Dr S

(KR) Eve chooses to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil…

(S) Well the key word there is "chooses." And Eve wasn't capable of making a choice. She didn't know right from wrong, good from evil. She could perform actions like eat the fruit or not but you can't call these "choices." She did not choose to sin, she did not choose to do evil. She had not the slightest idea of what good and evil were. God had already seen to that.

(KR)Thus, the capacity to choose to 'sin' existed in human beings (at least, according to Genesis) before they actually ate the fruit.
(S) The talking snake tells Eve that eating the fruit would make her like them (meaning the gods from the earlier version of the story that I mentioned) so we know that god(s) knew the difference between good and evil and Eve didn't (because she wasn't like them).
The talking snake also says that god is lying to her about dying on the very day that she eats the fruit. Which in fact he is because she lives for almost a thousand years afterwards.
So it is god in this story who knows the difference between good and evil and chooses to do evil (Lie to Adam and Eve).
Only after Adam and Eve gain the knowledge do they realize that they have been set up.

(KR)If God made us, God made us able to sin, able to choose 'evil', without having to first eat of the fruit of the Tree.
(S) That's silly. If man already had the knowledge of good and evil (which Gen. strongly implies he did not) then what is the big deal over him getting something god had already given him? And in that case why didn't Adam & Eve know they had committed "evil" until after they had and not before?

(KR)Second, we cannot be 'free' to choose to engage in behaviours that aren't avaiable to us.
(S) Which is my point exactly. A & E weren't responsible for their actions being evil because they didn't know there was such a concept as evil or, for that matter, good.

(KR)We are not 'free' to choose to be sub-atomic in size, we are not 'free' to have green skin, breathe water, or live in space without environment suits.
(S) And we cannot "choose" at all if we don't have the mental capabilities.
Put yourself in Eve's place. God said don't eat the fruit. Okay you don't eat the fruit because to obey god is good and to disobey god is evil. That's clear enough.
Except god had reserved the knowledge of good and evil for himself. So all poor Eve had was--to obey god is neutral and to disobey god is neutral. There is no possibility of making a choice in her case as she has nothing to base a choice on. She could perform an action or remain passive but she was incapable of choosing.
Once she ate the fruit she was able to make choices -- and have green skin --that's the Granny Smith type of the fruit of knowledge ;-).

(KR)If existence was created by God, then the options available for us to freely choose, were likewise created by God.
(S) Not according the Gen:2. The ability to freely choose was supplied by snake not god. God got all bent out of shape and futootsed because people were able to do something he didn't want them to do.

(KR)So, if we are able to freely choose evil, whatever evil options are open to be chosen, were first made available--were first created--by God.
(S) But they didn't pick evil over good they picked neutral over neutral. Only after picking neutral did they find out that it was evil. Had they picked neutral instead of neutral they would not have known it was good. They would have thought it was neutral.

die bene tleilax

dr. s it seems u are missing some basic ideas here. god, the creator, originally said 'do not eat of the tree'. therefore eve DID know that she was not supposed to do it, because she had been told. her creator said not to. free will did not come from the snake, because she CHOSE to disobey god. correct?

god wasn't 'lying' when he said they would 'die' after eating the fruit. upon that action, they became separated from god, thrust into their own existence, which is what was meant by that. this is a matter of SELF (materialistic) and METAPHYSICS. adam and eve chose to DISOBEY their creator and do THEIR OWN THING, rather than exist purely in god. it was not a neutral choice, because clearly ADAM expresses hesitation BEFORE eating it, and EVE had to be CONVINCED, thus it can be determined that they knew they were SUPPOSED to obey god. right?

Philosoft

Clearly not. We obey orders for fear of punishment, among other reasons. Eve had no way of knowing either the innate "badness" of choosing to eat the fruit of the tree or of any consequences that might come from eating the fruit. Her decision was only free in the very loosest sense: she had no information whatsoever save the words of two morally uknown (to her) entities. Indeed, her choice was entirely arbitrary, unless you know of a potential motivation that might have influenced her decision?

<strong> Oh good gravy. Do you have any non-arbitrary non-apologetic justification for this? Is there any translation that doesn't include the word "die"?

<strong> So now Adam and Eve possessed some revealed knowledge? Which is it? Did they know some things were right and some wrong or not?

Dr S

(d. b. t.) … she had been told. her creator said not to.
(S) Right she had been told and had received a death threat.
And she knew that she shouldn't disobey god because…….? Because why? She knew it was good to obey god and evil not too? No, she didn't know what good and evil were. Obeying god and disobeying would-in the state she was made in-have exactly the same value.
(DBT) …she CHOSE to disobey god. correct?
(S) Incorrect. She was mentally incapable of making a choice. She lacked the ability to decern the difference between right and wrong. You cannot choose without that ability. You can do one thing or another but you cannot be said to be making a choice between them if you lack the ability to see a difference.
Can you "choose" what behind blank door number one and blank door number two? No, you can pick a door as in the old "lady or the tiger" story. But you didn't "choose" because you had no information about what was behind them.

