How can that be good ?

edited December 1969 in Faith Issues
Adam & Eve were created to not know the difference between right and wrong. They lived as human beings; selfishness, pride, ego, etc..

How can that have been good ? & doesn't that go back to your concience deciding whats a sin and whats not ?

:S do i make sence ? if i dont tell me and ill try make it more clear

Comments

  • hmm maybe it didnt make sence...

    if adam & eve did not sin.. how would they live ? what would have been the point of life ? how would anything work with not knowingg ???

    i dont even know what im talking about anymore.. lol. if anyone understands could you please try to explain it better ?
  • hi Hizz Child

    this question u raise is quite good!

    i think the fact that they couldnt differentiate right from wrong means more that they were innocent - like children are. thats my interpretation.

    Kristina123
  • yes they are like children. Children have a very 'human' nature, they look out for number one. We teach them to share their toys & in turn, love one another. how could there have been LOVE ??
  • We are born with natural law instilled within us. therefore i think they knew the difference b/w right and wrong.

    Evidence is quite easily attained.

    The concept of right and wrong must have been present in the garden of eden, Especially when christ forbade them from eating from the tree. He warned them of the consequences so adam and eve must have understood this idea of right/wrong even if only primatively which i doubt.

    Moreover god didnt create selfishness, ego and so on.........man had the capability to do so through human nature which was corrupted through ignorance and subjection to satan through his own free will.

  • :S:S umm correct me if im wrong.. but i thought that it was that fruit that gave them the ability to differentiate. the only wrong they had was eating from that tree.. as far as i know.

    anyone answering this question please provide some evidence..
  • "15.Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

    Here u go .......adam must of known that there was right and wrong b4 eating from the apple.........for the idea of obedience was present.



  • anyone answering this question please provide some evidence..

    i completely agree.

    Kristina123
  • Further evidence as requested

    St Paul in his epistle to the romans says in chapter 1

    "19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, "

    Therfore the attributes of god which are only good are known to man from the beginning.......anything else is a deviation from this good and thus is wrong.

    this is what is known as natural law.

    hope that helps
  • hi

    i do remember studying this actually during a Bible study - dont remember who was conducting it though??? hmmm ;)

    anyways can u further explain what was the effect of the tree of knowledge then? if they already knew the natural law and had an idea of whats right and wrong that is.

    was it merely the loss of innocence?

    please provide references!

    Kristina123
  • I think u answered ur own q............innocence it is as we read in genesis chapter 3.

    "Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
    6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings."------->this is the loss of innocence!!!!!!!
  • umm yes they knew not to eat from the fig tree, but they did not know anythingg else. ?
    they did not know to love one another or how to treat others.. etc. it could not have been a built-in law since they did not realise they were naked. ?
  • i completely disagree.........b4 the fall God instilled love in humanity

    "24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
    25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."

    y would man and women become 1 if there was no love?

    moreover i think u r confusing the loss of innocence and lustful love. true love isnt lustful thats y there wasnt any shame until we fell.
  • a child is not born with love.. a child doesnt know the difference between right or wrong. Adam and Eve were created as children are born.. with innocence..

    what is the reference for the verses you provided. ?
  • "24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
    25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."

    genesis chapter 2
  • thankyou.. so umm.. any reply to what i said ?? lol :D
  • ive already responded .......we can argue this all night ive told u what church fathers have said........u can argue with them!!!!!!........btw....dont mean 2 be harsh or anything
  • a child is not born with love.. a child doesnt know the difference between right or wrong. Adam and Eve were created as children are born.. with innocence..

