tiassa said:
God has a habit of holding people accountable for His own choices.
Don't get me wrong; what I said earlier still applies:
Look, fair is fair according to the ultimate authority, but God has consciously chosen to apply separate standards: one standard of propriety for the leader, and another standard of propriety for the sheep. Thus the shepherd can screw the flock any way He wants and only the sheep will be punished.
The ultimate reality is the ultimate reality. Whether or not that ultimate reality depends on God's will to determine its status, we have reached the point where the only response is, "C'est la vie", or, "Que será será."
If by that you mean a laissez faire attitude, it's exactly the opposite conclusion we reach by faith. You may not like the way God acts, but that doesn't absolve your responsibility for your own actions. It's not a double standard, it's cooperation. If you see a double standard it's because you're standing on the other side of the fence. You're arguing from separation. You said God enforced this separation, but that's also a post-fruit argument. Man enforced that separation when they doubted God's word, when they were tempted into separating will from obedience.
But God undertook an inquiry as a wager, assigned Satan to test Job, and then conceded defeat when Job's repentance came after his faith had transformed to knowledge.
Job was dumbstruck because his faith was confirmed.
You have faith, as I understand it, Jenyar. If God appeared before you and lectured you on your mistakes, you wouldn't be particularly affected by the experience?
I have no illusions about my mistakes and sins. I've had my lectures, and it only
strengthened my faith. I have come to trust God's judgment, because it is clear it mostly has little to do with mine.
Job's faith was rooted in knowledge. Of God's character. Of himself. So was God's faith in Job. The only one who doubted anything there was satan.
First, I wanted to note that we're treating the Old Testament in its own historical context here. That's important to me, personally, as a side issue. (The RSV is criticized heavily by evangelicals on that very point, but I'm actually pleased to see this in the present discussion.) What, for instance, does Christ say of faith and having nothing to repent? With the Old Testament in its own context, we cannot reject Job's innocence.
I'm glad you appreciate this as well.
Nonetheless, look at the sequence of events: Job repented after coming face-to-face with God. What would you say if God came down and lectured you to your face on your mistakes?
He didn't "repent", since he never turned
away from God during it all. He simply went silent because even though his faith was justified, in the end it had nothing to do with who
he was, and everything to do with who God was.
I admit,
I'm nearly dumbstruck. You've made the chronological disagreement of Gen. 1 and 2 relevant.
Your citation notes: "meaning not any particular day, not the first day, in which the heavens and the earth were created; but referring to the whole time of the six days, in which everything in them, and relating to them, were made."
Very interesting, Jenyar. You wrote earlier, "Genesis 2 already gives the sense, when it recaps the entire creation account of Gen. 1 in one sentence". Do you still hold by
that statement, since it only compounds the problem you've run up against?
Genesis 1
• Day 1: Light.
• Day 2: Water from water; under the firmament from above
• Day 3: Plants
• Day 6: Man
Genesis 2
• (v. 4 - 7) These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up--for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; but
a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground--then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Genesis 2 the creation of Man on day two, instead of day six.
'Tis true, as your citation notes, it is not be day one. It is late on day two or early on day 3, according to Genesis 2. The period described in Genesis 2 only encompasses the whole six days of creation as a doctrinal insistence despite the Bible.
Seeds, at least, had already been created, since it is clear that all the land needed was water and someone to work it. Then the ground was watered - this is akin to "let the land produce vegetation" - but Eden already exists when Adam is formed, for in 2:8 he is placed in the
garden. And lo, there we also find "all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air" (2:19) for Adam to name. How do you explain that?
Genesis 2 glosses over the details to focus on man and his place within creation. It describes Adam and Eve's creation separately, where it is a single act in Genesis 1.
Again, you're reading into the Bible what's not there in the text. Your cynicism (or faith, if you prefer) seems to be getting in the way of your understanding.
The "suggestion", which is pretty darn clear in the text, is that Satan informs Eve that no, the fruit won't kill her, and God only told her that because he didn't want to tell her the truth.
