Adam and Eve's story

[estradling75]

12 hours ago, prisonchaplain said:

My part in this string is not focused on the core truth--the messianic promise of Genesis 3:15, and it's fulfillment in Jesus are the overarching blessing. Instead, I focused on where our stories diverge--and it does seem to be around A&E's eating of the fruit. Without the latter-day revelations about pre-mortal existence, and the decisions about carrying out God's plan that took place, we traditional folk are left with A&E choosing to disobey God's command and to disbelieve his warnings. We're only "majoring on the minors" in this discussion because we more or less already agree about the major.

Lets walk through this and examine the paradoxes we get due to our limited understanding. Paradoxes caused our limited understanding of two of God's characteristics.  God's ability to plan, and God's respect for Agency (aka our ability to make our own choices)

The standard Biblical Christian Idea is that God's plan was for us all to be in paradise (like Adam and Eve in the Garden).  But if that was the plan.. why put the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden in the first place?  If that was God's plan. Then Adam and Eve wrecked it like Ralph.  That would make Christ and his Atonement a Plan B.  There are some clear problem with God's ability to plan under this understanding of events.  Basically God sucked at planning and was forced into a plan of suffering because Adam and Eve did something he did not account for.  This is clearly paradoxical based on what we are told about God.  With this limited Biblical Christianity understanding one should be angry at God for the crappy plan, but God can't be a crappy planner so the anger displaces to Adam and Eve.  If they had not screwed up we would all be in Paradise right now.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint claim additional light and knowledge beyond the standard Biblical Christianity. *We do not however claim Total Light and Knowledge. Just more.*  Our additional light and knowledge clears up the paradox.  A lot of this is done through Lehi in the Book of Mormon. Lehi makes it clear that Adam and Eve did not rob us of our chance to live in the Garden, that was never an option.  That God's plan required Adam and Eve to fall to put things into motion.  Christ and his Atonement was not Plan B but rather the First and only plan.

This handled the old paradox that was caused by limited understanding, but it raises some other questions.  Since we do not have Total Light and Knowledge we still have a limited understanding and this can make for some apparent paradoxes.  We know that God's initial plan is still working, and was in no danger of failing.  However it is one thing to say that God's plan can Handle Sin.  No plan would be effective if it could not.  But it is another thing entirely to say that God's plan Required Sin.  Saying that God's plan would have been frustrated by a lack of sin is just as problematic as saying it would have been frustrated by sin.

We are limited because we are only told what happened, what Adam and Eve did. And it appears that Sin was "required" which has issues.  Many resolve this by stating that it wasn't really a sin.  That Eve lacked the fundamentals needed to have Agency and thus Sin. (Aka she was an innocent child) There is a lot of support for this idea.  A smaller group thinks its a bit problematic to try to weasel ones way out of disobedience.  

Maybe one does consider it a Sin, maybe one does not.  However the idea that God's plan required Adam and Eve to make one and only one choice for the plan to work is problematic no matter how much Light and Knowledge one might have. 

Edited January 15, 2019 by estradling75

[prisonchaplain]

2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Thanks for your response.

I'll try to rephrase my question.

First, I'm perfectly willing to admit that the guy I spoke with probably had a non-mainstream doctrine.  The way he described it, God was actually thwarted in His plans.  And He was left doing damage control to try to fix it.  Like I said, I don't know what kind of God doesn't have foreknowledge sufficient to have the plan set all along.

Second, so, do you believe it was a bad thing for the fall to have occurred?  Was it an integral part of the plan that he orchestrated?  Or was it something God saw as a blip (due to free will allowing A&E to sin in a manner contrary to His will) and He took care of it (ahead of time)?

I guess that's really it.  Was it contrary to His will?  And what would have happened had they stayed in the Garden without ever taking of the fruit?

I'll use a different Bible account to explain my thinking on this. God used Joseph to save both Egypt and Israel from starvation. Part of Joseph's journey involved time as a slave, and then 10-15 years in prison (labeled as a sex offender, btw). Most Christians of all stripes believe that God used Joseph's hardships to place him where he needed to be to interpret dreams and gain Pharaoh's attention. I wonder though. Joseph received two dreams in which the brothers who despised him were bowing down to him. He could have done like Mary, and treasured these revelations in his heart. Instead, he tells both to his brothers. Was he naïve? Perhaps prideful? Given his father's reaction to the second dream, and again contrasting his actions with Mary's, I suspect Joseph was bragging. "Hey, I'm not only dad's favorite, I'm God's too!" Of course, I cannot prove this, and would not make doctrine out of it. However, I suspect that Joseph did not have to go through all the hardships he did. God could have brought him to Pharaoh without all that slave/jail time. The difficult path was one of his own making (plus, of course, the much greater sinfulness and blame his brothers bore).

