Suffer, You Little *&*^$%s

[Kenny]

Indeed. On par with the wild imaginations of the original authors, isn't he?

No... wait... Skwim is far more rational. Must be that 21st century hindsight.

I knew he would have a choir Are you going to cross the Red Sea too?

 

[Skwim]

I agree that this is how the story can come off if you read it from the literalist point of view. I don't recommend doing that, however.

Good for you, because as it stands it only generates a host of problems.

Rather, think about what life is actually like and whether, or not, this story makes sense from that point of view...even if that still does not make God look good and even if you don't believe in a god. If you go, "Ah, yes that does seem to show insight into the nature of human experience," then I think you have seen what the author(s) originate intent was. If not them perhaps a little further context is in order.

I get it, if I can make practical sense of it then I should embrace it, and if I can't make practical sense of it then it's discradable. Can I do this with the entire Bible then? Whatever fits my theology is therefore right, and whatever doesn't fit my theology is wrong?

How convenient!

Again, this is not to make God look good, but rather to appreciate the wisdom in the story.

What wisdom is that? Cross god and you'll and all your progeny for generations to come will really pay for it?

We can worry (or not) about God's character later.

We can do a lot of things later, but why can't we address this issue now? A bit too unsettling? Troublesome? Distressing? Actually, you're under no obligation whatsoever to participate in the thread, or any of my threads, or any thread at all for that matter.

.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

This is almost completely revisionist.

You know, I’ll have some respect for your replies (because I certainly have none now) , if you can truthfully answer a couple questions in your own words: in Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus spoke of sheep, goats, and his brothers. Who are Jesus’ brothers, what is their responsibility, and how are they different from Jesus’ sheep that he mentioned?

Or is this ‘interpolation’, too?

 

[Deeje]

Aaaaand, once again, JW “theology” misses the mark.

But of course, yours doesn't....? I'll take my 'theology' over yours any day....
"Creation is a myth"? Seriously, where do you get this stuff? How much can you twist the words of the Bible to reinforce beliefs that Jesus never taught?

Except for the part where you assert that the OP has given us a false premise.

And what "premise" would you present, since the whole of the Genesis account is a fairy story to you? Are you calling God a liar? What began in Eden was lost, but not forever....Revelation sees God's original purpose restored.....mankind is blessed with unending life in paradise on earth where God put us in the first place. (Revelation 21:2-4) The Kingdom that Jesus taught us to pray for will accomplish that.

I think suffering can make us stronger, but, many times, it just kills us.

Wow...that was deep.

And I don’t think the theological point the creation myth is making is that “A&E screwed up.” Richard Lowery, noted OT scholar, says, “The price of human wisdom is the irresistible urge to produce and reproduce life, a desire that inevitably meets with failure, struggle, pain,, and death.” When the serpent tempted Eve, all literary indicators point to the serpent being a representation of wisdom — not Satan, as many would have us believe. Adam and Eve “grew up,” and gained wisdom, making them “like God.”

Again you cite someone who was educated in Christendom's theological system and who teaches and enhances the same basic ideas that he himself learned from a corrupted "church" system. His credentials are meaningless to me just as the Pharisees' 'credentials' were meaningless to Jesus. They only impress other humans who hold the same ideas.

This sounds like something straight out of Mormonism. Its complete rubbish. If God wanted Adam and Eve to "grow up" then why did he punish them for disobeying his command? According to your "scholar" God lied and the devil told the truth. Who did Jesus identify as "the father of the lie"? Hellooooo....

Lowery goes on: “Humans trade paradise for wisdom and, in the process, cause the universal desert to bloom. They forfeit blissful innocence for the godly power of moral discernment ... the world prospers as a result. The ‘fall’ in this story is the paonful process of growing up, maturing into moral beings, becoming fully human and thus ‘like God.’”

Humans "traded paradise" for self determination and the freedom to do what they wanted to do, rather than to stay within the boundaries God had set for them. It was a sovereignty issue.

