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No! Of course not! I think you need to re-read the story again. It is pretty clear who the culprit is. It is a person.
The simplest reason for blame is the milk of the word.
A baby in similitude is what a baby christian is.
The milk of the word is bottle fed a baby christian until it is weaned off the bottle and into more meaty things in of bible as per age, ability to understand and experience.
Many of us have been growing consistently towards spiritual maturity, though we have our ups and downs due to our imperfection.
The meat of understanding about the tree of knowledge is not that it was an apple and disobedience, but and understanding that because of knowledge gained in life we became as gods, with free will, and therefore, alienated, separated from God, meaning death.
Hence, it takes God’s deliverance and not our own.
It is very possible that, had Eve obeyed God, there would be no death. No, knowledge does not kill. Disobedience kills.
Knowledge does kill the soul as per Adam and Eve being cast out, after the partaking of the fruit of knowledge.
God understood this as part of His creative process, that is why He also placed a tree in the same garden as the tree of life.
Had we had knowledge already and no death, there would have been no need for the tree of life being there to.
Give yourself some time to think about that.
No. A “stumbling block” is something that affects people under the consequences of original sin (having a sin nature) or as the Latin Rite calls it “concupiscence”.
God, in His love created humanity in His own “likeness and image”. This means He made us with free will. We are able to choose the good, or the evil.
I will agree with all you said except I want you to re-read the last two sentences, by which you placed them in it rightful order, but the understanding is that free will is the ability to judge between two opposing sides, and the two sides are given to all of us, not just to Adam and Eve.
That, by my understanding is the curse to all of us, better known to many as the original sin.
No, not really. Protestantism has at it’s root “protest”. It was formed by persons “protesting” against the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church built by Christ, founded upon the Apostles and Prophets. Of course you are right, it is always a choice to rebel against what God has commanded. Adam and Eve rebelled against God’s commandment. During the Reformation, people rebelled against the authority appointed by Christ. They did not trust the clergy, because they were impious and behaved wickedly. So, they tried to replace the authority appointed by Christ with Scripture.
The word “protest” is a label place on by the church on those who would challenge the authority of the Catholic Church.
If you can understand after studying the stories of Israel’s relationship with God through out their whole ordeal, you will find that though they were supposed to be the pillar of truth (God’s voice) to the world that they failed not once but many times to keep what was entrusted to them in right standing with God.
Why suppose that was so? And is it was with them then, can it not be so today with any of us?
The Catholic Church is perfect in message, about Jesus I mean, but was not necessarily perfect in it’s actions because within it’s governing body was the human element involved.
Likewise was it with Israel, the same exact thing.
Protestantism, was a means to addressing those issues that were misleading and by which God used as an instrument to bring correction to those issues.
The bible is the only source by which anybody, catholic or not, can find life, I mean spiritual life via the born again experience into the family of God.
I will not argue with you on the necessity for me or anyone to became a member of the Catholic Church in order to be born again, for I understand that it takes place in my souls heart, and that there is where the temple of God is.
Temple meaning here is God being the head.
This is Catholic Teaching.
You see, we both are members of that heavenly family via the rebirth of our souls from a dead state to one of life, Brother or Sister.
What you are saying, it seems, is that it does not matter if Jesus wanted unity in His Body.
It does matter, in that Jesus wanted us in unity of spirit, not necessarily in unity of place of worship. That’s where divisions arise.
Agreeing in spirit that Jesus came in the flesh as the Son of God, is believing in His salvation, therefore born again into the family of God, where Jesus is the head of that spiritual family.
We should both have fellowship in that same spirit, regardless of what church we choose to attend.
I agree that the work of the HS is life changing, where and when it happens. It is right for man t appreciate it. However, our experience is not the standard by which we should measure, but by the commandment of God. If we go by our own experience, however appreciative we may be, we then fall into the same sin of Adam and Eve, determining for ourselves what is best for us.
The underlined words above deals with the experience.
The experience of life is where love is born, in the midst of hell, Christ gave life to the world.
Had He not experienced it, me and you would have had no hope,
So, yes, we are experiencing different life styles, different religious beliefs, different times and ages, yet the spirit of God remains the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.
That spirit by which we honor Him is the spirit of love, we have one to another, and love has no bounds.
Good discussion!
Blessing’s, AJ
…fd