If one draws a context with the Christian Bible much is made of sin or more precisely original sin. I was wondering what is meant by the sin being that of Eve then Adam. For to me I would normally assume that if God being all knowing and all powerful was in fact the original sinner for blaming his creation for his own planning. He did put the tree of knowledge there and provided temptation to eve and adam and....and...and of course he knew that adam and eve were going to sin....afterall he is all knowing and all powerful. Could some one please enlighten me to where my assumption is erred?
No sins are original anymore God knew sin was an available option inherent in His creation, but instead of not creating anything at all, He gave them everything they needed not to sin - everything "good" and in its proper place. He doesn't blame us for sinning as much as blaming us for shifting our blame. As if sin was committed without us having a choice. Adam and Eve had a choice, we have a choice. "Original sin" is a confusing concept. I rather think of it as a description of the state we are in today. We are born "sinless", but the first chance we get, we succumb to temptation and sin. I put "sinless" in quotes, because God knows who we are before we are born, and that we will stray from His path. And His path is always away from sin, towards a lasting relationship with Him. God did not let Adam and Eve die for their part in sin, but He postponed it. Its effects are similar to bodily death and decay, but it's true consequence: eternal separation from God (a fate worse than mortal death), was not realized. It will be realized when all is revealed at Judgement Day. Instead of guilt being loaded higher and higher as people grew further away from God (like karma), God's mercy became greater and greater, until it culminated in God's choice of salvation: Jesus Christ. He represents the lifting of the curse of death. But the rules haven't changed: we still have to live with complete faith in God's word - what He told Adam and Eve, "the day you sin you will die" still applies... only, the day is unknown to us so we interpret it to say "the day your sins are accounted for, you will die". Jesus accounted for mankind's sin on their behalf, but once again they reject God by rejecting His Word. The symbol of this rejection is the cross. The crux (excuse the pun) is this: we were not created to be sinners. It is an abomination of who God intended us to be.
Short consideration Jenyar If, by some condition, man had not fallen at Eden, what reason would God have to make Himself flesh? Would Jesus have come and suffered as a human? No, the harmony with God would be unbroken. Would God have the same degree of understanding of humanity that He does having lived among them? No. Which brings the main question: Would God be complete without knowing humanity as He does? The human condition is spoken for if there is no fall: paradise and the company of the Almighty. But what of God's condition? There are various arguments concerning human free will, and thus the human role in the Fall, but how does the abomination itself operate outside God's authority?
Well done, Tiassa, you'll make a good devil's advocate... Is that a categorical "no" I hear? Remember, the reason God could become flesh was because He was its originator. So it's not as if it was alien to Him or anything. As for suffering, I think God could contamplate it pretty accurately - something similar than empathy, maybe. God's harmony was never broken. The harmony of his creation was broken - the result of its harmony with Him being broken. If it can be called "harmony" at all. I think that's too high an accolade for a humble image. God's understanding of us does not depend on us, but on His knowledge of the dimensions of his image - just as we know the extents and limits of our own image when we see it reflected on a surface of our own design. Unchanged, I would say. Unaffected. As much as a father in a healthy, smoothly running household could remain "unaffected". Maybe "loving" is apt enough. If I can borrow a metaphor from the tree of knowledge... for us, knowledge depends on experience. Our sustenance depends on the act of ingestion. God provides both the tree and the possibility of experience. I think that is why He is also called the source of true wisdom. Wisdom can contain or envision truth without the (dubious) benefit of experience. Even an unserviced car might run for quite a while without completely falling apart. But can something operate outside God's authority? Isn't it a bit like asking how an outlaw manages to live outside the law?
thank you for your responses. Could it be suggested that God is actually trying to forgive himself for his sins? Using humanity as a reflection of himself to do this?
I think your premise that God knew that we would sin was wrong. God knew the consequences of each action that Adam did but he did not destined his creation to sin. The book of Sirach says "before every man there's two choices: fire and water". Nor did God provide temptation. God only allowed tempation from Satan by Satan's free will. This is clearly seen by punishing Satan, the Serpent. If Satan was acting on accord to God, Satan would be praised not cursed. While man was made in the image of God and likeness of God, the effects of original sin are that we are not born with the same grace that Adam and Eve are. In other words, we are more perceptible to sin but we are not born with our parent's sins on us.
