Free will / Adam and Eve

entity · Post by **entity** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 8:06 am

It is often said that evil is a product of human's free will to choose good and evil. Without free will, we would essentially be robots. What then of “free will” and choosing good or evil before Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge? Why would God restrict this knowledge from them? And why was it considered a sin if they had no prior knowledge of good and evil.

I can see how Adam and Eve were free to make choices (nothing illogical about that), but did they know why they made the choice? How were they to know that God was good and the serpent was evil without having prior knowledge of good and evil? It seems to me that only after they were made aware of sin, they could be held accountable for sin?

Thoughts?

AttentionKMartShoppers · Sun Jul 10, 2005 9:22 am

Their knowledge of right and wrong came from God, it's not that they didn't have any knowledge, it's just that it did not come from themselves. Adam and Eve were told by God not to do eat a specific fruit-He is defining something that is wrong.

entity · Post by **entity** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 10:37 am

He is defining something that is wrong.

How did they know God is good? Even if God defines or dictates to them what is right and what is wrong, how can they logically retain this information and still be without knowledge of good and evil. How would they know that it is good for them to obey God without having any prior knowledge of good/evil, unless they did have some idea of good/evil? That would contradict scripture, would it not?

I understand that they did have some knowledge, but according to scripture, they lacked knowledge of good and evil before eating the fruit? If they have no knowledge of good and evil, doesn't it logically follow that they are unaware of sin?

Kurieuo · Post by **Kurieuo** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 5:19 pm

How many times has it been said by someone trying to offer comfort to another, "I know what you mean." Then the person pittying themselves retorts in a sharp response back, "How can you know, you've never experienced it!"

Knowing intellectually is different from knowing experientially.

Kurieuo.

entity · Post by **entity** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 10:39 pm

*nevermind*

kateliz · Post by **kateliz** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 9:18 pm

Don't give up! I know exactly what you mean, and I agree. Without knowledge of good and evil, (which is how they later knew they were naked and should be ashamed, and also should be ashamed of their sin, and how they knew how to blame,) they were completely unaware of such things.

They didn't know the snake was evil, nor that God was good. How can they make a free-will choice not knowing what's necessary to make a free-will decision? Just like children they are trapped in ignorance, and so although guilty in a legal sense, they are innocent in another. Before they ate the fruit, they didn't understand in any substantial way what they were doing.

Eve knew after eating it when she offered it to her husband, however. She was a bad, bad girl. Adam was more innocent, but more responsible being the head of Eve, (or, if headship only came later as a punishment for Eve, being the leader.)

I believe that God set it all up that way on purpose. Without knowing in any way the seriousness of disobeying God, or even that it was a bad thing to do, (

,) what do you expect if you allow a deceptive, lying and cuniving snake to come and tell Eve to eat the fruit? Do you just hope that by chance they should come across the Tree of Life and choose to eat that fruit instead, not knowing it was a good thing to do, with preference lying with other aspects?

Walking and talking with God, being breathed to life by God, being given responsibilites by God, and being given a "help-meet" by God, you think Adam would be strongly against eating the fruit. Why did he give in so willingly and so quickly? Because he didn't understand it was a bad thing to disobey God. He knew what God said about the matter, but without knowing good from bad, how would that make much of an impression when eating the fruit was soley about disobedience and evil? He could repeat back to Eve what God said about it, but God's words didn't mean anything to Him because of his ignorance.

It seems very obvious to me, based on that logic, that God set them up for failure. Put a baby in front of his birthday cake hungry and don't restrict his arms. What would he do? Eat the cake. He doesn't know it's a bad thing. Even if he's told not to, that doesn't mean anything to him because he doesn't know the meaning of the words. Same with Adam and Eve. God set them up in the same kind of way. Ignorace, allowance, enticement, and down they fall.

entity · Post by **entity** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 8:09 pm

Kateliz,

I believe we are on the same page. I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who's thought about this. I, however, am not sure that I believe God set them up for failure (at least not intentionally). If that is the case, then wouldn't God share at least some of the responsibility for bringing evil into the world? If he intentionally set them up for failure, then he (God) intended to bring evil into the world.