Did Adam & Eve have to disobey God in order for us to gain free will? I suspect not. However, there's no proving my view, and really not much point. They did sin and God knew it was coming. Given God's foreknowledge, it could be argued that the Fall was God's first plan. However, care should be taken along this road. There are too many voices arguing that sinners, and even the Devil himself, are only fulfilling God's purposes, and so bare no personal culpability. That notion I soundly reject. Likewise, without LDS revelations, I am left believing that Adam & Eve flat-out sinned.

At least we all get to the same conclusion. I have sinned. I sin. I will sin. So, I need Jesus to forgive me "70 X 7," and I need the Holy Spirit to guide me in the path of righteousness, so my life may glorify God, rather than leading many to the wide and easy road to destruction.

[Rob Osborn]

14 minutes ago, prisonchaplain said:

I am left believing that Adam & Eve flat-out sinned.

This is true, just as a fact that all of us flat out sin.

[prisonchaplain]

2 hours ago, estradling75 said:

The standard Biblical Christian Idea is that God's plan was for us all to be in paradise (like Adam and Eve in the Garden).  But if that was the plan.. why put the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden in the first place?  If that was God's plan. Then Adam and Eve wrecked it like Ralph.  That would make Christ and his Atonement a Plan B.  There are some clear problem with God's ability to plan under this understanding of events.  Basically God sucked at planning and was forced into a plan of suffering because Adam and Eve did something he did not account for.  This is clearly paradoxical based on what we are told about God.  With this limited Biblical Christianity understanding one should be angry at God for the crappy plan, but God can't be a crappy planner so the anger displaces to Adam and Eve.  If they had not screwed up we would all be in Paradise right now.

 

Some accuse Christians of forming the idea of God's foreknowledge as a convoluted attempt to avoid paradox. Pure free will would seem to create the paradox you describe. God wanted us safe, happy and innocent in the Garden, but A&E chose rebellion, by grasping for their own knowledge of good and evil. On the other hand, predestination would seem to absolve humans of guilt, because if God predestined everything then we really had no choice but to sin. God set it up. So, shazaam! Foreknowledge says we have free will, but God knows everything that will happen in advance, and so what comes to pass is indeed his first plan. We get free will, God's will gets accomplished. All neat and tidy--kinda like the Trinity (We're monotheists, but Jesus is still God).

Skeptical philosophers criticize foreknowledge as a dodge. I believe in it because the Bible does say that God's will is never thwarted and He is all-knowing, yet it indicates we have free will. The LDS revelation that the Fall was actually planned out in advance, and that A&E willfully subjected themselves to suffer the Fall for our benefit does exactly as you say. It provides whole new layers of explanation. Questions remain, but it does offer insight for those who embrace it as true.

[prisonchaplain]

3 minutes ago, Rob Osborn said:

This is true, just as a fact that all of us flat out sin.

My sin is a little more rotund and out-standing...but that's what auto-repeat New Year's resolutions are all about!

[Guest]

2 hours ago, prisonchaplain said:

I'll use a different Bible account to explain my thinking on this. God used Joseph to save both Egypt and Israel from starvation. Part of Joseph's journey involved time as a slave, and then 10-15 years in prison (labeled as a sex offender, btw). Most Christians of all stripes believe that God used Joseph's hardships to place him where he needed to be to interpret dreams and gain Pharaoh's attention.

I believe this as well.  But I also believe that Joseph needed to go through hardship because we all need to go through hardship.  It is a great learning tool.  It is the refiner's fire.  And who, but the greatest of all (Jesus Christ) went through an infinite hardship, the unquenchable refiner's fire?

