That most certainly is not my point. In Genesis 6 God says He would not have made man if He knew what was going to happen. Therefore He did not choose to read the book before it was written and thus exclude Himself from the writing of it. He knew that it could happen, and thus He chose to experience regret if it did. Because that is an authentic relationship of love – it makes you vulnerable. God chose love and vulnerability over power and control. That is a God worth believing in. A God who cannot do that is not worth my time, and being an atheist is preferable.
In the very rough way you equated what I said with the problem of evil, I don’t see the difference.
I agree, you were not arguing for an inconsistency with the nature of God (which is what the problem of evil does) but neither was I.
Are you suggesting that the fall of man was not the origin of human evil? (Because I certainly think it was.) Or are you claiming other consequences of the fall apart from evil is sufficient to make it difficult to understand why God would create man?
I guess I really don’t understand your objection here.
No… the point is that EVIL is sufficient reason not to create man and rebellion is not sufficient. God even says this is sufficient in Genesis 6. Seeing that mankind was thinking only evil continually, He said He was sorry He had made man on the earth.
For this reason I do not believe in any previous rebellion of the angels in heaven. For God to then bring children into a world with evil already there is not something I can believe in.
That’s one way to interpret “regretted” in the passage. I don’t think it requires a “strict” Reformed interpretation of God’s foreknowledge to say he would have anticipated a creature with free will would eventually choose what was in their own best interest.
For example, suppose A&E passed the test. What about the next generation? All of them face the same test eventually. If all of them pass the test, what of the next generation, and the next? The numbers grow almost exponentially, so how long before one of A&E’s descendants fail the test because they have free will? And if even one breaks the chain, doesn’t all of humanity wind up in the same boat that we’re in now?
That applies to Christ. Not sure it applies to God.
Yes. I’m suggesting “evil” behavior existed long before humanity existed. Chimps wage “war” against their neighbors. The fruit of the tree in the Garden was “knowledge” of good and evil. I use the “Fall” for the sake of communication, but it wasn’t a “fall” from sinless perfection (a state that never has existed) to sinfulness. It was an upward trajectory from animal ignorance to childhood immaturity to guilty adulthood.
I don’t believe in a rebellion of angels, either. Remember that the serpent appears without warning in Gen. 3:1. It’s introduced as the craftiest of God’s creatures, which implies a natural origin of concupisence (selfishness). The world included evil behavior long before humanity appeared on the scene. Animals are morally “innocent” because they lack the necessary brain and language development for mature moral knowledge. The same applies to infants, toddlers, and children under 10 (excluding prodigies).
Both good and evil behavior have always been present. The “upward trajectory” (rather than a “fall”) was the evolution of cooperation, sociality, language, etc., to the point that humanity acquired the “divine” knowledge of good and evil. At that point, they faced a truly “moral” choice for the first time.
Agreed. But that is not the evil that matters in this case. It is human evil using all the gifts God gave to mankind which is so much worse and a reason for God to regret making mankind. The evil of chimps does not even begin to compare with this, and is certainly not a reason for God to regret making mankind.
Test? So God is the scientist of Deism? There is no test. The parent gives a command to His children for their protection because that is an unavoidable step in learning to be responsible for themselves. If Adam & Eve followed God’s advice then they would have the tree of life which is a relationship with God, the source of eternal life.
Then the next generation would have the example of their parents to follow. And even if they did not, it wouldn’t alter the world because God would still the top of the pyramid of life – that is the kingdom of God. Redemption would already be there in the world for those falling into sin. It is a very big difference from evil being the god of this world.
I don’t need such ad-hoc solutions because I don’t believe salvation is about escaping punishment for sin. It is about overcoming the self-destructive habits which destroy us because that is what sin does. And there is no escape for anyone from the consequences of their choices. It is only the case that children very rarely have the power to make choices with far reaching consequences.
One of Lewis’ heavenly characters in The Great Divorce was based on MacDonald, and in his honor … So great was Lewis’ respect for MacDonald. I suspect it isn’t much exaggerating to say Lewis never would have written it without Macdonald’s influence on him.