And this, more than anything, is where sin enters the world. The moment Eve considered the possibility that the serpent could be correct, she doubted God. The sin, the loss of innocence, is the collapse of complete and natural faith. It wasn't a faith we recognize much in online discussions, but is a childlike faith that comes from not knowing otherwise. Until the serpent, the only other beings Adam is known to have interacted with at a communicative level are God and Eve. In Eve's case it is less clear; she may only have interacted with Adam.°
I think you're the one reading into the text what it does not say. If it means to tell us God is responsible, why does it describe every party being responsible for his own actions, with God judging? Sin brings separation, and all through the Bible separation is described as nothing but death. Look up all the verses of being "cut off", being "set apart for destruction". In their case, the death was innocence, and though this might seem to you a small matter in retrospect, post-fall, it clearly wasn't to God. It was what He warned them against, but satan's calculated lie was aimed at a post-fall understanding of death. The definition you employ now to vindicate his action.
Their "childlike faith" was more than enough to understand God's warning, illustrated when Eve repeats it to the serpent after his question, "Did God
really say you must not eat from
any tree in the garden?" Is that really such an innocent mistake as you would have me believe? No further knowledge was necessary - they only had to be obedient to what they knew.
The "truth" God was keeping from them was the experience of separation itself: death. Now that death has become
the definitive truth, everything else seems less true, less serious, and God's reaction less reasonable. But consider this for a moment: God was warning them against hell because of sin, like we've also been warned ("the wages of sin is death"). And the whisper is still: it's not true, God just doesn't want you to know the
truth: you won't die, you'll be like Him: dead! Now suddenly it's not just about physical death anymore, and I assume your argument will follow suit: "of course not, death is all there is. That's a fact more certain than God."
Now who's juding over Adam and Eve's fate? Over life and death? Truly, men
have become like God in "wisdom, knowledge and judgment".
But we
don't have God's authority, no matter how "obvious" it seems from this side of death. Knowledge or not, the feeling of autonomy seems to be just as tempting now as it was to Adam and Eve. At first they believed the "forbidden knowledge" that God was a liar, then they ate the "desireable fruit", making knowledge something external, something that pointed right back at them, exposing their shame. They also blamed God for the way things are, as if there's something inherently unfair about it. But they fell for the trick, and there's no excuse for it.
I know, you're saying there is. The excuse of relative ignorance, of God's
responsibility for the way things are (and by that standard, it will never be good enough for us because it will never allow us to be God himself, to have
his freedom).
I think you're just desperately splitting hairs. Let's look to the Bible, why don't we? Where does God make explain distinction to Adam and Eve? He does not.
Because there is no real distinction, not in God's eyes. All judgment is final at death. The possibility of a distinction was exploited by the serpent, when he made a post-fall consequence (which God called "death") seem a natural and desireable result, something God wished to keep from them: "wisdom" apart from God, wisdom
in that separation - an afterlife. It wasn't curiosity that led Eve to take the fruit, it was
desire, instigated by the serpent's "more than life, not less". His words were persuasive because they were desireable to believe, not because he had any authority.
If wisdom is death, then Adam and Eve were already dead inside and that's how God made it, anyway. The idea that this tragic string of godly errors is the only way God could do it is laughable. What, then, binds God? If this is the only way He could do it, what is the authority that limits His power?
If wisdom is not death, what about it leads to that "other" death? God's will, it seems.
Or am I mistaken to take God's instruction to Adam in Genesis 2.16-17 as instruction and not a threat? Was God meaning to say, "in the day that you eat of it I shall cause your death"?
There are directions to go in defense of traditional doctrine, but at best you're simply making the mistake of failing to recognize Eve's mental state before the fruit. When you say, "can only seem true to you if", you're looking at the situation from a post-fruit condition. In fact, that's a problem with most of how you're approaching the Fall in this discussion.
