Adam & Eve, revisited.

[psychopath]

God, a perfect being, creates humans... simply in order to sing his praises, if they want to. Perhaps we can study this character trait in another thread, but for now I understand.

Well, I think that's an oversimplification and misrepresentation of what I said, but perhaps this issue should be discussed on a different thread.

Free will. You're saying that god put the tree in Eden in order to give mankind free will (for whichever odd reason).

No. Adam and Eve's had free will from the beginning, and it was independent of the existence of the Tree. However, the Tree, and God's commandment regarding it, gave them the opportunity to either accept and glorify God or not.

But the tree was not necessary for such a moral decision to be available, yes? After all, Adam had the opportunity to, say, murder Eve from the first moment she was created. Is this not a moral choice? If we're assuming (and I think we are) that Adam and Eve had free will all along, then tree of knowledge was not the granter of free will; they already had it. So what was it for? What did the fruit do?

But God's command regarding the Tree is the key. Prior to this, IIRC, God hadn't given Adam and Eve any moral commandments (thou shalt not kill, steal, etc.). So if Adam, say, lied to Eve, I don't see how God could have taken this as Adam rejecting Him, because it's not as though God had told Adam that lying was wrong. But by giving the commandment regarding the Tree, God imparted some moral knowledge to Adam and Eve (eating of it is bad, not eating of it is good), and thus set up sufficient parameters for a moral decision that would either glorify or reject God. Without this direct order/testing from God, I don't see how Adam and Eve could have truly glorified Him, because, as far as I know, prior to it they really didn’t know how God wanted them to act.

Did god want Adam and Eve to act in his accord, or not?

Yes.

If so, then why put them to a test he knew they would fail?

So God really had three choices:

1) Make Adam and Eve not fail the test.

2) Give them a new test, since He knew they would fail this one.

3) Let them fail the test of the Tree.

Option #1 is obviously unviable, because it takes away their free will. Option #2 gives two possible immediate outcomes: they either pass or fail this new test. God knows beforehand which will occur. If they pass it, great; if not, God has these three options again.

However, this still involves, indirectly taking away their free will. Correct me if I’m wrong, but, as you would have it, God should not give a test that he knows his subjects will fail. So option #2, essentially, turns into God changing the test until he finds one He knows they will pass. He is foreordaining that they will choose correctly, because he is ACTIVELY disallowing them from failing. The key here is the difference between foreknowing (a passive process) and foreordaining (an active process).

So that leaves only option #3, which the God of the Bible chose.

If not, then why punish them for simply doing what he planned all along?

God’s foreknowledge does not detract from human responsibility of action.

[Woman]

I have a question, for anyone who wants to answer. I have been told that, unlike some books of the Bible, Psalms for instance, Genesis is not written nor meant to be read as an allegory. I have thought at certain times in my life that I could accept the metaphorical story in Genesis in a very broad sense. But, especially among orthodox or fundamental Christians today, metaphors don't exist in this book. Which brings me to my question.

Did the serpent really talk? Did all snakes talk then? Was this a special snake and if so why? I know that many people think the snake is a metaphor for Satan, but that clearly is not an option. Why is this thought so widespread? Just what was this snake doing there anyway and was it part of that which God saw was "good?"

[Socrates]

Woman writes:

• I have a question, for anyone who wants to answer. I have been told that, unlike some books of the Bible, Psalms for instance, Genesis is not written nor meant to be read as an allegory.

You were told correctly. May I suggest the introductory article Should Genesis be taken literally? which explains the different types of language in Scripture? Here is something I've written before:

The Hebrew grammar of Genesis shows that Genesis 1–11 has the same literary style as Genesis 12–50, which no one doubts is historical narrative. For example:

• The early chapters of Genesis frequently use the construction called the ‘waw consecutive’, usually an indicator of historical sequence.
• Genesis 1–11 also has several other trademarks of historical narrative, such as ‘accusative particles’ (’eth) that mark the objects of verbs, and many terms that are carefully defined.
• The Hebrew verb grammar of Genesis 1 has a particular feature that exactly what is expected if it were representing a series of past events. That is, only the first verb is perfect, while the verbs that continue the narrative are imperfect. In Genesis 1, the first verb is bara’ (create) which is perfect, while the subsequent verbs that move the narrative forward are a series of imperfects, including wayyomer (‘And … said’, v. 3), and wayehi (‘and there was’, v. 3).
• Parallelisms, which are characteristic of Hebrew poetry, are absent from Genesis, except where people are cited, e.g. Genesis 4:23. If Genesis were truly poetic, it would use parallelisms throughout.
• Everywhere else Genesis 1-11 is cited in the Bible, it is treated as history. E.g., the days of Creation Week are the basis for the days of the working week in the 4th Commandment, Jesus cites Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 to teach on marriage, Luke 3 and Hebrews 11 treat Genesis 1-11 personages as equally historical with later ones, Paul accepts the reality of Adam bringing death to teach on the Resurrection in 1 Cor. 15, Paul justifies his commands on men and women teaching in Church with the historical fact of Adam's creation before Eve and the fact that Eve was deceived and Adam not.

Then Woman continues:

• But, especially among orthodox or fundamental Christians today, metaphors don't exist in this book. Which brings me to my question.

No, we don't deny metaphors (or idioms for that matter), since historical accounts can have them. But we find in Genesis that the account is very straightforward.

• Did the serpent really talk? Did all snakes talk then? Was this a special snake and if so why? I know that many people think the snake is a metaphor for Satan, but that clearly is not an option.

It's most likely that Satan possessed the snake. That there is a connection is shown in Revelation 20:2.

• Why is this thought so widespread? Just what was this snake doing there anyway and was it part of that which God saw was "good?"

No, God pronounced the world "very good" (Hebrew tov me'od) at the end of six days, and blessed the Seventh. Therefore the fall of Satan must have happened after that. Not too long after though, because it must have happened before Cain was conceived. This can't have taken too long, because Adam and Eve were told to reproduce, and while they were sinless they would not have delayed too long, and with perfect unmutated bodies, conception would have been easy. So the Fall of Man must have been only a few days after Creation Week, and the Fall of Satan in the narrow window between.

[johnransom]

Today @ 03:08 AM
Socrates:

The Hebrew grammar of Genesis shows that Genesis 1–11 has the same literary style as Genesis 12–50, which no one doubts is historical narrative. For example...

Hey! Save this stuff for our debate, Soc! Which is gonna start when, BTW?