> The_Sage said on May 11, 5:03 pm:
> Since Adam had no knowledge of wrongdoing, there is
> no guilt.
Nothing requires that Adam had no knowledge of
wrongdoing before he disobeyed God and ate from the
tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:11b).
He could have had enough of a child's sense of
wrongdoing to know that it was wrong to disobey his
father, without having to have had an adult's
understanding of good and evil (Hebrews 5:14). And
God wouldn't have bothered to mention to Adam the
punishment he would receive if he ate from the tree
of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17) if Adam
had had no knowledge whatsoever that that punishment
(mortality) was an evil thing and not a good thing.
So before he ate from the tree of knowledge of good
and evil, we can think of Adam as having had a
child's, as opposed to an adult's, understanding of
good and evil. He was like a child who was told by
his father, "Do not run out into the street, or you
will die", who, knowing that to die is not a good
thing, but an evil thing, and that to disobey his
father was wrong, nonetheless chose to sinfully
disobey his father and run out into the street, where
he then got hit by a truck.
> The_Sage said:
> We can only be guilty because of reprehensible
> behaviors.
Disobeying God is a reprehensible behavior, for the
transgression of God's commands is sin (1 John 3:4).
*******
(A Subsequent Poster)
> Risto Karttunen said on May 12, 12:06 am:
> [Re: Adam & Eve]
> Sooner or later they were going to do what they
> did. We humans are curious.
It wasn't curiosity that did Eve in, but a subtle
deception by the serpent (2 Corinthians 11:3). She
only ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil
after the serpent had pointed out to her the true
fact that if she ate from the tree she would become
a god, and have a god's knowledge of good and evil
(Genesis 3:5, cf. 3:22). This true fact was cleverly
mixed with the lie that she wouldn't surely die
(Genesis 3:4), which God had truly said would happen
(Genesis 2:17) and which she had rightly believed
would happen (Genesis 3:3), for who would ever think
that once one had become a god that one could die?
Eve was snookered because she didn't know that even
gods can die (Psalms 82:6-7).
Satan snookers people today the same way he
snookered Eve. He'll refer them to true information,
perhaps even quoting something from the Bible itself
(e.g. Matthew 4:6), but he'll leave out some key
qualifying information (e.g. Matthew 4:7), or even
expressly deny the qualifying information in a way
that seems perfectly logical, so that people will
think that they are being quite intelligent in
rejecting as foolishness something which the Bible
clearly teaches (e.g. 1 Corinthians 1:18, cf. 2:14).
Satan does this so that people won't believe what
the Bible teaches and be saved (Luke 8:12;
2 Corinthians 4:4).
*******
(A Subsequent Post)
>> RTB had said:
>> Animals are capable of saying "I" in their
>> thoughts ...
> -
> Risto Karttunen said on May 12, 12:27 am:
> Perhaps a chimpanzee, a bonobo or a gorilla has
> that capability to some very limited extent. And
> they seem to have some seeds of morality; however
> I consider ridiculous to say that a gorilla has
> done an immoral deed. I don't believe that those
> primates are able to do moral choices, not to say
> anything about other animals.
Don't forget the high intelligence and consciousness
of many other animals such as dolphins, whales,
elephants, coyotes, foxes, dogs, cats, crows, and
parrots. There is no reason to consider it ridiculous
that such animals know when they have done an immoral
deed, such as having furtive *** with another's
partner; or that such animals don't know when an
immoral deed has been done to them by humans, such as
being beaten by a human when they have done nothing
wrong (Numbers 22:28).
>> RTB had said:
>> Preaching is a good thing, if it points people to
>> what the Bible teaches (2 Timothy 3:15-4:4).
> -
> Risto said:
> I understand that you like to preach. But it is a
> matter of interpretation what the Bible is thought
> to teach.
Most of what the Bible teaches is quite plain, so
that no interpretation is needed; and those teachings
which are not so plain are usually made plain by
comparing them with other, similar teachings in the
Bible (Isaiah 28:10).
*******
(A Subsequent Poster)
> Gordon Hudson said on May 12, 2:39 am:
> Cain could not be to blame for Abel's death
> because there was no death and therefire no way of
> knowing how to kill someone.
Cain was to blame for Abel's death (Genesis 4:10-12).
And before Abel's death, there was death, at least of
the animals which God had killed to clothe Adam & Eve
with their skins (Genesis 3:21), and of sacrificial
animals (Genesis 4:4), so that there was a way of
knowing how to kill someone (Genesis 4:8).
> Gordon said:
> And who was he afraid of meeting in the land of
> Nod, if the only people were those in the garden
> of Eden?
The Bible doesn't say that the only people were
those in the garden of Eden, which wasn't created
until about 6,000 years ago, for the race of homo
sapiens sapiens had been miraculously created on
the earth before that (Genesis 1:27-28), about
40,000 years ago.
*******
(A Subsequent Poster)
> claire.easth...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
said on May 12,
> 10:45 am:
> Plus at times the bible does not distinguish
> guilty thoughts from guilty actions -- actions
> could in this sense be seen as the consequences of
> the sin itself.
Excellent points. The Bible indeed does not
distinguish guilty thoughts from guilty actions
insofar as guilty thoughts alone are just as bad
as guilty actions (Matthew 5:28). And guilty actions
are indeed the consequences of guilty thoughts, as in
lust (James 1:14-15).
Eve had to commit the sin of lust in her heart, of
desiring to fulfill her desire regardless of God's
command, before she even committed the sinful act of
eating from the tree. She fulfilled 1 John 2:16
perfectly, just as we all do every time we commit a
sin. She had "the lust of the flesh" (1 John 2:16)
when she "saw that the tree was good for food"
(Genesis 3:6); she had "the lust of the eyes"
(1 John 2:16) when she saw that the tree "was
pleasant to the eyes" (Genesis 3:6); and she had
"the pride of life" (1 John 2:16) when she saw that
it was "a tree to be desired to make one wise"
(Genesis 3:6).
*******
(A Subsequent Poster)
> Merlin said on May 12, 11:49 am:
> why focus on the possible negative experience,
> acknowledge the possibility of a positive
> experience.
One can focus on and acknowledge both the worst
possible negative experience, and best possible
positive experience, at the same time (Matthew
25:46).
> Merlin said:
> what is evil?
Evil is what God says is evil (e.g. Galatians
5:19-21).
> Merlin said:
> where does i come from?
The individual human "I" comes from the divine "I"
(Genesis 2:7, Exodus 3:14).
> Merlin said:
> where do consciousness differ from the beating
> heart?
Human soul-consciousness continues even after the
beating heart stops (Luke 16:22-24).
> Merlin said:
> [Re: We humans are curious.]
> -
> and that some call sin.
Curiosity itself isn't a sin, but desiring to try out
a sin regardless of God's command prohibiting it,
because one is curious as to how it will feel, is a
sin.
> Merlin said:
> the tree is a mythic first patient theory of life.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil is a literal
fruit tree, along with the tree of life (Genesis
2:9, Revelation 2:7).
> Merlin said:
> this is the problem with the i.
> -
> i do, i don't, i will, i won't.
> -
> merlin is into the we. us. our.
The we, us, our can be just as much a problem as the
I, if they are in opposition to God (Proverbs 11:21).
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