I can't believe what I am reading...nor can I comprehend how anyone could so soundly support the devil's agenda whist claiming Jesus as their Lord and savior!

Here it is...."They forfeit blissful innocence for the godly power of moral discernment ... the world prospers as a result. The ‘fall’ in this story is the painful process of growing up, maturing into moral beings, becoming fully human and thus ‘like God.’”

"The world prospers as a result" ??? I am speechless....in what way do you see this world prospering?..."maturing into moral beings"?! Do you see maturity demonstrated in parliamentary sessions of various governments?
Huge brawls in legislatures, explained

How many nations are trying to deal with the refugee crisis, and failing? Why are so many people fleeing their own countries in droves? The world's political system is broken and no human can fix it. This is what independence from God accomplishes.....this is what God is teaching us.

Don't you see world leaders continuing to promise positive change, but delivering nothing of real value? Aren't people sick of prosperity being given to those who are already wealthy? The little guy continues to suffer and pay, and the fat cats at the top never pay their fair share.

Suffering is everywhere, mainly caused by human greed....and we are "becoming like God"??? SMH.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

True. I think God's absence from the deepest pits of hell does indicate that He does not know what happens there. In fact, He forgets those there forever.

...But there are even levels in hell. Hades, for example, was the place in upper hell where good souls waited prior to salvation. God's essence was slightly present there.

So. Again:

God is not all-powerful.
God is not all-knowing.
God is not all-present.

Kinda goes against all the Standard Labels, doesn't it?

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

I knew he would have a choir Are you going to cross the Red Sea too?

I have no need-- because there never was such a "sea". The story in Exodus? 100% myth-- never took place.

Why? Because there is absolutely NO evidence of Hebrews ever having lived in Egypt.

But wait! It's worse! Crossing the Reed Sea would not be fleeing Egypt--! Egypt, at the supposed time of the story? Controlled all that area too!

Ooops! There goes the entire narrative.

 

[sealchan]

Good for you, because as it stands it only generates a host of problems.


I get it, if I can make practical sense of it then I should embrace it, and if I can't make practical sense of it then it's discradable. Can I do this with the entire Bible then? Whatever fits my theology is therefore right, and whatever doesn't fit my theology is wrong?

How convenient!


What wisdom is that? Cross god and you'll and all your progeny for generations to come will really pay for it?


We can do a lot of things later, but why can't we address this issue now? A bit too unsettling? Troublesome? Distressing? Actually, you're under no obligation whatsoever to participate in the thread, or any of my threads, or any thread at all for that matter.

.

I'm not asking you to relate to a theology but to relate to a story. Someone tells a story, the audience is left to interpret it.

Also, I am not going to ask you to take anything on faith but to critique the story independently of the notion that what it talks about is literally true. Let the truth of reality, as you see it, dictate the validity of the story but please don't let a myth stop you from reading the story as potentially one with wisdom.

So to put this in another way...what is it like to grow up and experience getting consequented for doing something bad? If we are told "no, don't do this" is that really how we learn right from wrong? Is authority really enough? Or do we, out of some natural curiousity, or by listening to another voice choose to do it anyway, forgetting, for the moment the earlier instructions we received?

Also, think about us as a society. The philosopher Douglas Hofstadter in his collection of essays for Scientific American Metamagical Themas argued that there is something in human nature that makes it hard for people to choose the optimal solution in the prisoner's dilemma. People choose to "defect" rather than "cooperate" because they assume that other people will defect. They opt for a minimal improvement in their own lot because they don't trust that everyone else will cooperate so that the maximal benefit is achieved. Hofstadter describes the sort of thinking required to choose the most moral option superrationality.

Superrationality - Wikipedia

To me this seems like a similar situation...there is something in our nature that causes us to choose the less moral choice. If only we were all good then we would all benefit. The Garden of Eden and the Fall story have this same quality although in a different context. If only we could just be obedient then we would never suffer the consequences. What sort of attitude must a person adopt in order to transcend the sort of short sighted thinking of Eve and Adam?

