Thread: Was the Garden of Eden a case of "police entrapment"?

Originally Posted by GordonGecko

How does a newly created human being, that has never seen it...know what "death" is?

God constructed Adam, his body and his mind, which included language.

Originally Posted by Djinn

In other words, Adam and Eve were not guilty of violating any "rules."

How can they not be guilty of violating any 'rules' when they explicitly disobeyed the ONLY rule that god gave them.

Originally Posted by Djinn

They were inexorably pushed into their actions by an all-powerful, all-knowing being.

As I have already pointed out, only animals and inanimate objects are free of moral judgments. Adam and eve were human beings exercising rational faculties and free will -- hence are culpable for their actions.

Originally Posted by Djinn

Kicking Adam and Eve to the curbside was part of the plan from the start.

Again, foreknowledge on the part of god does not render free will on the part of humans moot. Free will is moot only when one is coerced or too ignorant to know the logical consequences of one's actions -- both of which are not the case in the genesis story.

At that moment of the fall of man (arising from his own folly) god's design to save man was put in effect -- from god's continuous self-revelation up to the crucifixion.

Originally Posted by Rasselas

Were Adam and Eve really third stage moral thinkers? Why should we imagine they were?

No, they arguably weren't even first-stage, because they had no concept of reward or punishment.

Originally Posted by kingrat

How can they not be guilty of violating any 'rules' when they explicitly disobeyed the ONLY rule that god gave them.

But they didn't know god from anyone else. Why would they choose to obey god, versus the serpent, versus any other chatty creature that happened into the garden? God had done nothing to identify himself, or describe what he stood for. Adam and Eve had nothing against which to compare the validity of the serpent's claims.

Originally Posted by font

God constructed Adam, his body and his mind, which included language.

There was no death until the Tree of Knowledge fruit was eaten.

Originally Posted by Djinn

Why should they have listened to God? How could they have known that God was "right" and the serpent was "wrong?"

Why does anyone disobey a rule?

One disobeys a rule when one thinks he is not subject to that rule -- which was the proposition of the serpent in the first place.

Adam and eve wanted an existence that is not dependent on god's grace -- that they would be 'god's unto themselves' -- hence is a rejection of god.

Originally Posted by font

God constructed Adam, his body and his mind, which included language.

Language is different from conceptual understanding. The ancients had a word for "lightning"* but they had no concept of electricity, ionization, or positive / negative charges. However, they still had a word. So having language wouldn't have enabled Adam to understand death.




* "barak" or some variant thereof, in case you were wondering

Originally Posted by kingrat

Why does anyone disobey a rule? One disobeys a rule when one thinks he is not subject to that rule -- which was the proposition of the serpent in the first place.

You also disobey a rule when you have reason to question those who issue the rule. Adam and Eve knew next-to-nothing about God. Actually, the serpent dedicated more time chatting with Adam and Eve than God did.

Originally Posted by Djinn

But they didn't know god from anyone else. Why would they choose to obey god, versus the serpent, versus any other chatty creature that happened into the garden? God had done nothing to identify himself, or describe what he stood for. Adam and Eve had nothing against which to compare the validity of the serpent's claims.

What the serpent said was a qualified truth. If we were not encumbered by moral compunctions, we could hold great power over nature. What the serpent conveniently neglected to say is that this power would be the cause of our inevitable perdition.

Originally Posted by Djinn

You also disobey a rule when you have reason to question those who issue the rule. Adam and Eve knew next-to-nothing about God. Actually, the serpent dedicated more time chatting with Adam and Eve than God did.

And do you think there is reason to question god when you are already living in paradise?

As I have already said, man's fall was not due to ignorance. Ignorance, after all, is excusable. Nor is it about the acquisition of power. Man's rational faculty already gave him dominion over creation.

Man's fall is the result of rejecting god's grace -- the essential element on which his entire being is dependent on.