Excuse me ? What? Unless the father doesn’t care or isn’t in the child’s life WHAT GOOD HUMAN BEIGN wouldn’t try to help his child? That’s all I said. Quit trying to be holier than though here and coming with the "what’s out what you are saying " attitude to me .
Same goes to you. You aren’t right and I’m wrong. God might have as well did what I described. You don’t have any evidence to prove your position is right yet you insist to.
No, of course not. Chimps aren’t evil. They exhibit behaviors that we would label as evil. Only mature human beings are capable of evil.
No, my point is that it wasn’t a test, because if it were the next generation and the next and the next also would have to pass the test. Even if a literal A&E had “followed God’s advice” and remained in relationship with God for eternity, the next generation would also have to “follow God’s advice” to remain in relationship with God. They have to make that choice for themselves. Etc. etc. etc.
Every generation has the example of their parents to follow. A&E had every possible advantage – YHWH God as parent, a perfect environment, perfect upbringing – yet they still somehow chose not to “follow God’s advice.” Why would the next generation fare any better?
God has always been at the top of the pyramid. Redemption would already be there? Then why wasn’t it available for A&E? Why weren’t they forgiven and restored to their prior “sinless” state?
An ad hoc solution? Please. All I’m doing is outlining the scientific consensus about the co-evolution of the brain, language, and morality. The same applies to my statements about childhood development.
Where do you think self-destructive habits come from? It’s called enculturation.
And talk about an ad hoc solution. Your scheme has no basis in scripture or history.
I’ve never read it or MacDonald. Sorry.
I suppose English is your second language, but your earlier phrasing implied a father who did nothing because of free will.
My point is this: A parent has limited options dealing with adult children (or teenagers who think they’re already grown).
???
Evil behavior is the only evil I am aware of. Well there are evil thoughts I suppose but do you mean evil thoughts are worse than evil behavior?
No. The relationship with God with Adam and Eve wasn’t broken because of a failure to obey. I refute the attempt to equate sin with disobedience as those using religion for power would like. Sin consists of self destructive habits and one which broke their relationship with God was changing God from someone who advises them to someone to blame for their troubles. “It was that woman you gave me!”
But God was not a human parent they could imitate. Adam was to become the realization of God in human form whom all other humans could imitate. This is why Jesus was called the second Adam – He fulfilled the role which Adam failed to.
No. Adam and Eve handed over responsibility to the serpent. That is why he is referred to as the “god of this world.”
Because they created a no win scenario where the parent was no longer a positive influence in their lives – someone to blame rather than someone to follow. The one thing that will break a parent-child relationship is if the presence of the parent in their lives is no longer of benefit to the child. They had to learn to be responsible for their own lives (life by the sweat of their brow) and blaming others will get you nowhere.
Yeah all the exception you make for animals and children.
Yep and the Bible tells the story of how that happened. Blame became fratricide and fratricide became serial murder, until “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
I didn’t say it was. Please stop attributing opinions to me that I’ve never expressed and don’t hold.
I used your own terminology about a failure to “follow God’s advice.” I didn’t equate sin with disobedience to a revealed command. In fact, I’ve written quite a bit against the idea. You jump to a lot of conclusions and create a lot of strawmen.
It’s fine if you believe that, but there’s no scriptural support, and I invite you to point to whatever historical period you believe humanity suddenly acquired self-destructive habits. Evidence, please.
The relationship wasn’t broken because of a failure to obey. What A&E acquired was the knowledge of good and evil. Enculturation means social learning, which occurs by children imitating their role models. A literal A&E would have had zero opportunity to imitate “sinful” role models and acquire “sinful” habits in the Garden. So what, exactly, was their sin? (If you want to know, my opinion is that they simply declared their independence too soon, just like an adolescent wants to be independent before they’re ready.)
Well, I’m remembering a conversation years ago when I posed a question: How did Adam learn to speak? Here’s the article.
As I recall, your solution was that A&E were infants in the Garden and God tutored them himself. Am I misremembering, or have you changed your position? (No problem if you’ve changed your mind. I do it all the time. Just wondering.)
I agree with all of that, but adam in Gen. 1 is all of humanity, and ha’adam and ha’issah (the man and the woman) are archetypes, not individuals. Together, the man and the woman simultaneously represent all of humanity and every individual personal journey to moral maturity.