I see these stories and Hofstadter's exploration of human moral choices as pointing to something in common.

Now we all might fantasize about how it would be a better world if everyone just did what was right, but we just don't see that happening.

Now one might ask, "How did this come about? What was God thinking when he (supposedly) created us?" This story actually addresses this aspect of human moral behavior on an individual and community level.

If you read the story carefully you will see that it makes sense that God intentionally set us up for this experience. In other words, the author of Genesis not only admits to our experience of the difficulty of being moral but he also shows God as the author of this state of affairs. I think that the author of this story was fully aware of your perspective when he wrote this story. By making the forbidden fruit one that provides knowledge of good and evil, the author further clears the sense of responsibility that Adam and Eve had for disobeying God. How can Eve be blamed if she, be definition, didn't know right from wrong? This is almost all God's doing!

the story also addresses the mystery of how we first come into consciousness of anything. First our minds are in a kind of innocent bliss of possibility. Then we do something definitive and we suffer the consequences. We can be warned but without personal experience of what the warning is about, what good is the warning? God set up Adam and Eve for the Fall as it was His intention all along.

Now the consequences that God provided...think about it...these are facts of our experience. So if you don't believe in God, no loss because women still have difficulty in childbirth and men still labor in the fields. The story just suggests that because we are not like the animals (what animal has such labor pains or has to work so hard to get their food?), we seem to suffer. But this same knowledge of knowing good vs bad, which is a blessing, is also a curse because well...among all the animals look at us...

It is a story to explain why reality is the way that it is. If there was a being who is responsible for this reality he/she/it has to be seen as having created it intentionally or they are not responsible for this reality. The author's of Genesis wanted to address this aspect of our human experience.

As such this story is, perhaps, one of the more controversial ones in the Bible and it is not surprising that, in an effort to portray God in a fully good light, that people would rather say that we are horrible sinners worthy of perpetual torment than to impune God. But the harder my fellow Christian work to excuse that sort of point of view, the more credulous they look.

Now if we take God out of the picture and say "well this is the result of natural law as explained by science"...we still have the same hard conditions. Why, then, would the authors of Genesis put their most holy God in such a dubious role?

That is the question that this story is asking us to consider. Why is life so hard? Why can't we all be good? The answer isn't "because we suck" like so many Christians will tell you. At least it shouldn't be. I think that your thread is entirely appropriate as it asks the right question. But I don't think that most Christian literalists can answer the question adequately.

I don't even think you expect to find an acceptable answer from them but rather you have asked this and many other questions in an effort to expose the ridiculousness of the beliefs of many.

 

[sojourner]

You know, I’ll have some respect for your replies (because I certainly have none now) , if you can truthfully answer a couple questions in your own words: in Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus spoke of sheep, goats, and his brothers. Who are Jesus’ brothers, what is their responsibility, and how are they different from Jesus’ sheep that he mentioned?

Or is this ‘interpolation’, too?

No, it’s not a later interpolation. In fact, it lies at the heart of Matthew’s message. Sheep/goats, wheat/weeds, us/them. The whole secret of God’s “kin-dom” is that the differences don’t matter; God will do the sorting, we’re not to worry about it. Anyone who does God’s will of building such community is a brother and sister.

 

[Cooky]

So. Again:

God is not all-powerful.
God is not all-knowing.
God is not all-present.

Kinda goes against all the Standard Labels, doesn't it?

When people read the bible literally, as a fundamentalist, where everything is in absolutes, all black and white, then yes. For them it would make no sense.

 

[sojourner]

But of course, yours doesn't....?

I’ve had this argument numerous times with others of your ilk. Any argument I could put forward is going to be conveniently refuted by you, because you don’t buy into scholarship — you’d rather just do narrow apologetic. Nonetheless, theology built on a solid and honest exegesis of the text is bound to be more valid than theology built on a nebulous “spiritual feeling” of “being guided by Jehovah.”

I'll take my 'theology' over yours any day...