2 hours ago, prisonchaplain said:

I wonder though. Joseph received two dreams in which the brothers who despised him were bowing down to him. He could have done like Mary, and treasured these revelations in his heart. Instead, he tells both to his brothers. Was he naïve? Perhaps prideful? Given his father's reaction to the second dream, and again contrasting his actions with Mary's, I suspect Joseph was bragging. "Hey, I'm not only dad's favorite, I'm God's too!" Of course, I cannot prove this, and would not make doctrine out of it. However, I suspect that Joseph did not have to go through all the hardships he did. God could have brought him to Pharaoh without all that slave/jail time. The difficult path was one of his own making (plus, of course, the much greater sinfulness and blame his brothers bore).

I, myself, have wondered why he told of his dreams.  But perhaps the narrative we have is a bit too scant.  Maybe it was in a situation and circumstance that would have made it appropriate for him to share.  But we just don't have those details. 

Or maybe you're right.  He was being prideful.  And he needed his dose of humble pie as well.  Don't know.

2 hours ago, prisonchaplain said:

Did Adam & Eve have to disobey God in order for us to gain free will? I suspect not. However, there's no proving my view, and really not much point. They did sin and God knew it was coming. Given God's foreknowledge, it could be argued that the Fall was God's first plan.

I'm amazed at how a single word can change a statement into something with a completely different meaning -- or at least a very different perspective.

The way I see it (and I believe is the LDS view in general) is that God has an overall arc that is required to fulfill his goals (to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man).  To do so, there are overall structures that are setup.  And there are very wide boundaries that are set up.  Then there are points here and there that MUST go a certain way to change the course of human history (or in many cases, an individual's history).  It is at these times where he will intervene.

My view is that the fall was one of those things that HAD to go a certain way to fulfill his objectives.  It HAD to be some commandment that was broken.  So, it was more than He "expected" it (because of foreknowledge).  It was that He actually "planned" (only because "wanted" is too strong a word) for it to happen.  Perhaps ... He even "needed" it to happen?  There really isn't the right word.  But it was the "appropriate" thing to happen.

2 hours ago, prisonchaplain said:

However, care should be taken along this road. There are too many voices arguing that sinners, and even the Devil himself, are only fulfilling God's purposes, and so bare no personal culpability. That notion I soundly reject.

I certainly hear that argument.  And I agree with it.  But the fall was indeed a peculiar case.  I'm not sure if the same reasoning with other, more pedestrian, cases can inform us about the fall.  It was unique.

2 hours ago, prisonchaplain said:

At least we all get to the same conclusion. I have sinned. I sin. I will sin. So, I need Jesus to forgive me "70 X 7," and I need the Holy Spirit to guide me in the path of righteousness, so my life may glorify God, rather than leading many to the wide and easy road to destruction.

Amen.

[Rob Osborn]

The fall was a given regarding the circumstances of our condition. Its like placing candy in a room and telling a child not to eat it. Eventually, every kid is gonna eat it, especially if they have someone else come in and offer it to them and tell them to go ahead, theres no harm in it. That said, it shows the reason why a Savior was prepared because we all knew we would fall in mortality and give in to the sins and pleasures of the flesh.

[JohnsonJones]

On ‎1‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 9:48 AM, estradling75 said:

Lets walk through this and examine the paradoxes we get due to our limited understanding. Paradoxes caused our limited understanding of two of God's characteristics.  God's ability to plan, and God's respect for Agency (aka our ability to make our own choices)

The standard Biblical Christian Idea is that God's plan was for us all to be in paradise (like Adam and Eve in the Garden).  But if that was the plan.. why put the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden in the first place?  If that was God's plan. Then Adam and Eve wrecked it like Ralph.  That would make Christ and his Atonement a Plan B.  There are some clear problem with God's ability to plan under this understanding of events.  Basically God sucked at planning and was forced into a plan of suffering because Adam and Eve did something he did not account for.  This is clearly paradoxical based on what we are told about God.  With this limited Biblical Christianity understanding one should be angry at God for the crappy plan, but God can't be a crappy planner so the anger displaces to Adam and Eve.  If they had not screwed up we would all be in Paradise right now.

This is pretty easy to explain.  Adam and Eve already had a very nice paradise.  They could have spent eternity there.  Instead, they transgressed the law and thus were thrown out of Paradise. 

This was NOT because of bad planning.  This was due to allowing us the freedom to choose.  Without a choice, one cannot have freedom.  Without something to choose between, one cannot have choice.

BECAUSE he is a GOOD planner, he planned for the occasion when we choose to do something against his will or his commandments. 