I don’t interpret the serpent as a supernatural being.
I don’t think that makes any sense whatsoever. That knowledge is wisdom and it is acquired over time. What they acquired was authority over good and evil (which can be acquired suddenly, like with parenthood) without real knowledge – and that has been a big problem all throughout human history.
Exactly! They are the ones who invented the first of such life denying habits, misusing the gifts God gave them. And by nature sin grows to consume everything.
The first mandate of life is to learn from your mistakes. But instead they adopted the habit of blaming their mistakes on others. Following this example, Cain blamed his failure on Abel and dealt with it by fratricide.
For me that is little different than looking at infants as evil because they are totally selfish. I would never blame the evils of the world on something so natural as the desire of teens for independence.
I don’t know about infants… but yes I believe in an historical Adam and Eve. I wouldn’t use the word “literal” because I don’t take the story literally. I don’t believe they were golems of dust and bone animated by necromancy. And I don’t believe in magical fruit or talking animals.
Clearly language developed over a long period of time because it is intertwined with our evolution. (And yes I suppose that is a change from what I once believed) But I do think God taught Adam and Eve ideas essential for our humanity – bringing the human mind to life.
Whereas I see the Biblical treatment of that serpent as an angel who became the devil to be an example of how even the Bible treats the story in Genesis as having symbolism rather than being literal. It also speaks of the tree of life as representing a number of things. It may not do this for the other tree but I see those two examples as a good reason for seeing the tree of knowledge of good and evil as symbolic also.
I recall one very late night after midterms, over beer and a plethora of peanuts discussing what might explain why Jesus was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world in the case that humans hadn’t sinned. I probably wrote out notes on napkins…
Well, of course: “very good” means functioning according to the desired parameters, while “perfect” means having reached the goal. The first humans were nowhere near the goal, so they couldn’t be perfect.
Be careful there, since what we think of as tenses have only a loose relationship with many of the tenses of the original languages!
I think that God, like a photon in various slit experiments, takes both paths simultaneously.
Some have placed the rebellion in heaven at the moment when God breathed life into our First Father and Satan grasped that he was not, after all, first in God’s affections.
One approach is that sin is a metaphysical infection that poisons the entire timeline regardless of the point at which it appears. While this may seem extreme in the case of human sin, remember that they were tempted by a “shining one” (=serpent), a heavenly being, and that when the first human sin connected with that heavenly being’s sin it generated a sort of feedback that could not be contained with reality as established.
Well, that isn’t compatible with the scriptures! OTOH, it wasn’t until Augustine that the initial sin was treated as an immensely disastrous event; the early church treated it more as a matter of something more like tripping on the path and being told they weren’t worthy of first-class accommodations any longer, more of a detour than a disaster.
We miss what’s going on unless we recognize what linguists have learned, that the Hebrew word “נָחָשׁ” is from a root that means “shining one”, and back in the day a “shining one” was a heavenly being. This entity is introduced to us as "the נָחָשׁ ", which if taken as a mere serpent would be a general use of the definite article (making it very indefinite), but could be taken as indicating a status above other “shining ones”, giving us “The Shining One”, i.e. he who came to be called “Light-Bearer” for his radiance (a most definite definite). If this is indeed “THE Shining One”, i.e. the most brilliant of all heavenly beings, then it’s a quick step into the interpretation that the very first rebellion happened when God breathed personally into the nostrils of a special creature!
Just a moment there: as the very first self-destructive act (by which I include motivation), the very first disobedience would qualify as sin both ways. After that, sin results in disobedience which sometimes qualifies as sin.
And sin doesn’t have to be habits; anything self-destructive is sin whether a habit or not.
Not cognitive knowledge, deeply experiential knowledge – don’t forget that the Hebrew word “to know” is the one used for sex.
Okay, that’s rather a poor fit with the text. What they acquired was the experiential knowledge of evil as something distressing and uncomfortable, i.e. Hebrew “ra”, and good as something they wished they’d never abandoned – yet they had no understanding of that difference.
I don’t think so. Disobedience is as natural for children as selfishness is for infants and a desire for independence is for teens. I don’t buy that rhetoric and it is just too likely that this interpretation comes from the religious seeking power over others. If God wanted only obedience then He wouldn’t have created children. He created us with free will because He wanted us to make our own choices. And frankly, obedience is frankly responsible for more evil in history than disobedience. No. I am not buying it.