I’m sure that’s the case. So what? That’s supposed to impress me in some way? I’m supposed to change my position based solely on whether you “approve” of it?

Creation is a myth"?

The creation stories are mythic. “Myth” is a literary genre.

And what "premise" would you present, since the whole of the Genesis account is a fairy story to you?

I didn’t say it’s a “fairy story.” I said it is mythic. There’s a marked difference that only one who appreciates literary scholarship can appreciate.

Are you calling God a liar?

Nope.

Again you cite someone who was educated in Christendom's theological system and who teaches and enhances the same basic ideas that he himself learned from a corrupted "church" system

It’s the best scholarship available. sorry you disapprove of it. Do you also turn away from doctors who work in Catholic hospitals?

His credentials are meaningless to me

Pffft! So? As if your assessment means anything.

. Its complete rubbish. If God wanted Adam and Eve to "grow up" then why did he punish them for disobeying his command?

Punishment isn’t really the issue. consequences are the issue. There are always consequences for our actions. The stories are etiological.

According to your "scholar" God lied and the devil told the truth

Nope. According to Dr. Lowery, Satan is not in the stories. Only you promulgate that rubbish.

.nor can I comprehend how anyone could so soundly support the devil's agenda whist claiming Jesus as their Lord and savior

Look in the mirror and see...

Suffering is everywhere, mainly caused by human greed....and we are "becoming like God"???

Yes, because we have self-determination and are aware of morality. Sorry if you can’t acknowledge that we’re better off in that regard than, say, paramecia.

 

[Kenny]

I have no need-- because there never was such a "sea". The story in Exodus? 100% myth-- never took place.

Why? Because there is absolutely NO evidence of Hebrews ever having lived in Egypt.

But wait! It's worse! Crossing the Reed Sea would not be fleeing Egypt--! Egypt, at the supposed time of the story? Controlled all that area too!

Ooops! There goes the entire narrative.

Yes... yes... and they said King David never existed too.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

When people read the bible literally, as a fundamentalist, where everything is in absolutes, all black and white, then yes. For them it would make no sense.

that does not answer my points-- in fact, it simply avoids it completely.

Once again:

God is not all powerful
God is not all knowing
God is not everywhere

These are the attributes of not-a-god.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Yes... yes... and they said King David never existed too.

The problem isn't they say not-existing.

The problem you have? Is that you cannot prove *any* of the bible characters were ever real.

Not a single major character, in fact. That is your claim. One you cannot prove.

In fact, one for which you have no evidence of any kind...

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

as you probably know....I've been posting for several years....

and I repeat....repeatedly....

the garden event was a manipulation of body and mind
a redirect of the course of Man

the forbidden fruit routine was a test....and Adam and Eve did not fail

there had always been pain and suffering
the first couple were not the first to walk this earth
just the first to walk with God

the experiment was a success and the specimens released into the environment

back to the pain of this world

I rather think that you can repeat yourself endlessly, and then multiply that by another endlessly, and yet never get past the one little issue which is that you can find nothing, in nature, science -- or even scripture! -- that provides the slightest basis for believing what you assert. It is, in the end, pure imagination, and devised only to provide some comfort for you for believing what is so patently not believable.

 

[Deeje]

The garden of Eden may not have been on planet earth.

Can I ask what makes you think that? Genesis gives us details about Earth's creation and preparation for life...and culminates in man's beginnings in Eden, which it says God "planted" just for them. How could it not be on planet earth? He told them to "fill the earth", so it had to be here.

How is that relevant? Well, they say that the depths of hell is a place where God is completely absent, no pleasure, no goodness et all- So it seems to me that if God frequented the "garden", then that means it was closer to God than earth, since He doesn't come here.

Can I also ask where you get this idea? If God created everything perfectly in the beginning, but his first purpose (to have humans live forever on earth in paradise conditions) was derailed by the abuse of free will (in both realms....remember that the first rebel was not human) then he could freely communicate with his earthly creatures with no impediment. It was sin that separated them from God....so after they sinned, God could no longer tolerate them in his presence....he thus appointed Jesus as the mediator, or go-between so that Adam's children could still have access to him. He did not give up on them because of something their parents did.