I do not believe this to be the case because I believe that scripture teaches that we as humans bear sole responsibility for bringing evil into the world and that God never intended for evil to come into existence even though he knew that that was a possibility, or even that evil was an inevitable consequent that humans would eventually bring into existance.

I don't know how this works out logically, but given that the bible and its message has proven itself to be reliable and logical time and time again, I see no reason to doubt it now. Maybe Adam and Eve had to “necessarily” be held accountable for their actions even though they knew not what they did. Jesus made the comment “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.”

Jesus knew that they did not know the severity of what they were doing. God “knowing everything” knew this too. But can we infer from the words of Jesus that these men will or would have been held accountable (in terms of severity) for what they did to Jesus, even though they “…know not what they do”?

Maybe I'm totally off. I'm not pretending to know the answer here. I believe this is one I will have to think about long and hard. But for the present moment, I feel like Adam and Eve must have been somehow “necessarily” accountable for their sin once they ate of the apple. Not that you or anyone else are wrong. I just (personally) haven't heard a sufficient answer yet. Maybe I won't ever get one… I'm just fine with that because, as I said earlier, the bible has proved itself to me (personally) to stand up against endless scrutiny. I, therefore, give the bible the benefit of the doubt, unless proven otherwise

Kurieuo · Post by **Kurieuo** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 8:21 pm

I think I must be on a different page to both of you, for I think Adam and Eve both knew that eating the apple was forbidden by God and therefore knew it was "evil" to do so. I don't see any scriptural problem with believing Adam and Eve knew it was good to obey God, and evil to go against God, before they ate the fruit.

Kurieuo.

entity · Post by **entity** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 9:24 pm

Do you not see the obvious contradiction? If they knew that eating the fruit was an evil deed prior to eating the fruit, then they had to have prior knowledge of what evil is.

If Adam and Eve had knowledge of good and evil prior to eating the fruit, then why did the serpent say that the reason God didn't want the to eat the fruit is because they will be like God, knowing good and evil. If they already had knowledge of good and evil, they the serpents temptation should not have mattered to Eve because she already had knowledge of good and evil.

So how can you not see the contradiction in the scripture? It might not be apparent to you, but to a skeptic, it stands out like a sore thumb. Maybe kateliz and I are unable to articulate this issue in such a way you can understand. If you, however, consider yourself to be an apologetic (or wish to be), it would behoove you to dig a little deeper into this issue and think of a more well though out answer rather than an apparent dismissive one like the one you just gave. Otherwise, you may unintentionally be reinforcing a commonly held view of Christians by atheist and skeptics alike, that Christians blindly believe whatever illogical stories they want and ignore whatever difficult issues and objections that may come up. At least, that is what I would think (and use to think) if I were giving such an answer.

Kurieuo · Post by **Kurieuo** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 2:25 am

Entity, before responding further I just want to say there is no need for the hostility. My responses thus far, however simple they may have been, have been nonetheless serious responses. And I feel without adding greater complexity to the issue, that they are more than adequate for dealing with this apparent contradiction. Yet as requested, I will detail my own beliefs regarding this issue for you on a deeper level.

If they knew that eating the fruit was an evil deed prior to eating the fruit, then they had to have prior knowledge of what evil is.

Yes.

If Adam and Eve had knowledge of good and evil prior to eating the fruit, then why did the serpent say that the reason God didn't want the to eat the fruit is because they will be like God, knowing good and evil.

To explain more deeply, the underlying hebrew term for "knowledge" (da‛ath) in the phrase "tree of knowledge" is not simply an intellectual awareness, but an immediate or experienced knowledge. To provide an analogy, someone might know of "coffee" even though they have never drank a drop of it. However, such a person wouldn't intimately "know" what coffee is like. Likewise, Adam and Eve may have known of good and evil, although they may not have known what good and evil is like.

