Phage

Of course God knew that humans would eat the fruit, but the point was that it was a decision made with free will. It is not a contradiction, you just need to try to understand how omniscience does not necessitate fate.

It is possible the choose knowledge and be happy about it, unfortunately it also come with the price of being responsible for your actions. People cannot be perfect, and Adam and Eve were not perfect when they were in the Garden. The distinction is that until they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil they did not know that they were doing wrong. Once they knew of their own imperfection then they were obligated to take responsibility for their actions.

asaris

I've said this in this thread before, and I'll say it again, but it's probably important that the tree is NOT the tree of knowledge, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

fallsauce

but why put the tree there if God knew they would eat it? I know phage said that "omniscience does not necessitate fate." But God would have known it was a possibility (if you see free will as a flow chart)

And also, (this is a bit off topic), but I remember people saying that Man was made in the image of God, so where did the prototype for woman come from?

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martinguerre

I'll give the passage in the NRSV, and add the Hebrew back in where it illuminates the text, next to their English equivilent. The trick to this passage are that the names are also words. Adam means Adam, but it also means "adam" (pronounced ah-dahm) or people. And so forth. To make things more fun, God is in the plural in the whole passage. Go figure.

Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind (adam) in our image, according to our likenes...So God created humankind (adam) in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

The words for male and female, zakar and naqebah, are distinct from the general term adam, which can also mean just "man".

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For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-John 3:16

cellophanedeity

Woah...

I had no idea how much religion would be brought into this when I started. I suppose it's 90% my fault, as I did use religious reference. To be honest, I was just using it as a literary example of what I wanted to ask.

Wyckd

if you were given all the world to control... and do as you please... and was told not to touch ONE tree out of all the world...

and you go and touch it, i'd say you're rather greedy... you touch fire, you get burned...

got put that tree for 1 reason... free will

the sole purpose he did NOT want his creations to become sedated pets...
that tree gave no real knowledge.. adam and eve can obviously see and be content that they were naked...

all they did by eating that fruit was go against God, which he wasnt too happy about. and going against God = Sin... and GOd cannot be with Sin, so he had to toss adam and eve out of Eden...

being eden, you were not a blind pet to be ruled over by God, he gave freedom... in fact, adam and eve were without sin... they were happy and content.. not knowing what sadness and pain (phhsycal or emotion) felt like...

thanks to them... we now know...
thanks to them... we couldnt do anything about it...
thanks to them... god had to come down himself and take it upon himself to suffer this world and die for us...

thank you adam and eve. your stupid fruit cursed a bajiajdsifjasdfllion centuries...

xtreemmar1ne

Seems like the plural was prolly used on purpose......God = the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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martinguerre

Genesis was written least a good thousand years before there was a concept of the trinity...Nor does the word Elohim indicate a trinitarian position. Frankly, despite a lot of readings, i think the most convincing is that it indicates Yahwehic centered worship that was not monotheist.

/this is probably threadjack...but i did want to clarify...

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For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-John 3:16

asaris

I've always liked to suppose it was a royal 'we', but the text doesn't really support any available interpretation all that clearly.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Phage

What is the point of free will if you have no chance to exercise it? Adam and Eve had only one rule to follow in the garden, but that one rule was crucial in that it gave them the opportunity to disobey God. Many people wonder "Why did God allow humans to disobey Him, if he is all-powerful and can see the future?" Consider if you made yourself a table from scratch, and it held up your stuff well. Do you have any reason to praise the table? Did it do it because it loved you? Can you really love it in return?

Humans were given free will that allows them to follow God's will or not. Any virtue or fault of the table is the virtue or fault of you the creator, but for humanity obedience to God can be rewarded because we did not have to obey. Of course God knew that it was possible Adam and Eve would break his command, he would have known they would break it before he even created them. The point was that we needed a chance to choose our own path; not allowing us to disobey would make our love hollow and praise pointless.

thingstodo

The funny thing about all this is that we have no idea what was really written in the story. The have been so many translations and interpretations that who knows if this story really was in the bible in the first place!

How many times as a kid did you play telephone. You can't get a group of 20 people to whisper something around the room and have it end up as it began. That's why gossip is so interesting. Who knows how this story really was written.

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asaris

Thingstodo: Try reading up on differences between oral and written cultures sometime. You might find it enlightening.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Johnny Pyro

Good Thread Cellophanedeity,
I believe in God. There has to be something or someone, right? The Bible was written by man to create moral laws in society. Just another form of control. The Bible is a fairy tale told with some kind of moral lesson at the end. Adam and Eve is just another one of those. The Ten Commandments is the best examples for laws in society.

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"From delusion lead me to truth, from darkness lead me to light, from death lead me to eternal life. - Sheriff John Wydell

RusCrimson

It's also the nature of the question. Religion is in a real ?way humankind's answer to fundamental questions (e.g., "Why am I here?" "Who made me?" "What is my purpose?"). I suspect that even if no one here had religious training/experience, or if the issue was not phrased religiously, and that someone put to us a question like the one you did, then we would come up with religious-sounding answers.