...Basically what I'm saying is that God cannot be close to evil, and once they sinned, and became tainted with evil knowledge, God had to push them further away. When they were distanced, they lost some of His graces.

I can see that God pushed them away...but why "further". He was close to them at the beginning and they severed the relationship by their disobedience. God then implemented the way to gain back all that Adam had lost for his children, but not until mankind had learned a valuable lesson.....obedience to God leads to life....disobedience leads to death.....no ifs no buts. Our obedience is all God has ever asked of us.

...It's not a punishment. It's just divine physics.

Its actually divine justice as I see it. We reap what we sow....when we break God's laws there is a penalty. Death was the highest penalty that any human could pay for breaking God's commands. Adam was not sentenced to "hell" but to death. No punishment in ancient Israel ever involved protracted torture or even imprisonment. Punishment was always in line with the severity of the crime and it was always meted out with either repentance in view, or to act as a deterrent to others. No willful murderer was allowed to live to re-offend. His death served as a warning. Other offenses were concerned with compensation for the victims, not just punishment for the sake of it.

Things go awry when we deviate from the Bible's simple truth IMO.

 

[Skwim]

I'm not asking you to relate to a theology but to relate to a story. Someone tells a story, the audience is left to interpret it.

Also, I am not going to ask you to take anything on faith but to critique the story independently of the notion that what it talks about is literally true. Let the truth of reality, as you see it, dictate the validity of the story but please don't let a myth stop you from reading the story as potentially one with wisdom.

So to put this in another way...what is it like to grow up and experience getting consequented for doing something bad? If we are told "no, don't do this" is that really how we learn right from wrong? Is authority really enough? Or do we, out of some natural curiousity, or by listening to another voice choose to do it anyway, forgetting, for the moment the earlier instructions we received?

Also, think about us as a society. The philosopher Douglas Hofstadter in his collection of essays for Scientific American Metamagical Themas argued that there is something in human nature that makes it hard for people to choose the optimal solution in the prisoner's dilemma. People choose to "defect" rather than "cooperate" because they assume that other people will defect. They opt for a minimal improvement in their own lot because they don't trust that everyone else will cooperate so that the maximal benefit is achieved. Hofstadter describes the sort of thinking required to choose the most moral option superrationality.

Superrationality - Wikipedia

To me this seems like a similar situation...there is something in our nature that causes us to choose the less moral choice. If only we were all good then we would all benefit. The Garden of Eden and the Fall story have this same quality although in a different context. If only we could just be obedient then we would never suffer the consequences. What sort of attitude must a person adopt in order to transcend the sort of short sighted thinking of Eve and Adam?

I see these stories and Hofstadter's exploration of human moral choices as pointing to something in common.

Now we all might fantasize about how it would be a better world if everyone just did what was right, but we just don't see that happening.

Now one might ask, "How did this come about? What was God thinking when he (supposedly) created us?" This story actually addresses this aspect of human moral behavior on an individual and community level.

If you read the story carefully you will see that it makes sense that God intentionally set us up for this experience. In other words, the author of Genesis not only admits to our experience of the difficulty of being moral but he also shows God as the author of this state of affairs. I think that the author of this story was fully aware of your perspective when he wrote this story. By making the forbidden fruit one that provides knowledge of good and evil, the author further clears the sense of responsibility that Adam and Eve had for disobeying God. How can Eve be blamed if she, be definition, didn't know right from wrong? This is almost all God's doing!

the story also addresses the mystery of how we first come into consciousness of anything. First our minds are in a kind of innocent bliss of possibility. Then we do something definitive and we suffer the consequences. We can be warned but without personal experience of what the warning is about, what good is the warning? God set up Adam and Eve for the Fall as it was His intention all along.