    We haven't yet discovered how the minds of children work so we can't really say whether they are born with love or they aren't. However if you look at babies when they are really young, they like to hold their mothers fingers, they get so attached to their mothers, they cry when she walks away, etc...wouldn't that be love? I think it is...I mean they wouldn't have that kind of attachement to a complete stranger..would they? That's the love between child and his/her mother. As they grew a little older they learn how to love their siblings and their friends even thou they don't what love really is...you will find them like sharing their stuff with others...etc. Until that child matures and becomes an adult and falls in love with their potential partner...now all that past experience with what love might or might not be gets solved...they begin to understand what's the true meaning of love. So there is a big difference between actually practicing love and knowing its essence or what it means.
    Children acquire the difference between right and wrong as they grow older and they very much understand that what their parents said was wrong is wrong and vice versa even if they still don't really get why the things they are doing is wrong. I think that was the way with Adam and Eve too...they knew right and wrong because God taught them so, but they couldn't understand why it was wrong or the consequences of their behaviour. Sorry I don't have reference for that...but that's just my best guess.
  • a child does not share their toys unless they are told: 'share your toys'. dont tell me you havnt seen a little kid crying because the other one took their toy. anyway this is going very far from my point.

    My understanding is that by eating from the tree of good and evil people were able to differentiate between right or wrong.. is this correct ?
  • Woww... ok I'll begin with the love part...

    I agree with Marianne 110%... When my little brother was younger, and I am talking maybe a year or two old, whenever he had something and I said I wanted it, he wouldn't think without giving it to me first. This is the essence of any child, and how they are born. As hardyakka proved, love existed before the fall. It is because of love that we were created... Only as a child grows does it learn the "ego" and "selfishness", the same thing with Adam and Eve. As a baby grows into a toddler and has more interaction and communication with the people around him, he learns from them the ego, etc.. Never, ever, ever say a baby is born without love. Its enough to feel its soft face and look at its smile...

    By eating from the tree of good and evil, Adam and Eve's eyes were opened. When God told them not to eat of the tree, that was the only thing they knew, good. However, as the serpent came into the scene and Eve and Adam ate, evil also entered. Before the fall, Adam and Eve were too innocent to know what good or evil was, but rather, like a baby, listened to their parents because they trusted them.

    If there was no good or bad, then what was the purpose of life? Did you forget God gave Adam the job of naming all the animals/creations of Eden?
  • the answer to this inquiry is rediculously simple. GOD TOLD THEM THAT THEY SHOULDN'T EAT FROM THE TREE, so they DID know the difference between right and wrong. At this point of time, this was really the only sin that could be held against them because they knew that it was wrong and they chose the wrong.
  • This is the essence of any child, and how they are born. As hardyakka proved, love existed before the fall. It is because of love that we were created... Only as a child grows does it learn the "ego" and "selfishness", the same thing with Adam and Eve.

    i disagree with you, as humans its in our naturee to do those things, we learn love and sharing from the love our parents give us.

    the answer to this inquiry is rediculously simple. GOD TOLD THEM THAT THEY SHOULDN'T EAT FROM THE TREE, so they DID know the difference between right and wrong. At this point of time, this was really the only sin that could be held against them because they knew that it was wrong and they chose the wrong.

    yes yu're right, but that doesn't disprove what im trying to say.

    in my interpretation the only good and evil they knew was this :
    good: not eating from the tree
    evil: eating from the tree
    besides that they did not know morality as we do today.

    Sorry i'm being difficult about this but thats the way i see it and nothing on this post has been enough to change my mind.. ?
  • dude, ease your mind and all our minds: GO ASK YOUR FATHER OF CONFESSION...............this whole post is completely pointless simply because you can get a clear cut answer from just one person
  • lol well if you put it that way this whole system of forums is pointles.. lol
  • well not to be mean, but it is unless you ask about hymns. i agree with stcopt1. he is right. ur father of confession should be your source... for a problem with a friend, somtimes its ok to post it on here... or ask a friend, but for stuff like this, why cant we jsut ask our fathers of confession. seriously... im sorry... but i am TOTALLY with stcopt1. he has a huge point...

