The fall of man; Free will

[jonman122]

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" 2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "
4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
11 And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
12 The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."
13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"
The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this,
"Cursed are you above all the livestock
and all the wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring [a] and hers;
he will crush [b] your head,
and you will strike his heel."
16 To the woman he said,
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you."
17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return."
20 Adam [c] named his wife Eve, [d] because she would become the mother of all the living.
21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side [e] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.






this is the genesis story, chapter 3. If you're interpreting it literally, then it's also safe to say you believe in floating flaming swords. I don't think we can trust your logic.

 

[dmgdnooc]

then instead of being ashamed for eating the fruit why is it the first thing they did was to cover themselves and not repent for their disobedience?

this ancient religion comes with many references to being covered
even the apostle paul used it;1 cor 11:5-10

5But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved.

6For if a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut off; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, let her cover her head.

7For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.

8For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man;

9for indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake.

10Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.

in this story, the 1st thing they did was to cover themselves, WHY is that?
you don't know and I don't know..why pretend to KNOW?

　
Before sin entered, 2.25, 'they were both naked .... and not ashamed'
After sin entered, 3.10, 'I was afraid, because I was naked'
The words indicate that they sought to cover themselves because they were afraid.
And I note that fear and shame are not the same thing.
　
I do not know why they draped themselves with aprons of leaves.
I have suspicions of why they did it and could list several factors that would have a bearing on the 'why', but am not prepared to voice them as points in a debate.
I am unsure of their significance to the answer.
　
However, I do know that it is not because genitals are evil, which is the point that I made.
Genitals were included in the general pronouncement of 'goodness' in Genesis 2.
　

 

[waitasec]

　
If a virgin can understand what the word 'marriage' means then they could know what the word 'evil' means in exactly the same way.
The understanding must, of necessity, be incomplete but it is not the state of total ignorance that you argue for.
　

[/SIZE]

a virgin knows about the sex act but a certain physical change has to occur, right?

are you married?

Was your UNDERSTANDING of marriage the same NOW, if you are, as it was BEFORE you were married.

i am married, i understood what it meant, but NOW after being married i KNOW what it means, do you follow?

i understand what the word delicious means but until i TASTE
this enticing danish will i KNOW what delicious means
do you follow

so to suggest that a tree of KNOWLEDGE of good and evil
will open adam and eves eyes into the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil is lame, for lack of a better word...

this story isn't clear about weather or not god holds them accountable for their knowledge or lack thereof...
because OBVIOUSLY for the purpose of this story adam HAD to UNDERSTAND what the tree meant BUT did he KNOW disobedience was evil with out the KNOWLEDGE of evil?

can you see the difference between KNOWLEDGE and UNDERSTANDING?

 

[dmgdnooc]

jon
I think you have missed the point.
The point is that any reasoning from the story must be based on the actual words that are in the story.
Not on the words that we imagine should be in the story.
That is true whether or not the story is believed to be literally true or not.

 

[waitasec]

this is the question and i will put another way.

strictly for argument sake;
With our current state of KNOWLEDGE of good and evil, thousands of years after adam and eve ate of the forbidden fruit, did god hold them accountable, with that same UNDERSTANDING of OUR KNOWLEDGE that we NOW have, for their disobedience?

 

[waitasec]

　
Before sin entered, 2.25, 'they were both naked .... and not ashamed'
After sin entered, 3.10, 'I was afraid, because I was naked'
The words indicate that they sought to cover themselves because they were afraid.
And I note that fear and shame are not the same thing.
　
I do not know why they draped themselves with aprons of leaves.
I have suspicions of why they did it and could list several factors that would have a bearing on the 'why', but am not prepared to voice them as points in a debate.
I am unsure of their significance to the answer.
　
However, I do know that it is not because genitals are evil, which is the point that I made.
Genitals were included in the general pronouncement of 'goodness' in Genesis 2.
　

"they sought cover because they were afraid"
of what exactly? did god say he was going to spank them for their disobedience...why be afraid of god? if you are speaking in terms of reverence, god made them naked, they knew nothing about being covered and why is it shameful to be naked?
all they knew was that they would "surely die"
the fist thing they were privy to was their nakedness. seems like they should have repented for their folly, but they covered themselves, a foreign idea having nothing to do with good and evil...unless being naked is evil.

 

[dmgdnooc]

a virgin knows about the sex act but a certain physical change has to occur, right?

are you married?