Now the consequences that God provided...think about it...these are facts of our experience. So if you don't believe in God, no loss because women still have difficulty in childbirth and men still labor in the fields. The story just suggests that because we are not like the animals (what animal has such labor pains or has to work so hard to get their food?), we seem to suffer. But this same knowledge of knowing good vs bad, which is a blessing, is also a curse because well...among all the animals look at us...

It is a story to explain why reality is the way that it is. If there was a being who is responsible for this reality he/she/it has to be seen as having created it intentionally or they are not responsible for this reality. The author's of Genesis wanted to address this aspect of our human experience.

As such this story is, perhaps, one of the more controversial ones in the Bible and it is not surprising that, in an effort to portray God in a fully good light, that people would rather say that we are horrible sinners worthy of perpetual torment than to impune God. But the harder my fellow Christian work to excuse that sort of point of view, the more credulous they look.

Now if we take God out of the picture and say "well this is the result of natural law as explained by science"...we still have the same hard conditions. Why, then, would the authors of Genesis put their most holy God in such a dubious role?

That is the question that this story is asking us to consider. Why is life so hard? Why can't we all be good? The answer isn't "because we suck" like so many Christians will tell you. At least it shouldn't be. I think that your thread is entirely appropriate as it asks the right question. But I don't think that most Christian literalists can answer the question adequately.

I don't even think you expect to find an acceptable answer from them but rather you have asked this and many other questions in an effort to expose the ridiculousness of the beliefs of many.

Interesting, but my main focus right now is on the subject of the OP.

.

 

[Cooky]

that does not answer my points-- in fact, it simply avoids it completely.

Once again:

God is not all powerful
God is not all knowing
God is not everywhere

These are the attributes of not-a-god.

We don't worship Allah as described in the Koran. We worship the God of love.

 

[Cooky]

Can I ask what makes you think that? Genesis gives us details about Earth's creation and preparation for life...and culminates in man's beginnings in Eden, which it says God "planted" just for them. How could it not be on planet earth? He told them to "fill the earth", so it had to be here.



Can I also ask where you get this idea? If God created everything perfectly in the beginning, but his first purpose (to have humans live forever on earth in paradise conditions) was derailed by the abuse of free will (in both realms....remember that the first rebel was not human) then he could freely communicate with his earthly creatures with no impediment. It was sin that separated them from God....so after they sinned, God could no longer tolerate them in his presence....he thus appointed Jesus as the mediator, or go-between so that Adam's children could still have access to him. He did not give up on them because of something their parents did.



I can see that God pushed them away...but why "further". He was close to them at the beginning and they severed the relationship by their disobedience. God then implemented the way to gain back all that Adam had lost for his children, but not until mankind had learned a valuable lesson.....obedience to God leads to life....disobedience leads to death.....no ifs no buts. Our obedience is all God has ever asked of us.



Its actually divine justice as I see it. We reap what we sow....when we break God's laws there is a penalty. Death was the highest penalty that any human could pay for breaking God's commands. Adam was not sentenced to "hell" but to death. No punishment in ancient Israel ever involved protracted torture or even imprisonment. Punishment was always in line with the severity of the crime and it was always meted out with either repentance in view, or to act as a deterrent to others. No willful murderer was allowed to live to re-offend. His death served as a warning. Other offenses were concerned with compensation for the victims, not just punishment for the sake of it.

Things go awry when we deviate from the Bible's simple truth IMO.

I don't see where we actually disagree. All sounds good to me.

Besides, what does it matter where the Garden of Eden was anyway in regards to following Jesus?

 

[Katzpur]

Lowery goes on: “Humans trade paradise for wisdom and, in the process, cause the universal desert to bloom. They forfeit blissful innocence for the godly power of moral discernment ... the world prospers as a result. The ‘fall’ in this story is the painful process of growing up, maturing into moral beings, becoming fully human and thus ‘like God.’”

