I’ve been fiddling with the search function on this board, trying to find an instance of this question being asked before, and come up empty. This probably either reflects my extremely poor library skills or the laughably transparent nature of the question. Oh well, here goes:
In Genesis, we are told that the Fall occurred because Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In other words, God created them without knowledge of good and evil. So how can one consider the punishment just, if he created them without the ability to tell right from wrong?
This has always struck me as one of the first, most apparently obvious inconsistencies in the Bible. I happened to say as much to a religious acquaintance the other day, and was surprised to find that he had no ready response at hand. In fact, he seemed genuinely distressed at not being able to come up with an answer. Curious, I tried (in my hamfisted way) to search through various online religious sites for a stock answer, and was only able to locate this one Mormon site. While it does address the topic head-on, its conclusions seem remarkably convoluted to say the least. Surely there is a more direct take on this fundamental point of Scripture from millennia of Biblical scholarship, but I can’t seem to track it down. I know there’s folks on this board who can cite the original Hebrew and Greek texts back to front, so: What is the consensus (if any) on how this topic is addressed?
Ah, but assuming you don’t know right from wrong, what reason do you have to follow arbitrary rules? Kicking Adam and Eve out was roughly analogous to a parent kicking a 2 year old out for eating a cookie after being told not to.
Well, this is the same God that made ALL snakes crawl on their bellies as punishment because Satan took the form of one to trick Eve, so obviously He’s not into “fair” or “logical”
Nah, not legs. They just slithered upright, off the ground, or something. I think it was… dammit, what’s his face. The guy that wrote Paradise Lost. He interpreted it as the snake’s lower half being coiled in a sort of spring, with its head high enough to speak face-to-face with Adam and Eve.
Thank you. I read it in high school too, and for the life of me couldn’t remember the bastard’s name. Strange too, because I did a report on the Holy Trinity of English language (Milton, Shakespeare and Chaucer).
Don’t you remeber the famous Khan episode of Star Trek? The ending? “I’d rather rule in hell…” Milton was called out by name. Pretty sophisticated for TV in the 60s, no?
Can’t say I’m a big Trek fan, but on that same note, it’s amazing how many common-day references, expressions and such make so much more sense after reading not just Milton, but any great work of literature. I mean, who would have thought something like the word “Pandemonium” was just invented out of the blue?
Well first of all, Genesis doesn’t say that Adam and Eve were incapable of distinguishing good and evil. In fact, they clearly knew that they should obey God’s commands, even if the serpent did deceive them in the end.
Your objection hinges on a particular interpretation of what “the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” means, yet such a phrase is clearly metaphorical. The context suggests that the knowledge in question was not simply the ability to discern good from evil. In fact, the story suggests that it was referring to experiential knowledge – knowledge in the sense of having lived out evil, and experienced it in one’s life.
If ‘god’ wanted something to happen, he could just do it without anybody finding out, because he [is god.
God says: “Hey, serpent. After I go tell Adam and Eve not to eat that fruit, you try and tell them to eat it.”
Serpent says: “Hey Adam and Eve, eat this fruit. It would be good for you.”
Adam and Eve say:“Well, God said not to…”
God orders them(without them concoiusly doing it), and then it happens.
In my belief, God does not grant free will, and it’s all his will. If he were omnipotent, omnipresent etc. wh would he create Lucifer?