Was your UNDERSTANDING of marriage the same NOW, if you are, as it was BEFORE you were married.

i am married, i understood what it meant, but NOW after being married i KNOW what it means, do you follow?

i understand what the word delicious means but until i TASTE
this enticing danish will i KNOW what delicious means
do you follow

so to suggest that a tree of KNOWLEDGE of good and evil
will open adam and eves eyes into the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil is lame, for lack of a better word...

this story isn't clear about weather or not god holds them accountable for their knowledge or lack thereof...
because OBVIOUSLY for the purpose of this story adam HAD to UNDERSTAND what the tree meant BUT did he KNOW disobedience was evil with out the KNOWLEDGE of evil?

can you see the difference between KNOWLEDGE and UNDERSTANDING?

I am married, I do follow what you say.
It tells me that you understand the difference between intellectual, or theoretical, knowledge and experiential, or practical, knowledge.
　
The suggestion that eating of the tree opened their eyes is from the words of Genesis.
'Then the eyes of them both were opened'
The words are there to be understood as they stand, not altered or ignored because they do not fit a particular mind set that has been cultivated in you or me or anyone else.
　
Clearly it doesn't mean that their literal eyes were then opened, that previously they had been bumping and banging into all the trees of the garden and tripping on every clump of grass because they had their literal eyes tight shut up until that point.
　
I think that their eyes were opened to the mess that they had gotten themselves into.
That they got their first glimpse of the transitory nature of flesh and their utter dependence on the continuing good will of God for all things.
　
I think the story is clear about God's attitude to them.
He missed their company and called after them.
They thought they were going to die, right then and there, no ifs or buts; God gave them time, many long years, to see for themselves the full consequences of sin and to find repentance.
They made for themselves inadequate coverings of leaves; God made for them coats of skins and covered them Himself.
In fact, as soon as the story was out of their mouths, God set in motion the means to save them from sin, that they might, after death, eat of the tree of life in the resurrection.
　
Can you see the difference my attitude of mind makes of the words.
And I am not distorting the words or the ideas in the story.
　
There is a difference between knowledge and understanding.
Knowledge is of a lower order than understanding because understanding requires knowledge for its base.

 

[waitasec]

I am married, I do follow what you say.
It tells me that you understand the difference between intellectual, or theoretical, knowledge and experiential, or practical, knowledge.
　
The suggestion that eating of the tree opened their eyes is from the words of Genesis.
'Then the eyes of them both were opened'
The words are there to be understood as they stand, not altered or ignored because they do not fit a particular mind set that has been cultivated in you or me or anyone else.
　
Clearly it doesn't mean that their literal eyes were then opened, that previously they had been bumping and banging into all the trees of the garden and tripping on every clump of grass because they had their literal eyes tight shut up until that point.
　
I think that their eyes were opened to the mess that they had gotten themselves into.
That they got their first glimpse of the transitory nature of flesh and their utter dependence on the continuing good will of God for all things.
　
I think the story is clear about God's attitude to them.
He missed their company and called after them.
They thought they were going to die, right then and there, no ifs or buts; God gave them time, many long years, to see for themselves the full consequences of sin and to find repentance.
They made for themselves inadequate coverings of leaves; God made for them coats of skins and covered them Himself.
In fact, as soon as the story was out of their mouths, God set in motion the means to save them from sin, that they might, after death, eat of the tree of life in the resurrection.
　
Can you see the difference my attitude of mind makes of the words.
And I am not distorting the words or the ideas in the story.
　
There is a difference between knowledge and understanding.
Knowledge is of a lower order than understanding because understanding requires knowledge for its base.

because they had knowledge of a lower order god then put the poison in the crib and said don't eat it or you'll die...
they understood what "no" meant...right?
so why put the poison in the crib if god knew they had a lower order of knowledge?

 

[dmgdnooc]

this is the question and i will put another way.

strictly for argument sake;
With our current state of KNOWLEDGE of good and evil, thousands of years after adam and eve ate of the forbidden fruit, did god hold them accountable, with that same UNDERSTANDING of OUR KNOWLEDGE that we NOW have, for their disobedience?

As I said in another post God set about to save them (and us by implication) immediately after the story was out of their mouths.
If that is holding them (and us) 'accountable' then yes, he did.
　
They did have to live with the consequences of their action.