Again I disagree. It is not a sin to try things new things. That is how we are made. But it is the essence of life to learn from our mistakes and so the problem is when we repeat them and it is their addictive nature which is at the root of their destructiveness.
I don’t think so. I am not sure they even had a word other than “knowledge” for the concept we use the word “authority” for in such a way. The word usually translated as “authority” in the OT is for something completely different. Frankly if the text really meant what you claim then they would have called it “the tree of wisdom.” They don’t because that is not what is intended and more importantly it simply doesn’t make any sense. Real knowledge/understanding of good and evil is clearly not a bad thing and not something God wouldn’t want us to have – quite the opposite.
This is only one of many things in the text implying that what happened involved sex.
Or we could just go with what the text says (in Rev 12), where the only rebellion in heaven spoken of happens after the birth of Jesus.
Can you quote a bible text where God is at fault for sin and the fall of mankind? I would be genuinely interested in reading from any credible theologian who would much such a claim and back it up from scripture.
I dont think we can speculate on whether or not the fall was inevitable…we have our reality so the question is probably redundant anyway.
To answer the question more directly, I am not sure that we can blame the Allies for the deaths of millions during of two world wars…the fact they stood up against tyranny and that required significant bloodshed does not mean one should not set and adhere to boundaries. God has boundaries and they are absolute of that there is no question.
Paul’s argument on this is that disobedience started things; to get your view requires serious mangling of the language he chose.
Disobedience in children is natural now; you can’t read what we observe back into the text in order to change the plain meaning. So while later disobedience may or may not have been self-destructive, the first disobedience would have been because it was a disruption in the norm.
This is again an argument saying that what is normal now defines what was normal before; it’s no more useful than trying to apply the rules from after a phase-change to the situation before it.
Anything that damages us is sin because it is harmful. It is also sin because it is doubtful that it was done out of faith, and anything apart from faith is defined as being sin.
What you’re saying here is that self-destructive behavior is something God wants us to have! Experiential knowledge of evil, i.e. people inflicting evil on themselves or others, is what they were to avoid. And the fact that the Tree of Life was there suggests that the prohibition wasn’t permanent.
So essentially you’re arguing that a kid running out in the street into traffic and getting smashed and paralyzed for life is a good thing, because that’s a solid parallel with what the scriptures indicate happened in Eden.
Right, because getting crippled for life shows wisdom.
Wisdom would have been waiting until God gave an additional instruction. I wouldn’t be surprised (though it’s dangerous to play “what if”) if, once the two had both rejected the “Shining One’s” ventures God would have said that now they had shown the strength to be able to handle the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil because having gained the willpower to resist temptation other things could be handled as well – but as with many things, experiencing them too soon is crippling.
No, it isn’t; that’s another abuse of the language. The core meaning is experiential knowledge; the sex meaning is not at the core. I know it’s a thing to try to sexualize the text, but it isn’t there.
of course it did. God commanded them for a reason just as any parent when they tell their children not to play in the street. What is wrong is this idea that our relationship with God would be severed with any disobedience no matter what, even if it was not to wear red sox. That is what those using religion for power have pushed for obvious reasons.
Disobedience in children is natural PERIOD. It is essential nature of them, just as selfishness is the nature of infants. It is necessary. Children must try new things and make mistakes because that is the learning process, just as infants must devote everything to their own well being. This theology you are promoting is evil and concocted by those using religion for power over others.
No you do not have the right to tell me what I am saying. I do not accept the premises by which you make such an equivalence.
Knowing and understanding the difference between good and evil is definitely wisdom. You only wait for additional instruction when you don’t have that wisdom. Thus the real problem is assuming authority over the difference between good and evil when you don’t really have any wisdom. That is what we see in those using religion for power over others
This is the imposition of your theology on the text – taking it upon yourself to rewrite the Bible as you see fit as if you could do the job better than God Himself. At least I make no pretense of objectivity in order to force my understanding of it on everyone else. The meaning I see in the word is “authority” and certainly not what you choose to read into it.