With all due respect you are suggesting that God created a level playing field so to speak and gave Adam and Eve a clear choice between "fire and Water" So Adam and Eve had a clear choice with out prejudice from God. I hope this is what you mean. If so. Then God must have accepted that adam and eve could go down either of the two paths and must have by default accepted the consequences of his and their actions. The fact that a choice was made that was to the negative is still a choice that God allowed for, so therefore God still retains responsibility I would think. I think ultimately that the creator must accept full responsibility for his creation. If he does not then he is severely limited in his omni potence. I mean no disrespect and find this issue of great interest
Jenyar, do you think God made a mistake in giving us the ability to not be one with him.? Do you think that we are so powerful that we can be separate in some way from him with out his ongoing conscent? I think this does God a disservice in that we think we are capable of going it alone with out his conscent. And does this conscent imply responsibility. I feel this contention that God is limited is only one that he has allowed to prosper for reasons of giving reality a bit of realism. I think also you imply that God is not all that smart. For I would think that there is no better way to get people going and on with there eternal destinies than to creat the environment of duplicity or duality. God/man
God's responsibility is towards life and justice, and He honours both. He gave us life, and presents us life continually. But it is also a continual choice we must make, God did not take that away. As responsible parent does not do everything for his children, He tells them what is right and wrong and let them make their own decisions, so that they can take responsibility for their own children when they grow up. That there are two paths - one right and the other wrong - does not give them equal merit. Right is right, wrong is wrong. Both can't be equally "right" before God. And to be sure, both aren't equally to our advantage. There can be no mistake, because we are created in His image. Our natures as unique, sentient, autonomous, responsible beings, depend on our being separate entities. A concept closely linked to this is "holiness" - being separate from things that are not Him or like Him. As above, God cannot be both evil and good. That "limits" Him to being good because it is His nature. So our nature "depends on independence", if you follow me. An interesting question related to this, is why God presented Himself in three destinct personalities. Why not stick to one, indestinct, simple and all-encompassing "God"? I think it is because another aspect of God's nature defies simplicity. It defies just one "right" perspective on Him. For our sake, we are presented with three complete pictures - fully "Father", fully "son", fully "Spirit". Each signifies something different; once again: so different and unique that it demands independence. It requires no consent because it's our nature. Our creation was God's consent: "and it was good". But to be reconciled with Him does require His consent. It requires us to "be holy as He is holy", to borrow from Scripture. It does do God a disservice if we think we can go it alone. Because He knows we can't. It seems possible to us, because we simply have no idea what would happen if God did leave us completely alone. The responsibility is actually ours, to recognize our dependence on Him as well as our holiness. It's easy not to, and life goes on, but if our continued existence depends on Him as we might have more to lose than we realize. We can see it in miniature form in death - living cells need sustainence, and life does not equal death as a "choice". Like good or evil, life or death also aren't two equal options. We can choose to die, but we can't choose to live - that has to come from God. God gave us life, with sin as an option; if you choose sin, you will have death, with life as an option. I don't think what we see as "limitations" really apply to God. We might see the inability to do evil as a limitation, while God sees it as the only true freedom. The same with the concept of Trinity. It is easy to think it is impossible for God to be both Son and Father without being separate entities - that "father" is an attribute "son" cannot have and still be called "one". It's a obstacle to common reason, but not insurmountable. And it's an obstacle that offers freedom when it is surmounted. It challenges our preconceptions. It challenges who we presume God to be and what His "limitations" are. Have you considered that maybe we are the ones who are limited and not all that smart? I'm not sure I understand you correctly, because I'm sure you intended to disagree with my view, yet it feels like you are agreeing with me. Our independence makes our freedom possible, bondage would have limited our freedom. God created us with true freedom, but we have to accept that we don't ultmately know what makes us free and what binds us. For instance, an epicurean lifestyle might seem like the ultimate freedom a man could have, yet it "limits" you to your natural instincts. While natural instincts are there for our physical benefit, for selecting a mate and producing offspring, they throw a spanner in the works of another facet of our existence called love, which is for our spiritual benefit. Ultimately, most people would rather live in a "limited" relationship with one person happily for the rest of their lives than with freedom that fades with age.