 

[waitasec]

I think the story is clear about God's attitude to them.
He missed their company and called after them.
They thought they were going to die, right then and there,

really, then why eat the fruit of knowledge thinking god was going to kill them? they hid because they were NAKED, you are reading into this.
they hid because they were afraid of being naked
no words were mentioned of remorse for the act of disobedience only shame of their nakedness

 

[waitasec]

As I said in another post God set about to save them (and us by implication) immediately after the story was out of their mouths.
If that is holding them (and us) 'accountable' then yes, he did.
　
They did have to live with the consequences of their action.

if god created man to be his companion, like a pet for example
why create the consequence of death for the pet...

i can teach my pet dog what NO means and keep him off his leash and if he chooses to run into the street to chase a cat and gets run over by a car
OH WELL
this makes absolutely no sense...
the dilemma of the gods
our freedom of will...
your god cannot have dominion over MY free will because it is just that MINE. there plenty of references to god jealously, what is all that about? the god in your bible is jealous of the fact it is in my free will to choose to BELIEVE god's existence

 

[dmgdnooc]

"they sought cover because they were afraid"
of what exactly? did god say he was going to spank them for their disobedience...why be afraid of god? if you are speaking in terms of reverence, god made them naked, they knew nothing about being covered and why is it shameful to be naked?
all they knew was that they would "surely die"
the fist thing they were privy to was their nakedness. seems like they should have repented for their folly, but they covered themselves, a foreign idea having nothing to do with good and evil...unless being naked is evil.

They were afraid that they would die when God found them out.
　
I think the first thing that they were privy to was a disconnection from God.
I think that the covering has more to do with covering their sin than covering their genitals.
Their realisation of nakedness more to do with hiding from His gaze.
I seems significant that they draped themselves with leaves and hid amongst the trees.
(they appear to have now felt stronger affinity with the trees than with God and felt they could hide in the midst of the trees from God; avoiding death thereby)
Remember, they were panicked and irrational, frantic with fear, a new sensation to them; which makes for difficulties in understanding their actions.
　
It was established that being naked is not evil, genitals are not evil, Gen 2 shows this.
　

 

[waitasec]

They were afraid that they would die when God found them out.
　
I think the first thing that they were privy to was a disconnection from God.
I think that the covering has more to do with covering their sin than covering their genitals.
Their realisation of nakedness more to do with hiding from His gaze.
I seems significant that they draped themselves with leaves and hid amongst the trees.
(they appear to have now felt stronger affinity with the trees than with God and felt they could hide in the midst of the trees from God; avoiding death thereby)
Remember, they were panicked and irrational, frantic with fear, a new sensation to them; which makes for difficulties in understanding their actions.
　
It was established that being naked is not evil, genitals are not evil, Gen 2 shows this.
　

point out the scriptures that refers to these things you claim in the genesis story ...
i'll make it simple for you; about the fear and the disconnection...

who is reading into these scriptures? you are adding onto what the bible says in order for it to fit your view of god
you want your god to be loving
you want your god to be your champion
you want your god to guide you
you want your god to be everything you are not that you strive to be
whatever that may be...

 

[dmgdnooc]

because they had knowledge of a lower order god then put the poison in the crib and said don't eat it or you'll die...
they understood what "no" meant...right?
so why put the poison in the crib if god knew they had a lower order of knowledge?

If by 'poison in the crib' you mean to characterise the Tree.
Then remember there was another tree there also, the Tree of Life.
　
Both trees were there for the pair to eat of in due course.
There presence would be a reminder that there were things to work for and achieve.
The pair would have, I imagine, spent long hours contemplating what was in store for them and why.
Eve, at the suggestion of the serpent, raided the store and stole the fruit that was intended to be offered in due course.
　
I have said all that previously; short term memory problems, or what?
　
CU later, goodnight.

 

[waitasec]

If by 'poison in the crib' you mean to characterise the Tree.
Then remember there was another tree there also, the Tree of Life.
　
Both trees were there for the pair to eat of in due course.
There presence would be a reminder that there were things to work for and achieve.
The pair would have, I imagine, spent long hours contemplating what was in store for them and why.
Eve, at the suggestion of the serpent, raided the store and stole the fruit that was intended to be offered in due course.
　
I have said all that previously; short term memory problems, or what?
　
CU later, goodnight.

what makes you think they didn't already eat from the tree of life
this is absolutely absurd...
to me it is a fairy tale
to you it is your life

say hi to peter pan for me

 

[EtuMalku]

As the Serpent in the Garden of Eden , Lucifer points out to Eve that God is a liar and you will not die if you eat of the fruit of knowledge, which she did and did not die.

