussion are probably the very ones that caused Adam to Fall - and so chain your understanding here.

You appear personally ambivalent wrt trust in authority versus following personal reason.
Perhaps you do not see what can be wrong with disobeying “unreasonable” authority (or what is virtuous/mature in following such an authority). You find it hard to see how an authority can be valid if its commands appear unreasonable. That’s a fair statement. Yet what you really mean is that if YOU personally cannot see the reasonableness of a command then you do not need to obey it .

And I believe this is exactly the crisis portrayed in Genesis.

You make some good points in favour of reason:
Yes, God’s command was not purely arbitrary - the Tree must have also been bad.
(ie obviously good in itself otherwise it would not have been created, but seriously bad in some way for humans at that time).

In fact I would go so far as to opine that Adam’s knowledge of the evilness of that Tree may have been communicated to him simply via Natural Law rather than personal Revelation (a spoken command from God). The personal command may be no more than a personifcation of the law that speaks in our hearts.

You keep going on about why the geneticly mutilating evil in the middle of Eden?
Your slightly misguided life values have caused you to totally miss the point.
That’s the interesting thing about Church Teaching. When we object to it it reveals our faults at least as much as we do its .

Its a given. Accept it. The potential for suffering is somehow important and intrinsic to Creation as a whole (thats why the Tree is in the centre of the Garden). If it weren’t then the God who loves and cares for us wouldn’t have made it. Maybe its there for reasons nothing to do with us - good for some other reason.
It doesn’t matter. We are warned off in very clear terms “you will surely die.”
And we will surely die is not really a wrathful God punishing us also/mainly? a natural law consequence of the Eating.

The 2nd thing you may not understand is that much of our happiness, health and self-mastery in Eden is not man’s by right/nature but is a pure gift of God for friendship sake (“original justice”). This might also be symbolised by the Tree. The command not to eat and the obedience thereof may well symbolise the realisation and trusting acceptance that goodness/live/happiness is given - it cannot be taken. The moment you try and take it for yourself it turns to dust (literally).

God stopping them from eating of the Tree of life is usually understood as a mercy. Its a difficult passage but it goes something like this…To eat of it in a Fallen state would mean an eternal living death for Adam and Eve and the impossibility of future Redemption. Think of a mind-meld with a non Vulcan who cannot take the knowledge overload as a Vulcan by nature can. Fallen man cannot handle stolen Divine knowledge - let alone eternally.

We cannot be happy without God’s friendship, in fact we cannot even have a properly working “human-nature” without the subordination that friendship with our Creator involves.

Excessive trust/reliance on personal reason/insight as the basis for obedience is a seriously flawed approach to life. It is the basis of an unhealthy individualism that sees life more about taking than receiving. It intrinsically denies true friendship and solidarity whether human or divine.