It was a warning, not a threat. It was instruction insofar it gave them what they needed to resist the temptation of eating it, or eating it out of ignorance. It was an integral part of the garden - the garden was grown around it - but it wasn't to be eaten from. It still seems desirable even today, because it represents something that God would not give - not because what it represents wouldn't be otherwise available through safe and God-ordained means, which is simply an assumption that supports a critical argument. Similarly, death in the pre-fall situation would have had all the meaning God could imbue it with. It would have meant nothing
less God's own judgment. All we know from the context is that it represented an option Adam and Eve were not allowed to consider. It's not the
fruit that brought death (it only brought condemning knowledge), but the
sin. There was nothing wrong with anything, not the presence of serpent or even with the tree itself, except that listening to the serpent and seeking this fruit went against God's express will.
There is
definitely nothing wrong with God
having an express will, which is why your argument doesn't come across as very persuasive to me. It comes down to you not being content with the way things were, which is ironically also what Eve's act boils down to. I assume it seems positively repressing to you to live in a paradise where even one tree is forbidden.
That's one way of putting it, albeit not a very good one. As you note, you're presuming much that isn't written in the Bible: "But to me, the mere fact that a tree of life exists (which wasn't a forbidden tree before), and that Adam and Eve immediately realized their shameful state, suggests there was more to their life in Eden."
I'm willing to reassess anything that you deem outside the bounds of the text. However, the serpent's pure intentions and God's alleged deception also isn't written in the Bible - it contradicts the plain understanding of the text in my opinion. In my view we get a fundamental but
limited perspective of the complete state of affairs from Genesis 2. I don't deny that I'm biased by the
rest of the Bible, because I consider it relevant. The tree of life is mentioned again in Revelation:
Rev. 2:7 To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
Rev. 22:2 On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
Adam and Eve lost the right to eat from the lifegiving tree when they ate from the forbidden tree (Gen. 3:22). They took what they had for granted, and desired what they weren't allowed to have. I don't think it's such a stretch to see how this prohibition relates to death.
What I'm "getting" is that they rose above their place, and were humbled when God reminded them of who they were by revoking their priviledges to let them "work the ground from which he had been taken" (3:23). They were shamed when they took more than they were given - it was obviously an
embarassment to have gained that knowledge, and we see no sign of the intellectual superiority and autonomy the serpent implied they would get (except if God is
further taken out of the equation).
Let? Allowed? How about, "took proactive measures to ensure that they would return to dust"?
You wrote earlier, "Their exile is a statement of fact: 'He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.'"
I still don't get the basis of "statement of fact", but you also point to God's decision to ensure that Adam and Eve return to dust.
You're assume a motive I don't get from the text, like a kind of ancient conspiracy theory hidden between the lines. God wasn't using reverse psychology when He warned them of the consequences, secretly hoping they might take the bait left out by the serpent. The serpent was acting against God's wishes (hence the punishment), and so were they. It is represented as justice, whatever we think of it from our suspicious 20th century paradigm. They were created from dust, and anything more was a
priviledge, not a right. Death is only unjust under God if life was deserved apart from God.
Well, maybe God shouldn't have lied in the first place. Maybe God shouldn't have been so afraid of a little knowledge. Rather than a progressive relationship, God chose one of master and servant. The separation is God's choice. After all, with God, all things are possible.
I might just as easily say, rather than a progressive relationship Adam and Eve opted for the coup d'etat, and thus the separation was their choice. When God had made
His decision, man found himself in paradise and in a relationship with Him.
Did God suspend the final judgment - to be carried out after all avenues of mercy and rehabilitation have been exhausted - at the cost of letting the serpent seem justified among those who place their faith in him, or will the serpent ultimately get the credit he was due, when all things are taken into account at the final analysis? Whose faith will be vindicated? In the end I guess it comes down to how seriously you take your own argument. You did say "
I believe that humans create gods and not vice-versa", but I hope your beliefs are based on something more substantial than mere antagonism.
Justice and mercy? Sounds mafioso to me. Dead men don't pay.