    questoins from the bible are better answered by your father of confession...
  • I don't want it to be question and answer. if I wanted that I would go to my FOC.. I want there to be a discussion, if there wasn't one I wouldn't have seen other people's views on this topic and I would know that much less..
  • I believe that a large portion of the problem here seems to stem around differentiating the notion of evil from that of good. The discussion thus far has held an implicit assumption that the nature of good is essentially equivalent to the nature of evil....or more definitively how one comes to the knowledge of good is identical to how one comes to the knowledge of evil. Nevertheless, the gnosis of good or evil is not identical to the essence imbued within both realities. One may come to know good and evil through a particular vehicle or source, yet it does not then follow that good and evil equally stem from that one source.
    Aside from the particulars of what comprises the Tree of Knowledge; in which the climate of the discussion is embedded in the assumption that the tree was one imparting knowledge of good and knowledge of evil rather then the knowledge to differentiate good from evil; it is pertinent to come to cognizance with the difference between the substance of good in comparison to the substance of evil. Primordially, the Scriptures propound that evil actually emanated from the very absence of good. Just as cold is truly the absence of heat, but heat not the absence of cold; evil is the very absence of good and not vice versa.
    As such, the knowledge of good was not "discovered" in the same sense that the knowledge of evil, through the act of disobedience, was. For the very act of disobedience brings about the realization of having done evil in the first place. Noteworthily, the tree itself and the fruit is never definitively elaborated upon in Genesis. It may be extraneously introspective to presume the tree as a literal plant from which actual fruit was blossoming. Although logically coherent with scripture, such a view may be an overly simplified perspective to take on. Man is essentially created and, by divine decree, pronounced to be "very good". Man is not "perfect" in the sense that he is created with the ability to fall into perdition; as is necessary by the logical outworkings of a consigned free will. For perfection in state exalts man to the glorified state yet to come in which preformation of evil is non- existent.
    The glory of God will overshadow man for all eternity leaving him insusceptible to sin. Neverthless, God never created man in a state of perfection; only as a very good creation. In this sense, the natural inclination of man was to follow the good ways of God--to obey God by every means. Only through the infiltration of evil thoughts brought about by Satan and the failure to resist such thoughts, did man fall prey to the original act of disobediance-- sin. Although the Scriptures relay that from birth the heart of man is wicked, such a statement must be taken as an overview of man's heart posterior to the time of the fall. Prior to the fall, the heart of man must have been pure enough to remain in Eden and ultimately to be labeled as "very good" (For surely, the decree of goodness did not pertain to a singular facet of man's compository traits, but the entire nature of man as a whole. Therefore, it is facetious to presume that the knowledge of good was alien to man from the beginning since the very definition of good must embed itself in God's natural personality and His natural decrees.)
    Furthermore, the tree of knowledge is never presented as a tree that presents the notion of good separately form the notion of evil but as one that gives the singular realization of good and evil simultaneously. Without the act of disobedience shrouding the tree's decor, the "tree" itself is inherently good and those who have never eaten of it's forbidden delicacy (preserved only for God who already held knowledege of both evil and good), were inherently good. Thus I believe the statement made in Genesis 3:6 "that the woman saw how beautiful the tree was and how good it's fruit would be to eat" is a very reasonable statement to make. Only after the act of disobedience are we told that they "were given understanding and realized they were naked" denoting that only after the wrongful decision to become "as God" did Adam and Eve come to realize their own potential shame; the ramifications of a potential nature susceptible to sin. Understanding, in itself, may neither be substantially evil nor substantially good but simply the recognition that there can be a juxtaposition between both. Before touching the fruit, the primary good man knew nothing of the notion of evil and perhaps shared not in the appreciation of good that man presently may have.
    However, such is the very beauty of God's divine decree....that we may come not merely to follow in God's ways but to appreciate the ways that God has set for us to follow. Such, I believe, is one of the major reasons the fall of man was initially permitted by our Divine Lord and one of the major reasons man was created as good rather then perfect. All the more so, the original state of man began as naturally good with the knowledge of God's jutice and desire....only therafter discovering a reality in which God's will had wittingly become jettisoned and man the measure of all things.

    God bless
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