(DBT)god wasn't 'lying' when he said they would 'die' after eating the fruit. upon that action, they became separated from god, thrust into their own existence, which is what was meant by that. this is a matter of SELF (materialistic) and METAPHYSICS.
(S) You haven't been reading your bible. God doesn't tell them they are going to be separated from him. And they aren't really; god keeps poking his big nose into their affairs for the rest of their story.
God says Gen:2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

God says nothing about being separated, nothing about metaphysics, and nothing about being thrust into their own existence. He says (Gen: 2 could be called Godfather 1) that they are dead meat. " for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," nothing could be clearer.
And god lied to them because they lived for almost another thousand years.
I can't understand why Xians shut their eyes and stick their fingers in their ears at this part. Instead of "separated" you may as well say "God doesn't buy them a chocolate egg cream that’s what he meant by for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."


(DBT)adam and eve chose to DISOBEY their creator and do THEIR OWN THING, rather than exist purely in god.
(S) In the original story they already knew what was right and wrong and they chose freedom over eternal life. That's another word for "do THEIR OWN THING" you know--freedom. It's not a bad thing, you should try it sometime.

(DBT) it was not a neutral choice, because clearly ADAM expresses hesitation BEFORE eating it, and EVE had to be CONVINCED, thus it can be determined that they knew they were SUPPOSED to obey god. right?
(S) SUPPOSED to obey god? Why, because it was evil not to?
They found out what evil meant in a hurry and hide in the bushes. But until they ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil they didn't have the knowledge of good and evil.
3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

There ya have it. The old set up. The old Cincinnati sting. These two Patsies don't know right from wrong until it's too late. God set them up and lied to them conned them out of their home.

Everything the talking snake told them was the truth. A classic two man con job. The two of them are probably running that Central African Bank bunko on the E mail these days.

Typhon

Disclaimer: Jesus as far as I'm concerned, was a figure of myth. I haven't found any of the weak evidence for his possible historical "existence" to be credible.

That aside, wasn't the Jesus supposed to have been made mortal, which one would think included free will? So did Jesus always make the right choices, despite having the free will to choose either good or evil (I've never heard of Jesus doing evil, though he appears as a willful and at times violent man or at least as it was reported by his own creators), or did he lack free will?

If a hypothetical god could form a hypothetical Christ figure, and imbue it with both free will and the ability to choose correctly, always, why couldn't such a being do the same with the rest of humanity?

.T.

[ August 07, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>

Dr S

If you look closely at Jesus you find that his life is made mostly of the god Mithra with a liberal dose of Dionysos. These guys were savior demigods. It's easy under Hellenism to have savior gods because you have other gods for them to save you from.
The problem happens when you try to stick a savior into monotheism. Since you have only one god and you need a savior to show up all new-to explain why he didn't save you at the beginning- you have to, somehow sneak a second god in while no one's looking.
The second problem is -just whom are you being saved from? In the OT (Job I believe) Yahweh boasts that all good and all evil come from him. That's not going to work because then the Savior winds up saving you FROM god.
The only thing to do is to make you, the believer, into the villain. The Christians did it by changing the meaning of the Garden of Eden story so that it incorporates the very non-Jewish idea that man is somehow "fallen."
Third problem is that the Jewish Messiah was supposed to save living people in the real world-and that didn't happen. So you have to can the Jewish idea of a vague-to-not-at-all afterlife and adopt the Zoroastrian heaven and hell. Now the Savior can save the people from their own "villainy"….er…umm…after they are dead.
Jesus is basically a Hellenistic myth while Yahweh is Semitic monotheism. The two don't really mix well. People in general had to become the bad guys in this unhappy hybrid of poly & monotheism & masochism.

Jobar

Thanks Dr. S- a most succinct and thought-provoking post. Never considered it in quite that way before.

I'm putting that one in my own personal 'good thoughts' file!

Paddy

Even if we allow that Adam and Eve somehow knew what they were doing, God is still ultimately responsible.
A & E were created as fully developed creatures, both physically and mentally.
If A & E had fully developed minds when they were created then God must be responsible for the decisions that A & E made. They're minds had experienced no 'conditioning', and they had experienced no 'evil' prior to eating the fruit that would have facilitated the 'hardening of the heart', or development of cognitive tendencies to choose evil. Therefore, their cognitive schemes, of which they use to make decisions, had been put there by God, and if God put these 'untainted' cognitive schemes in place then he would know what decisions would be made using these schemes,and is thus responsible for A & E's actions. Which leads me to one conclusion...that god, if he exists, must be a real arsehole.

Paddy

One-eyed Jack

Nice post indeed, Dr. Is this the scripture you were thinking of?

I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isaiah 45:5-7)

I've argued against Christians who would NOT accept that the Lord could create or perform evil, nope, no way--it's all Satan's fault. (Which is of course the most childish and easily refuted theodicy of all!)

The punchline: they now seem utterly convinced that I am possessed by demonic spirits. I suppose that's a tribute, of a sort, to my performance in the debate...

tommyc

That a bizarre concept. Surely that means I'm not "really free" because I can't choose between being able to fly and not being able to fly?

I know that my example was of a physical restriction, but who is to say what the ultimate freedom is? I would certainly object that choice good and evil is that freedom.