There is a Latin phrase, "feliz culpa" which translates into "fortunate fall." The Latin word "feliz" means "happy," "lucky," or "blessed." "Culpa" means "fault" or "fall." During the first few centuries of Christianity, Christ's followers understood the fall of Adam to have been a necessary event and part of God's plan for the eternal happiness of His children. It was primarily with St. Augustine (in the late 4th and early 5th centuries) that the doctrine of "Original Sin" as well as the associated concept of "original guilt" began to take hold.

The average Christian today believes this doctrine. He characterizes Adam and Eve as being rebellious, vain and power-hungry, and believes that their choice not only brought sin and death into the world, but condemned every person who would ever live to bear their guilt and supposed depravity -- from birth. Their decision to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is consequently seen by most Christians today as being incredibly stupid and selfish on Adam's and Eve's part. When viewed from this perspective, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, "fortunate" about the Fall of Adam.

If, however, Adam and Eve truly were the defiant and self-centered individuals traditional Christianity paints them as, how would you explain the fact that Genesis 3:6 says, that "when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat"? After all, if the Tree is said to have been "good for food, pleasant to the eyes and [desirable] to make one wise," doesn't it sound more as if Eve, rather than being defiant and self-centered, was actually just a woman pursuing wisdom, truth and beauty.

Regardless of how literally one takes the story of the Creation and the events which transpired in Eden, we must ultimately acknowledge that there would have been no need for an Atonement had there not been a Fall, an actual fall from grace by two people who really did live and were given a choice which would impact the billions of their descendants. This makes you stop and think -- or at least it should -- that to believe anything other than that the Fall was a fortunate and anticipated one is to suggest that God was a pretty incompetent planner and this His Plan was derailed before it ever got off the ground. Contrary to popular opinion, Adam and Eve did not create some kind of a glitch in God's plan. When they ate the forbidden fruit, God didn't suddenly have to engage in some kind of frantic damage control. He simply did what He knew all along He would be doing when the time was right.

 

[sojourner]

There is a Latin phrase, "feliz culpa" which translates into "fortunate fall." The Latin word "feliz" means "happy," "lucky," or "blessed." "Culpa" means "fault" or "fall." During the first few centuries of Christianity, Christ's followers understood the fall of Adam to have been a necessary event and part of God's plan for the eternal happiness of His children. It was primarily with St. Augustine (in the late 4th and early 5th centuries) that the doctrine of "Original Sin" as well as the associated concept of "original guilt" began to take hold.

The average Christian today believes this doctrine. He characterizes Adam and Eve as being rebellious, vain and power-hungry, and believes that their choice not only brought sin and death into the world, but condemned every person who would ever live to bear their guilt and supposed depravity -- from birth. Their decision to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is consequently seen by most Christians today as being incredibly stupid and selfish on Adam's and Eve's part. When viewed from this perspective, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, "fortunate" about the Fall of Adam.

If, however, Adam and Eve truly were the defiant and self-centered individuals traditional Christianity paints them as, how would you explain the fact that Genesis 3:6 says, that "when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat"? After all, if the Tree is said to have been "good for food, pleasant to the eyes and [desirable] to make one wise," doesn't it sound more as if Eve, rather than being defiant and self-centered, was actually just a woman pursuing wisdom, truth and beauty.

Regardless of how literally one takes the story of the Creation and the events which transpired in Eden, we must ultimately acknowledge that there would have been no need for an Atonement had there not been a Fall, an actual fall from grace by two people who really did live and were given a choice which would impact the billions of their descendants. This makes you stop and think -- or at least it should -- that to believe anything other than that the Fall was a fortunate and anticipated one is to suggest that God was a pretty incompetent planner and this His Plan was derailed before it ever got off the ground. Contrary to popular opinion, Adam and Eve did not create some kind of a glitch in God's plan. When they ate the forbidden fruit, God didn't suddenly have to engage in some kind of frantic damage control. He simply did what He knew all along He would be doing when the time was right.

Very nice post. The only part I have a problem with is the “atonement” part. I don’t buy substitutionary atonement.