POST ONE OF FOUR
Opening post)
Ellen, I admit I am often a fan of yours. I like your logical questions and comments in the main. I think this specific question of yours, if I understand it correctly, is an important base concept. I don’t like many of the later Christian theories and interpretations where infants come into the world having “inherited” moral taint from something someone else (Adam) did. It smacks of injustice to punish one person for what another person did. I think the early Christian interpretations that Adam is not the cause of moral evil in others. This is the point made in the early Text, Apoc of Baruch when Baruch is telling evil doers not to blame Adam for their evils :
“…turn yourselves to destruction, you unrighteous ones who are living now, for you will be visited suddenly, since you have once rejected the understanding of the most High. For his works have not taught you, nor has the artful work of his creation which has existed always persuaded you. Adam is, therefore not the cause, except only for himself, but each of us has become our own Adam.” The apocalypse of Baruch (Baruch 2) 54:17-19;
I think such early Judao-Christian doctrines have profound contextual advantages over modern theories. For example, consider the fall of Adam and Eve if one simply adds two simple, but important ancient contexts.
The first principle is reflected by the Prophet Sedrach’s observation to God the Father that : “It was by your will that Adam was deceived, my master” (The Apocalypse of Sedrach 5:1-7). In this model, the fall of Adam was known to God beforehand, and in fact, it was his will that his plan for mankinds mortal experience should proceed despite the fact that Adam would fall.
The second principle was the early doctrine that the tree of “knowledge” (γνοστον) which Adam partook of was described as the “TREE OF WISDOM”. In that worldview, it was not simply the tree of "knowledge”.
The implications of both ancient principles was the basis of an entirely different paradigm. Combined and paraphrased, this ancient doctrine was : “IT WAS ACCORDING TO GOD’S WILL THAT ADAM ACQUIRED WISDOM”.
Just as the origin of Satan is not to be understood outside of pre-mortal Christian theology, I do not think the fall of Adam can be well understood without considering Pre-mortality; what God was attempting to with Adam (and the rest of us) and the role of gaining moral wisdom in God’s plan for mankind.
A) PRE-CREATION CONDITIONS RELATING TO ADAM - “GOD WAS IN THE MIDST OF SPIRITS”
According to this early Christian model, God did not create spirits of mankind out of “nothing” (and therefore was responsible for their characteristics – both good and evil). Instead, before the creation of this world, God was in the midst of spirits. Early textual testimonies describe innumerable spirits existing in “heaven” before creation. Regarding pre-creation heaven, Enoch records : "No one could come near unto him [God the Father] from among those that surrounded the tens of millions (that stood) before him". (1 En 14:23)
Enoch continues : "I saw a hundred thousand times a hundred thousand, ten million times ten million, an innumerable and uncountable (multitude) who stand before the glory of the Lord of the Spirits". (1 Enoch 40:1-2)"
In this ancient doctrine, God was in the midst of spirits of all the spirits who ever lived or will live on this earth. The spirit that was to be clothed in Adam’s body was among these spirits. Jewish haggadah relates : ...With the soul of Adam the souls of all the generations of men were created. They are stored up in a promptuary, in the seventh of the heavens, whence they are drawn as they are needed for human body after human body.” (The Haggadah (The Soul of Man)
The pre-mortal Jesus is among these spirits as well. Enoch describes his vision of seeing the pre-mortal Jesus with the Father. Upon seeing these two individuals, Enoch asks who this individual (the pre-mortal Jesus) was and what role he had in the Father's Plan : "At that place, I saw the Beginning of days [i.e. the Father] And his head was white like wool, and there was with him another individual, whose face was like that of a human being. His countenance was full of grace like that of one among the holy angels. And I asked the one – from among the angels –who was going with me,..."Who is this and from where could he be, and for what reason does he go with him who precedes time?" And he answered me and said to me, "This is the Son of Man, to whom belongs righteousness, and with whom righteousness dwells...the Lord of the spirits has chosen him, and he is destined to be victorious before the Lord of the spirits in eternal uprightness...." (1 Enoch 46:1-4)
The fact that the original plan called for a savior to redeem meant that it was known from the very beginning that man would both fall and need a redeemer to save them from the fall. Early texts such as Jewish Zohar confirm this : “At the time that the Holy One, be blessed, was about to create the world, he decided to fashion all the souls which would in due course be dealt out to the children of men, .... Scrutinizing each, he saw that among them some would fall into evil ways in the world.” (The Zohar - The Destiny of the Soul)
B) GOD THE FATHER’S PLAN FOR MANKIND - “TO SEE AND UNDERSTAND THINGS”
If the early Christians were correct that spirits existed prior to creation, then one may ask what a moral and loving God would plan regarding these spirits? The ancient Jewish doctrine that God had instituted a divine plan is interwoven into multiple texts "Before all things came to be, he [God] has ordered all their designs" (Dead Sea Scrolls 4Q255-264)
“....I (the Father), in the midst of the light (glory), moved around in the invisible things, like one of them, as the sun moves around from east to west and from west to east. But the sun has rest; yet I did not find rest, because everything was not yet created. And I thought up the idea of establishing a foundation, to create a visible creation." (2nd Enoch 24:4)
The Prophet Enoch describes the earliest stages of God’s plan before it was known among the heavenly host : "for not even to my angels have I explained my secrets, nor related to them their origin, nor my endless and inconceivable creation which I conceived." (2nd Enoch 24:3) Once God sets in motion his great plan, God seems to take great care in both the planning of and in ensuring the deep involvement of the Heavenly Hosts (for whose benefit the plan existed).
