ButterflyJones
Well-Known Member
You fail to understand that Adam and Eve didn't know right from wrong, good and evil.Exactly....free will meant that the choice to access the TKGE was there, but out of all the trees in the garden, this one did not belong to the humans....God claimed that one tree as his own property. To steal that fruit was to steal from their Sovereign, which incurred the death penalty. To steal from the Creator was an act of gross disrespect and he had every right to demand their death....but because sin had entered into the pair before they had their children....it was passed on as an awful inheritance....like a terminal, genetically transmitted disease. (Rom 5:12)
Because all that stood in the way of an everlasting idyllic existence in paradise, was their respect and obedience towards their Creator.
No one forced them to eat.....but self-interest got in the way...and the rest as they say...is history. The woman ate because she was deceived, but Adam wasn't.....he knew that joining his wife in disobedience meant death. We know that satan's favorite tactic is 'divide and conquer'....he did both in Eden, and left God to rescue their children, born in sin through no fault on their part....which is why Jesus came to die for us.
If they had just obeyed the command, we would never have known what an evil thing was and the devil would have been dealt with accordingly behind the scenes.
If you know the penalty for the action before you commit the crime.....you have no excuse to whine about it being enacted.
That tree wasn't exclusively God's. God planted it in the middle of the garden he created and then placed the first humans in.
We know Adam and Eve didn't know right from wrong so to make a choice to obey or disobey because they possessed the capacity to weigh the consequences.
How?
It was only after they ate of the tree that they were able to feel shame for being naked. It was only after eating of the tree that Adam had the capacity to know he'd done wrong in eating of it, because he lied to God and blamed Eve for his having eaten the fruit.
God said Adam and Eve had become like one of them, after eating of the tree, knowing good and evil.
They did not know this prior.
You know, there's a lot of talk about God and the denial of those scriptures that refer to his predestination of all things. One argument in the denial claims God didn't create us to be robots.
Had Adam and Eve not eaten of the tree God planted and then for it be touched, they would have been exactly that. Without knowledge of the world they inhabited. Infantile. Innocent.
But for God preplanning the loss of that innocence by planting the tree in the center of the garden Omniscient God created and judged good.
And along comes a serpent that knew about that tree and God's ultimatum.
How?
How would a serpent know God's command to Adam?
Isaiah 45:7-9
God tells us, he is the darkness and the light, the evil and the good. He is all things.
Some say God is not the author of sin.
Sin is violating what God ordained as his law, his will. It is God who sets the parameters. Law, obedience. The consequences for lawlessness by God's decree is sin.
And God sets the consequences for sin.
So when you attempt to put the blame entirely on Adam and Eve, you're wrong.
All things are as God plans.
Humans can exercise their choices. But God says he determines our lives.
Humans will does not supercede God's.