As for the passage you present of Adam and Eve being like God, this is entirely consistent with the position I take. Many Christian theologians understand "evil" as not necessarily being a substance or something that can be literally objectified. Instead, "evil" is understood as the absense of good (e.g., see The Professor Teaches About Evil and Christianity). As God possesses within His nature the ultimate standard of good, His knowledge or experience of good is therefore immediate. On the other hand, Adam and Eve had not known good so intimately. Not until they experienced sinning against God (doing evil), did they entirely comprehend good (and therefore evil) in the manner God did.

In addition to this, Adam and Eve by partaking from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, went against God's standard and instead chose to define for themselves what was good. In this way, they effectively choose to be their own "gods." As the KJV translates, "in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." So we have in this paragraph, and in the previous paragraph, two senses in which they became "like" God. Yet, I wish to emphasise that it wasn't until they enacted upon their desire to go against God, that they truly experienced evil (absense of good) and so intimately understood by comparison what good was for the first time.

So how can you not see the contradiction in the scripture?

I point to my first post here for a simplified response, and hopefully what I've written within this post has clarified things further.

Maybe kateliz and I are unable to articulate this issue in such a way you can understand.

It could perhaps be that I am only too aware of the issue, but that I am unable to articulate a response in such a way that is readable or understandable to you. Hopefully I've been able to correct this within my post this time.

Kurieuo.

entity · Post by **entity** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 11:14 am

Entity, before responding further I just want to say there is no need for the hostility.

Please, do not confuse hostility with urgency and concern.

j316 · Post by **j316** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 1:17 pm

I have felt for a long time that the events in the garden occurred for a reason, that it is necessary for the people of God to know evil intimately.

If we are to live forever it is not conceivable to me that all of it is to be spent sitting on a cloud eating bonbons. It is only logical that we will be in service to God in some creation suited to our natures and abilities. I think that will quite likely involve some opposition to evil. Even if that is not the case it is still necessary for us to overcome evil sufficiently enough to perceive the need for salvation.

I agree with the idea that they had sufficient information to know that they should obey God, their hiding in the garden shows that. But information is not knowledge until filtered through experience so the experience was necessary.

I think God accepted responsibility in the fact that His response was measured and no harsher than necessary. I cannot imagine that He was happy about what had happened, but I also can't imagine that He didn't know what would happen. It is sort of like the tough love approach for people who can't or won't control themselves. The whole scenario has an air of inevitably about it, including the prophetic reference to the snake.

kateliz · Post by **kateliz** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 9:39 pm

While I was mowing today God gave me a new piece of information that I got excited about and wanted to share on this thread.

I had been thinking to myself, probably pretty ramdomly, about how non-Christians could be able to distinguish good from evil at all- why they had a general idea of it. Then I told myself, "it's their conscience that does that." And then it dawned on me- we got our consciences as a direct result of eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Make sense? Does to me! That's what eating from that tree gave us, I think. And if we had eaten from the Tree of Life, we wouldn't need a conscience for we would have been made spiritually perfect!

Felgar · Post by **Felgar** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 10:14 pm

kateliz wrote:While I was mowing today God gave me a new piece of information that I got excited about and wanted to share on this thread.

I had been thinking to myself, probably pretty ramdomly, about how non-Christians could be able to distinguish good from evil at all- why they had a general idea of it. Then I told myself, "it's their conscience that does that." And then it dawned on me- we got our consciences as a direct result of eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Make sense? Does to me! That's what eating from that tree gave us, I think. And if we had eaten from the Tree of Life, we wouldn't need a conscience for we would have been made spiritually perfect!

Yup - I agree!

j316 · Post by **j316** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 5:16 am

Kateliz, that is one of those interesting insights that make this journey worthwhile. I like the concept, it is a basic building block.