The first man became a child of Lucifer when the serpent taught him good and evil. What they came to know by perception was the sacred cosmic mystery. It was the light that showed their souls to their destiny.

Allegorically The Fall represents mankind's fall into materialism. This Fall shields us from the spiritual world and opens an Abyss between Man and the Divine.

The reason behind the Fall is often described as being hubris, man's search for knowledge which God would have kept hidden.

EM

 

[it's_sam]

:clap

As the Serpent in the Garden of Eden , Lucifer points out to Eve that God is a liar and you will not die if you eat of the fruit of knowledge, which she did and did not die.

The first man became a child of Lucifer when the serpent taught him good and evil. What they came to know by perception was the sacred cosmic mystery. It was the light that showed their souls to their destiny.

Allegorically The Fall represents mankind's fall into materialism. This Fall shields us from the spiritual world and opens an Abyss between Man and the Divine.

The reason behind the Fall is often described as being hubris, man's search for knowledge which God would have kept hidden.

EM

:clap
Id like to add to waitasec I think you have really good intentions and I also have seen you display an amazing amount of determination in the past 3 days on this thread... or was it 4? anyway Both sides of this conversation have been showing a search for truth and with an open mind. Dont get caught up in the loose threads, they will cinch themselves up on their own. Just display your view of a subject and have a point in mind that you can back up. I guarantee you will see improvements in tying up your personal loose ends.

 

[waitasec]

Id like to add to waitasec I think you have really good intentions and I also have seen you display an amazing amount of determination in the past 3 days on this thread... or was it 4? anyway Both sides of this conversation have been showing a search for truth and with an open mind. Dont get caught up in the loose threads, they will cinch themselves up on their own. Just display your view of a subject and have a point in mind that you can back up. I guarantee you will see improvements in tying up your personal loose ends.

...thanx sam

 

[Thief]

So...after all of this .....has it been determined...
Adam fell?

I still say....the acquisition of knowledge was required.
A step up...not down.

That we die is not the consequence of that acquisition.
Merely a coincidence.

 

[dmgdnooc]

if god created man to be his companion, like a pet for example
why create the consequence of death for the pet...

i can teach my pet dog what NO means and keep him off his leash and if he chooses to run into the street to chase a cat and gets run over by a car
OH WELL
this makes absolutely no sense...
the dilemma of the gods
our freedom of will...
your god cannot have dominion over MY free will because it is just that MINE. there plenty of references to god jealously, what is all that about? the god in your bible is jealous of the fact it is in my free will to choose to BELIEVE god's existence

God did not create man to be like a pet.
God procreated, Adam is God's son.
God procreated; His desire, expressed in the act of procreation, is for a family.
　
The pet analogy falls flat in the face of this fact.
Your dog, my dog, will only ever be a dog. Adam had (and we have) the potential to grow beyond this human nature into God's immortal nature.
　
In the Bible there are 2 ways in which a mortal body can become an immortal body.
The most familiar is through death and resurrection.
The second is by being 'changed' in an unknown but direct manner that does not require a passage through death (as for those who are alive at Christ's return),
So death was optional to the process from the beginning.
　
Death was an option in the process, not a certainty. It became a certainty, for the aggregate of humanity, only after the 'fall'.
　
God could exercise dominion over our free will if He so chose to.
There are instances in the Bible where he did just that and used people as a puppetmaster his puppets to further His interests. They are rare but significant and show that 'free will', as it is often talked about (as being an inviolable absolute) is an illusion.
The fact that He so rarely chooses to do so is indicative of His desire that humans develop to maturity by excercising the facilities for reason, empathy, compassion etc that we possess.
　
As I understand it, and not to discount the idea of God's jealousy, it should be noted that most occurences of the word, in the English, are a mis-translation for the idea of zeal.
God is a zealous (intensely enthusiastic) God.
The actual jealousy (bitter rivalry) is for His children or His nation and directed against those who would interpose themselves between God and the object of His affections. As a man is jealous for his wife or a parent jealous for their child.
　
God is not jealous of your free will, you have free will through His granting it and could lose that free will at any time He chose.