Evoken

I think thats a non-sequitur. You can willingly use faulty reasoning and you do not need to be stupid for that. You can also make mistakes and not be stupid. What this shows is that man is capable of great things as well as stupid things, like disobeying God.

Evoken

The test was not for God but for them. When God asks Adam and Eve where they are and what they have done, He is not asking because He doesn't know, He is using what would be called the "Socratic Method", teaching man by questioning him so that man becomes aware of what he did.

Just like I pointed above, when God asks Adam what he did he blames Eve, then when God asks Eve what she did, she blames the serpent. This simply showed their unwillingness to take the blame for their disobedience.

rosy tetra

Why should we inherit the lack of sanctifying grace?

So people sin by willingly using faulty reasoning. That is a stupid thing to do, isn’t it? If Adam and Eve were knowledgable and clever, as I think you are saying, and totally understood the nature of their creator and the meaning of the creator’s command, and tried to cleverly pass the responsibilities of their actions on someone else, I would call them stupid.

Their faulty reasoning was that they knew the creator was all good and all knowing, yet they disobeyed him and tried to fool him. That is stupid. (If they did not know these things, then their actions were not stupid.)

Maybe you would say that they became deluded with prideful fantasies, thus leading them to make a stupid decision. I would say that their thinking faculties are easily deluded, or that they were created with qualities that gave them the propensity to do stupid things.

Awmte

IasimisI, please don't take this personally, but your interpretations of the Bible are becoming increasingly ad hoc. Just to clarify my position, I'm working from a basis that posits no previous knowledge of the bible.
Lets assume that we came across this story without all its myriad baggage and religio-mythical connotations. All I'm trying to establish is the indefensibility of God's extremely arbitrary judgement.

'Only this, and nothing more.'

Evoken

They were created with Free Will. Adam and Eve had the choice to freely obey or disobey God's commanement. The "propensity" to do this or that thing was determided (not unlike today) by external factors. God told them not to eat from the tree still they decided to listen to the serpent and not to God.

Evoken

Wow I take the trouble to answer your (and everyone elses) questions/objections and you just say "ad hoc"? That's not nice.

In other words you are just seeking to stablish the conclusion that you wish to prove. You are not interested in any answer that might speak in favor of God and his Holy Bible. You just want to prove it false and find a problem with Christianity no matter what.

That being the case, I shall leave your thread alone from now on.

rosy tetra

Free Will, that is, the ability to reason incorrectly?

I’m not sure what you mean here. There are of course external factors involved in any decision-making. It’s up to the one making the decision to evaluate the choices based on all available information.

Adam and Eve knew that one choice was a stupid choice, that to eat the fruit was foolish because the creator is all good and all knowing, but they made that choice anyway because they became deluded by a fantasy (the fantasy of being as powerful as the creator). Does it matter in this question whether they came up with the fantasy themselves or if they heard it from someone else? It sounds like they were built with the weakness of becoming easily deluded. Instead of calling the delusion willful sin, why not call it a result of being designed with poor reasoning ability?

Avatar

This still sounds like: "I give you the gift of free will...but don't you DARE EVER, EVER USE IT!"

However you rationalize it, the story does not make any kind of sense. If God was omnescent, he knew very well what the outcome of the test would be regardless of who it was for. If the test was not for God's knowledge, then why do it at all?

To "test" something hints at the possibility of doubt. If God didn't want Adam and Eve to not eat of the tree, then he never should have put it there in the first place. End of story. The only reason it was there--and for that matter, the only reason the serpent was there--was to set up Adam and Eve for their great "Fall". Who put those things there? God did. When Adam and Eve took the bait (as God would have to have known they would do) and tried to "evade responsability" as you put it (also something God by definition had to know would happen) God has some sort of disporportionate psychotic break and curses A&E for eternity. Not only does he throw them out of the garden, he deliberately inflicts them with pain, disease, mental illness, and vulnerability to genetic horrors that I would not wish on my mortal enemies.

If a toddler in my home breaks a vase or disobeys me, I do NOT cast them out of my home, sic the dogs on them, infect them with poison that will afflict their children for generations to come, and leave them to die. There is punishment, yes, but only in porportion to the crime. The intention is to train the toddler that such bahavior is unacceptable and that they will not repeat it in the future.

Pray tell, what was the lesson A&E learned? Not to disobey God? Surely a lecture and a few special effects could have taken care of that. If this story were to be taken literally, then God is a psychotic megalomaniacal control freak at best, and a monstrous sadist of the worst kind at worst..

GoodLittleAtheist

So it is even worse than I thought. It is not based on chosing 'good' over 'evil' in any case? Just obeying.

I'm not talking about a child who doesn't understand language yet. I am talking about a child who understood mother said, 'don't go outside', but doesn't understand yet that it is 'bad' to disobey. Same thing with a&e, if they knew it was 'bad' to disobey, they would have known good and evil.

So why then does the Catholic Church not say that babies who aren't baptized can enter heaven. They won't say they will necessarily go to hell either, but that it is 'up to God'. So obviously they do think it is possible they can be punished for this Original Sin or they would just say that there is no act to be guilty of or to be measured by.

GoodLittleAtheist

I don't see any moral component on the child's part since they don't understand that it is 'bad' yet. I would say ignorance, not stupidity. In terms of the parent, I put bad in quotes because it really has to do with having the child avoid potentially dangerous situations and/or because children need to learn to follow rules (just as we follow laws as adults). So, the child is taught that it is 'bad'. Of course, a parent has legitimate reasons for having a child obey them, to protect or teach, but once a child is sufficiently 'schooled' in life it is no longer necessary. I fail to see anything God is 'teaching' us through Original Sin other than, don't you ever disobey me or you'll get eternal damnation. (Alternatively, repent and obey, and I will love you forever and ever.)

Going back to the OP, I don't think there is any moral basis for Original Sin. If that is the impression I gave, then I haven't been very clear, sorry. Original Sin had nothing to do with morality IMO, only disobedience. And disobeying the creator’s commands is 'Evil' only insofar as He defines it to be. (Which to the believer is the final word.) I don't see how Original Sin could have any moral basis, even forgetting a&e for a second. It is imposed on those who made no choice at all, just because they were born. There was no choosing between 'good' and 'evil' for any of us before we inherit this 'sin'. In this sense, Original Sin isn't like other sin where we consciously choose 'evil'* (which we think of as moral 'bad' but apparently for the believer is just disobeying God and his laws). If it is the case that we inherit O.S. without making a moral decision, couldn't it also be the case for a&e that they commited it in the same way (ignorance)? IE: they should have obeyed without understand 'good' and 'evil', but since they didn't, God was going to teach them to obey.

Let me put it another way. The moral basis for Original Sin stated in the OP, assumes the idea of Original Sin makes some logical sense. It doesn't, IMO. At least as far as it was presented to me. "Because God said so" is basically what it boils down to.

Frankly, I don't see how Original Sin is consistent with an omni-Benevolent God. An omni-Benevolent wouldn't have put the tree of knowledge in the garden to begin with. There would be nothing to disobey and we'd still be in blissful ignorance.

*Whether or not God will actually punish us for O.S. if we die before baptism is a matter up for theological debate....