In the context of the belief you display I feel that you underestimate just how clever God is. As an example of cleverness he created the human body the human mind and the soul and spirit, I can't think of any thing that is more clever in it's "design". If we were truely created in his image we would know how to create the human body, mind and soul and know how it all works in full. And of course we don't WE are not by any stretch of the imagination as clever or any where near as clever as the God you believe in. If God was watching all this writing i think he would be having a right royal laugh.....and hitting his thigh thinking how clever he is. He's created so much debate and arguement over himself and he even gave us the ability to do it. God if he exists in your context .....is no fool......and to think that we are less clever than him would be the first sensible thing we could do.
On the contrary, I appreciate it above anything else. But why should we know everything God knows? How does that follow logically? He clothed us in physical bodies and breathed consciousness into them. But He still left an almost infinite universe of possibilities. We are only limited to where our minds can go, and our bodies are only limited to where our minds can take them. All the knowledge in the world will not make us better people. Employing the the knowldege we do have at our disposal, can. Can, if we use it that way, but it does not automatically happen. God did not infuse us with everything He knows, because we are not God. We don't know what everybody else thinks in secret, and that means we can't predict their actions, or understand even a little about them without spending time in a relationship with them. Because God has knowledge of love within a relationship, so do we - unless we choose not to exhibit it. 1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Cor. 13). To realize we are less clever than Him is more than sensible, it's close to being wisdom. "I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance" - Socrates. and that was just with regard to human experience. That was the only thing he could be absolutely certain of.
so when you say we were created in his image, what do you mean? He obviously sold us all short when it came to the ability to know.
I think "created in his (or was it "our") image" means spiritual image. To explain further, I don't see "God" as a being but rather an entity such as energy/power/electricity, etc. It's definitely NOT a physical image like most people think. It's a spiritual image. It's our soul.
It's a spiritual image. It's our soul. So, what does the soul look like? How does it interact with our bodies? Do I have a new soul or did I inherit it from someone else? How many souls are there? Do new souls get produced each time someone is born? Can a soul feel anything? Where do souls go when you die? Is a baby born with a soul?
medicine woman, I think your approach is the most effective in trying to describe your relationship with God or as you put it your soul. AS to what the soul looks like one only has to look in the mirror and commonly what you don't see is your soul. IN other word if you can look in the mirror and see yourself entirely both body and soul you are actualy seeing your soul....all of you both physical and etheral is soul. they are not different. So in answer to the question are we concieved with a soul the answer that works for me is yes.
AS to what the soul looks like one only has to look in the mirror and commonly what you don't see is your soul. Gee, that makes perfect sense. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! IN other word if you can look in the mirror and see yourself entirely both body and soul you are actualy seeing your soul....all of you both physical and etheral is soul. they are not different. So, the body IS the soul? How does the soul leave the body when you die? Why does the body remain and decay and the soul goes to ‘heaven’ – wherever that is located? So in answer to the question are we concieved with a soul the answer that works for me is yes. So, we get a soul the moment the sperm permeates the egg? Sometimes afterwards, perhaps?
hey Q, i can't answer those questions as such I don't any one can. It's just that for me to reconcile the nature of the soul is simply that everthing has a soul. even an ashtray.....as to life after death well...who knows? We have so many concepts of what a soul is and I simply say it is you...end of story....I can live with this no problem.
The choice is contained within the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. God did not expel Adam persay; Adam expelled himself by his loss of grace. Before the fall Adam had tasted God's blessing and His goodness but he had not tasted evil. Don't get me wrong here though. God knows many things and has arranged many things to happen to us by his providence. However, it our choice in what role we play in his divine providence. His knowledge of this choice would take away our free will. God is not responsible for what he allows. Still, because Jesus is both God and man, Jesus had too die in order to fullfill the will of God despite being blameless(Isaiah 53).