From the LDS perspective it was a choice to choose the harder path.  This path would separate them from the Kingdom of the Lord, but the reward at the end could be greater than what they had before. 

Thus, while they had a Telestial Paradise to dwell in, they could attain a Celestial Exaltation by following the plan set forth.

 

Quote

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint claim additional light and knowledge beyond the standard Biblical Christianity. *We do not however claim Total Light and Knowledge. Just more.*  Our additional light and knowledge clears up the paradox.  A lot of this is done through Lehi in the Book of Mormon. Lehi makes it clear that Adam and Eve did not rob us of our chance to live in the Garden, that was never an option.  That God's plan required Adam and Eve to fall to put things into motion.  Christ and his Atonement was not Plan B but rather the First and only plan.

This handled the old paradox that was caused by limited understanding, but it raises some other questions.  Since we do not have Total Light and Knowledge we still have a limited understanding and this can make for some apparent paradoxes.  We know that God's initial plan is still working, and was in no danger of failing.  However it is one thing to say that God's plan can Handle Sin.  No plan would be effective if it could not.  But it is another thing entirely to say that God's plan Required Sin.  Saying that God's plan would have been frustrated by a lack of sin is just as problematic as saying it would have been frustrated by sin.

We are limited because we are only told what happened, what Adam and Eve did. And it appears that Sin was "required" which has issues.  Many resolve this by stating that it wasn't really a sin.  That Eve lacked the fundamentals needed to have Agency and thus Sin. (Aka she was an innocent child) There is a lot of support for this idea.  A smaller group thinks its a bit problematic to try to weasel ones way out of disobedience.  

Maybe one does consider it a Sin, maybe one does not.  However the idea that God's plan required Adam and Eve to make one and only one choice for the plan to work is problematic no matter how much Light and Knowledge one might have. 

It did NOT require them to make one and only one choice though.  It was given because one of the reasons we are here is to experience free agency.  It is impossible to be free unless you can make choices of your own choice.  This means there MUST be a choice. 

In the end, all choices in some way (though I am puzzled at how choosing what to wear in the morning revolves around such items) are basically between GOOD and EVIL. 

As they were innocent, they COULD NOT sin, but they could choose to disobey.  This meant that they could transgress.

Similarly to a child of 5 years old, they cannot sin, but they can disobey their parents.  They still have choices they can make.

The Choice given actually is logical, but not specifically the reasons as given by the Serpent.  Adam and Eve were in a Telestial type paradise.  It was a wonderful place and were often in the presence of Heavenly messengers and even the Father himself.

They could have chosen to live in this eternal Paradise if they so desired and wanted.

They were given a choice, and Eve knew, at least in the same way a child (probably a very intelligent one) that if they partook of the fruit, they would die. 

Now as per the LDS reading of Genesis...the Serpent didn't actually lie to Eve, he just did not tell her the entire truth (thus it was a half-truth and thus also a lie).  When she ate the fruit, she would become as those she knew from Heaven, knowing good and Evil. 

What did she lose?

That depends on whether she knew about the Plan of Salvation or not.  If she did not, it meant that she would die...as stated by commandment.  They died both spiritually AND Physically.  Because of their choice they were driven from the Presence of the Father and thus were separated from him.  Because of their choice they each died (within 1000 years from what we know of the Bible, longer than we live now, but still they died) from a physical death.

HOWEVER, because of the Plan of Salvation, she still would die, but could be saved. 

If one looks at it, as long as one did not become a Son of Perdition (and who knows if women can become Sons of Perdition as that seems a rather Male Term), they and their inheritors were guaranteed at least a restoration to the same type of Telestial paradise they dwelt in previously.

HOWEVER, THEY COULD ALSO GAIN FAR MORE than this, even to be joint-heirs with Christ and sit in Exaltation with the Father on his righthand.

Logically, from the LDS viewpoint, the only logical choice would be to choose the one where you may lose in the short term, but in the long term you lose nothing for the most part but can gain FAR more.

However, it was STILL a choice.  Even without the knowledge of the Plan of Salvation, the choice was to die with knowledge or live in ignorance.  Even today, some would say if given the choice to live in blissful ignorance, or attain knowledge even at the expense of happiness is worth it.  It is better to die with knowledge of what it is all about then to live in ignorance of it.