They don't pay
people, no. But at death there are no variables anymore - one's life is complete, choices and all.
This life is where everything plays out,
this is where the calls are made.
There is a clear indication in the Bible that the only way to Redemption is through Christ.
Yes, and who better to give children the lives and justice they never had on earth! Children have more to worry about from their parents than from God.
God's design, God's will, God's fault.
Except when the abuse is of God's design, the rebellion against His will, and the fault with the ones He hold responsible.
What? God ordered Satan to test Job. It's in the freakin' Bible that way.
What if Satan refused? Told God, "No, I said your hand, not mine. Why won't you reach out your own hand?" What then? Satan as rebel all over again? Doctrinally, Satan can only lose because the doctrine is designed to maintain that notion.
It's in the Bible
this way: God says, "And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason." Job is a very stylized account, which is why it's classified as wisdom material rather than revelation. But Job, at least, recognized what you will not concede:
"Naked I came from my mother's womb,
and naked I will depart.
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised."
Really?
He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?"
The man said, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate."
Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I ate." (Gen. 3.11-13, RSV)
Where does Adam
blame her?
There is a difference between telling someone what happened and blaming someone else for it. Eve, claiming the serpent beguiled her, is blaming someone else for it. Adam did not plead that he was deceived, he did not plead that he was tempted. She put the fruit before him and he ate.
You'll notice that God didn't say, "How, Eve, did the serpent beguile you?"
Neither did God ask, "How, Adam, did Eve beguile you?" But Adam makes a point of saying "The woman which
thou gavest me..." So his argument is the same as yours: "God's design, God's will, God's fault", and
you're certainly not simply pointing out what happened:
What happens as a result of God's will is God's fault.
What about what happens as a result of our will? Or as a result of Adam's will? What Jesus did was assume responsibility for man's sins, but God found him innocent of them by raising him from the dead. He had nothing to conceal (interesting fact: the etymology of "hell" is "to conceal; to cover"). We, on the other hand, only confirm Adam's sin in ourselves, by the same shameful reaction and denial of responsibility
they showed when they tried to hide from God (Job refers to this in ch. 31:33), and even when we turn to Christ (Gal. 2:17) and live as God intended us to (to which the law refers). On the other hand, if we show that we have faith in God, want to live as He intended and wish to be forgiven, we will be reconciled with Him (Rom. 5:10; Col. 1:22).
Now, to reiterate again:
Look, fair is fair according to the ultimate authority, but God has consciously chosen to apply separate standards: one standard of propriety for the leader, and another standard of propriety for the sheep. Thus the shepherd can screw the flock any way He wants and only the sheep will be punished.
How you feel about that outcome is up to you. But if that's the way it is, that's the way it is, and there's nothing we can do about it. In the meantime, it doesn't honor God much to invent thick doctrine to suppress a truth that corrodes faith.
God's standard has been given, and sin is the refusal to meet it. We're not God, and the best intentions of having the same authority over people as He has only shows the ambition to be Him, not any altruistic need to do better than Him. The requirements in a hierarchy are hierarchically appropriate; they can only be
double among equals. We are accountable according to our responsibilities. God lives up to His; we don't live up to ours. The sheep simply can't be the shepherd, no matter how much they think they can do it better, and it makes no sense to resent this. You can't do anything about God's responsibilities, but you can do a lot about your own, and that's what God holds you accountable for. If you struggle to meet those responsibilities, remember that you
choose to do them without God, while He waits for his prodigal son to return. You're not powerless because God wants you to be, but because you're doing it alone.
Only lies corrode, and the true condition of life is exposed by death. Then we are stripped of all pretense, naked before God unless He clothed us himself.
Faith should be dynamic and alive, not a sculptured testament to the dead.
I agree completely. The difference is that you believe Job died, Jesus died and Noah died regardless of their faith or innocence before God. To me, it is a testament of life and hope, to you it's "the smell of death", as Paul puts it.
