Was it fair to kick Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden?

[poseur]

I'm not sure if this has been addressed before. Didn't spot anything like this while I was skimming through.

If Adam and Eve had no knowledge of the concepts of good and evil, they had no way to know that disobeying God and eating the forbidden fruit was actually wrong. They didn't obtain that knowledge until after their transgression. So, was it actually fair for them to be punished?

 

[Willamena]

Welcome to the forums.

Are you wanting to address the topic only as a literal narrative?

 

[poseur]

Yes, I was wanting to discuss this with the people who take genisis literally.

Although I suppose it does have broader philosophical implications. Personally I am extremely uncomfortable with this aspect due to it's presentation of God as a kind of irresponsible parent. Adam and Eve had less knowledge about morality than a two year old and yet god left them unsupervised, and rather then punishes them for their natural curiousity.

 

[ninerbuff]

I'm not sure if this has been addressed before. Didn't spot anything like this while I was skimming through.

If Adam and Eve had no knowledge of the concepts of good and evil, they had no way to know that disobeying God and eating the forbidden fruit was actually wrong. They didn't obtain that knowledge until after their transgression. So, was it actually fair for them to be punished?

Of course. god already had all of this planned so that destroy the world in a flood only to repopulate it with sinners again. Oh and not to mention non believers too.

Welcome to the forums

 

[poseur]

Actually that post does address something interesting, albeit off my original topic, about the creation story. In Genisis god was not depicted as being omnipresent. He didn't even realize that Adam and Eve sinned until after they confessed (they should have kept their traps shut so we could all be livining in paradise).

 

[Smoke]

It was God's garden. They worked for him. They didn't do the job as directed, so they got fired, and lost the apartment that came with the job. Seems pretty clear to me.

It's that stuff about cursing them and their descendants over it where you can see what a jerk he is.

 

[sojourner]

Was it fair to kick Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden?

Was it fair for Adam and Eve to blur the distinction between Divinity and humanity?

 

[Smoke]

Was it fair for Adam and Eve to blur the distinction between Divinity and humanity?

Isn't that what Jesus did?

 

[Katzpur]

I'm not sure if this has been addressed before. Didn't spot anything like this while I was skimming through.

If Adam and Eve had no knowledge of the concepts of good and evil, they had no way to know that disobeying God and eating the forbidden fruit was actually wrong. They didn't obtain that knowledge until after their transgression. So, was it actually fair for them to be punished?

I don't think it was wrong for God to expel them from the Garden because He did tell them that there would be consequences for disobedience. I would agree with you, though, that they didn't really understand that disobedience would fall into the category of "evil" until they were capable of recognizing the difference between good and evil -- which is, of course, what happened when they ate the forbidden fruit. That's why we Mormons don't think that what Adam did was sinful. We believe it was part of God's plan and was intended to happen exactly as it did.

 

[Katzpur]

Actually that post does address something interesting, albeit off my original topic, about the creation story. In Genisis god was not depicted as being omnipresent. He didn't even realize that Adam and Eve sinned until after they confessed (they should have kept their traps shut so we could all be livining in paradise).

He knew. It didn't come as any surprise to Him when they admitted what they'd done. It's like when a parent find the cookie jar empty and sees crumbs on his child's lips. He says, "What have you been up to? Have you been eating the cookies?"

 

[Valjean]

They were warned, weren't they?; told to lay off that tree...

 

[Riverwolf]

Is leaving behind childhood innocence for hard adulthood fair?

 

[Riverwolf]

I'm not sure if this has been addressed before. Didn't spot anything like this while I was skimming through.

If Adam and Eve had no knowledge of the concepts of good and evil, they had no way to know that disobeying God and eating the forbidden fruit was actually wrong. They didn't obtain that knowledge until after their transgression. So, was it actually fair for them to be punished?

They committed further sins after eating the tree... such blaming others rather than taking responsibility. That's a form of deception, which is one of the worst things one can do.

 

[sojourner]

Isn't that what Jesus did?

Yes, but Jesus is God Incarnate. The act was Divinely initiated, not humanly initiated.