The good thing in the LDS version though, is that death even with knowledge was NOT the end.  Instead, the Plan of Salvation exists and a greater reward lies for those who attain exaltation, and for those who do not (with the exception of the Sons of Perdition, who compared to the population of the World are such a small percentage it's basically a rounding error of Zero) they still have the same paradise promised to them that was lost by their Parents.

But, there WAS a choice.  To live in Paradise in ignorance or to Die with Knowledge.

Which would you choose?

Edited January 18, 2019 by JohnsonJones

[JohnsonJones]

On ‎1‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 12:01 PM, prisonchaplain said:

I'll use a different Bible account to explain my thinking on this. God used Joseph to save both Egypt and Israel from starvation. Part of Joseph's journey involved time as a slave, and then 10-15 years in prison (labeled as a sex offender, btw). Most Christians of all stripes believe that God used Joseph's hardships to place him where he needed to be to interpret dreams and gain Pharaoh's attention. I wonder though. Joseph received two dreams in which the brothers who despised him were bowing down to him. He could have done like Mary, and treasured these revelations in his heart. Instead, he tells both to his brothers. Was he naïve? Perhaps prideful? Given his father's reaction to the second dream, and again contrasting his actions with Mary's, I suspect Joseph was bragging. "Hey, I'm not only dad's favorite, I'm God's too!" Of course, I cannot prove this, and would not make doctrine out of it. However, I suspect that Joseph did not have to go through all the hardships he did. God could have brought him to Pharaoh without all that slave/jail time. The difficult path was one of his own making (plus, of course, the much greater sinfulness and blame his brothers bore).

Did Adam & Eve have to disobey God in order for us to gain free will? I suspect not. However, there's no proving my view, and really not much point. They did sin and God knew it was coming. Given God's foreknowledge, it could be argued that the Fall was God's first plan. However, care should be taken along this road. There are too many voices arguing that sinners, and even the Devil himself, are only fulfilling God's purposes, and so bare no personal culpability. That notion I soundly reject. Likewise, without LDS revelations, I am left believing that Adam & Eve flat-out sinned.

At least we all get to the same conclusion. I have sinned. I sin. I will sin. So, I need Jesus to forgive me "70 X 7," and I need the Holy Spirit to guide me in the path of righteousness, so my life may glorify God, rather than leading many to the wide and easy road to destruction.

My personal thought (currently, maybe there are those who will change it) is that I don't really think it was a first plan or second plan or any other such ideas as people present.

There are some who theorize that Adam and Eve could have had children in the Garden if they simply knew what they were doing.  Others feel they could not.

Either way, they were already in Paradise. 

I think God wants us to be happy.  He ALSO wants us to be able to have free agency.

As I pointed out above in LDS thought, I think it also applies to many Christian religions.  They feel that we have free agency here in this life.  It gives us the choice to choose to be good and Follow the Lord or to be Evil.  It is a simple choice but veiled many times in what we feel is complexities.

It is THIS choice that gives us Free Choice or Free Agency.  It is the choice between Good or Evil.  It is the Same choice to a degree that Adam and Eve were given.

They could choose to follow the Commandment of the Lord or disobey it.

JUST as with them, if we choose to disobey that does NOT mean we are lost forever.  WE can choose to accept Jesus Christ's atonement and be saved.

I feel this choice, or this free agency is one of the basic Keys in many Christian Religions.  It is why there is a choice to choose Christ or not.

However, it is IMPOSSIBLE to have free agency without being able to choose (good or evil, or to follow the commandments or to disobey them).  You cannot choose anything if you have no choices.  Thus, in order for Adam and Eve to have free agency, one of the gifts of God, they HAD to have choice.  They could choose to obey or to disobey (which is really the same choice we have today).

They chose to disobey and thus fell from grace.

We can also choose to reject the Lord and thus not accept his grace. 

The best choice is to accept the Lord and follow his commandments.

I think most Christian religions have no difficulty with this ideology.  

But this brings me back to my first idea, why I don't think there was a plan A or a plan B.  I think it was simply what he knew and figured what to do if something or other happened.

Just like when you have your children coming in to visit.  They tell you they could arrive sometime between 8 AM and 9 PM.  You know they are coming and figure if they come at 8 AM they may want breakfast, but if they come at 9PM they may want to go to bed.  You prepare for both occasions, but neither may be plan A or plan B.  You are just prepared for whatever may occur.

In the same light, I think he was prepared for ANY decision or choices made.