God cannot create square circles or take self-contradictory actions — Isabel Hu
His main idea is that despite God is omnipotent, omniscient and has the desire to eliminate evil, he could not create beings with free will that would never choose evil; in other words, God cannot create square circles or take self-contradictory actions. — Isabel Hu
My issue is with inherency for it implies the existence of proclivities, tendencies, inclinations and the like, things that, well, determine our actions. In effect, if we are inherently anything, we're, for certain, not free. — TheMadFool
In other words, could it not be that logic laws, physics laws, etc. are laws by which God operates in our world? — Joaquin
If you believe in Darwin's theory of evolution then that throws a darkness over whether the Adam and Eve story really happened. — david plumb
Can you unpack how humans are inherently “not free?” — freewhirl
whether human is inherently good or evil. — Isabel Hu
1. If human is inherently good, then evil won’t exist. — Isabel Hu
If what St. Augustine suggested was true, then the opposite must be true as well. Good is the absence of good and that once evil returns the evil disappears. It seems like it is one or the other. Thus, once humans were free from God’s goodness, evil was allowed to enter. However, I don’t believe that any one human can be entirely good or evil. When Jesus came to Earth, He was both fully God and fully human. As a human, Jesus was born on Earth with his own free will but he denies that free will for the will of God (Luke 22:42)St.Augustine suggested that evil is the absence of good and that once good returns the evil disappears — david plumb
Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done. — Luke 22:42
There is an assumption here that evil exists independent of human perspective. The way I see it, the dichotomy of good vs evil is an entirely human construction. What the serpent did, even what Adam and Eve did or didn’t do - none of this is perceived by God to be evil. The story implies that God judges them, but we are the ones passing judgement - we are the ones distinguishing between good and evil. — Possibility
What if he had chosen instead NOT to eat that fruit - what if he’d taken the option to heed the instruction from God (without necessarily ignoring information from the world), and eventually enjoy the fruit of eternal life?
What if there was no distinction between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ to speak of - just a choice between ignorance/awareness, isolation/connection and exclusion/collaboration? — Possibility
Another interpretation is that their eating the fruit resulted in the loss of their innocence.
Is it fair to expect humans to retain this innocence for an eternity?
It seems to me, god was hoping to delay the inevitable. — 8livesleft
What is innocence? If it’s a lack of experience or knowledge of the world and how everything relates to each other, then humans would gain this over time, regardless of any distinction between ‘good’ and ‘evil’. It would certainly be much easier to develop this with the benefit of eternal life and information from God - our own distinction between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ seems more of a hindrance than a help in this respect. — Possibility
I disagree that God made any attempt to delay experience or knowledge of the world in this story. People have a tendency to read a lot more into this story than is in the text. I was raised Catholic, and was actually quite shocked to read it after many years away from the church, and realise how much I had been ‘primed’ to interpret the text in a certain way. Developing introspective awareness of our tendency to judge the characters ‘good’ or ‘evil’ by eisegesis I think is part of the purpose of the story. — Possibility
Yes indeed. The text does not explain exactly what "evil" is. They only show the after effect - for instance, how adam and eve suddenly discovered they were naked. So, now we're putting a value on the realization of nakedness or of nakedness itself being "evil." What about it is evil exactly? — 8livesleft
It's also not clear what information from god they would have gained in their eternity. It could be just a static existence. Forever wandering around doing and seeing the same things. — 8livesleft
Nothing - the conversation is very carefully free of judgement:
“Where are you?”
“I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”
“Who told you that you were naked?”
What is deemed ‘evil’ about nakedness is the fear of ‘evil’ to which such a state draws our attention: vulnerability, humility, judgement by others, etc. But initially, ‘evil’ is an arbitrary distinction which Adam derives from relating his state to God’s presence, and recognising a difference. — Possibility
Given that God appears to have created everything at this stage, and given Adam ‘dominion’ over all of it with only one instruction, it seems unlikely to have been a static or limited existence by comparison. — Possibility
At any rate, isn't this state of humility/inadequacy in the face of god something Christians are taught that we should have? Why is this being put in a bad light in this case? — 8livesleft
Eden (barring the serpent) strikes me as a place where everything is seemingly perfect. No calamities or situations that cause some sort of scarcity and even competition. In effect the opposite of what we experience and what they experienced upon their banishment. — 8livesleft
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