 

[Tiberius]

Eve and Adam, expelled from their birthplace
Packed their fig leaves and moved to a worse place.
They were forced to uproot
Coz they'd eaten this fruit -
But who put it there in the first place?

 

[strikeviperMKII]

If Adam and Eve had no knowledge of the concepts of good and evil, they had no way to know that disobeying God and eating the forbidden fruit was actually wrong. They didn't obtain that knowledge until after their transgression. So, was it actually fair for them to be punished?

They were told not to eat from the tree. They ate from the tree. Was it unfair that they had to face the consequences of eating from the tree?
On another note, God did not immediately dismiss them, as he very well could have. He waited. He called to them, and waited until they finally came out from hiding (don't forget that they did hide from God when he called, that's important). When God asked what they had done, what did Adam say? It was the woman you gave me, that caused me so disobey you. And when God asked Eve, what did she say? It was the serpent. The snake talked her into it, and to giving the fruit to Adam.
What does that sound like? Did either of them say," yes, I did eat the fruit, even though you told me not to. It was through my own fault, and no one else's." No, they didn't. They blamed something else. Don't punish me, God, because I didn't really do it. Even though you gave me free will, and that you told me not eat of the tree...it wasn't really my fault. Honest.
They knew they had a choice. They also had a choice in telling God the truth. It's not about disobeying God, or being punished by God. Adam and Eve punished themselves. They hid from their acts, then lied about them.
But honestly, isn't that what we all do? We try to avoid facing mistakes as long as possible, until finally it hits us right in the face.
I think in the end, Adam and Eve realized their mistake...or more likely their mistake hit them right in the face. Once that happened, they realized they had pushed themselves away from God. God did not abandon them, they abandoned God.
So is it fair? No, it's not. Is it permanent? Of course not. We are making the same mistake that Adam and Eve did even today. We can still fix that.

It's a little long, but I think it answers your question.

 

[Riverwolf]

Eve and Adam, expelled from their birthplace
Packed their fig leaves and moved to a worse place.
They were forced to uproot
Coz they'd eaten this fruit -
But who put it there in the first place?

Well, were they really expelled only for eating the fruit?

 

[gnostic]

If God didn't want them to sin or disobey, then why did God even plant the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Eden, in the first place?

They had no knowledge of good and evil, so Eve surely could not have tell if the serpent was lying.

And I don't think they even understood death or mortality, when they have not seen death or mortality in the short time they have stayed in Eden, before the transgression. They may have seen death of animals after they were expelled from Eden, but they have not death among their own kind, until one of their sons murdered the other.

 

[strikeviperMKII]

If God didn't want them to sin or disobey, then why did God even plant the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Eden, in the first place?

To what end?

They had no knowledge of good and evil, so Eve surely could not have tell if the serpent was lying.

The serpent wasn't lying.

 

[gnostic]

To what end?

If God seriously didn't really want Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit, then don't put the damn tree in the Garden of Eden.

It is that simple.

If God didn't want them to sin nor disobey, then you don't tell human not to eat the fruit by placing the Tree nearby where they were created, and expect them to not have curiosity of children.

Tell me, do you think you would have done any better?

The serpent wasn't lying.

No, the serpent didn't lie. Judging by what God told them and what the serpent told them, the serpent told more truth than the God.

I actually had several theories about the whole incidence.

One of them (referring to a theory) was that God set up a test. That the serpent is God. Either God gave the serpent the ability to talk, or the serpent is God in guise. Either way, God is a trickster deity. The only other incidence with a talking animal is in Numbers relating to the episode Balaam; the animal this time is a donkey.

My third theory is that the test was designed to fail. God deliberately made it so that the only way he could get Adam and Eve to leave the Garden of Eden, because of the god's first decree was given in Genesis 1:

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

...follow by...

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

Obviously God didn't want them to stay in Eden, because the Garden can only be populated by so many people. If the humans supposed to rule the animal world, then he can't do so in the confine of the Garden.

This mean that the first humans must lose their innocence, find a way to survive in the real world (eg. catch their own food, or grow them).

So the whole Garden of Eden is a test. It wasn't a test of obedience or free-will. It is a game that God plays, like a person who would play a game of Civilisation or Age of Empire. Again, God is a trickster.