If Adam and Eve didn't know right from wrong... (Moved)

[VProud]

...before eating the fruit, how could they have known it was wrong to disobey God? How can he justify punishing them?

 

[prov1810]

They knew right from wrong because they were rational creatures and they were given commands.

 

[znr]

God told them not to do it. After they did it they realized they were naked ("shame"). He warned them to not do it. A better, honest question---not saying you're not being honest--would be to ask ourselves, do we not do the same thing every day?

...before eating the fruit, how could they have known it was wrong to disobey God? How can he justify punishing them?

 

[juvenissun]

...before eating the fruit, how could they have known it was wrong to disobey God? How can he justify punishing them?

There is nothing wrong or not wrong.
There is only obey or disobey. Disobey is not wrong. It is simply disobey.

 

[Received]

Right and wrong is different than good and evil. The former can be put in an obedience/disobedience context. The latter not at all, although there can be overlaps with it.

 

[znr]

But they knew. How much time they had to mull it over isn't clear. The story is to warn mankind to not repeat this grave error; yet mankind repeats it. I believe God wants mankind to have all knowledge, but mankind, without connection to its creator, isn't capable of knowing or being responsible at tis point. I mean look at the state of decay this world is in? The more knowledge we get, the crazier the world becomes (because mankind in its current disconnected from God state is incapable of being responsible. There is a connection, whether you accept it or not.

staff edit

 

[justlookinla]

...before eating the fruit, how could they have known it was wrong to disobey God? How can he justify punishing them?

You're missing the point. God told Adam, who told Eve, not to eat. Satan came and basically said God is a liar, appealed to their pride, and then Adam and Eve had a decision to make. Believe and obey God or believe and obey Satan. It wasn't that it was simply wrong to disobey God, the greater wrong was choosing to follow someone other than God.

 

[prov1810]

staff edit .

Eve's reply to the serpent showed that she understood command ethics. And we are talking about two kinds of right and wrong. Moral right and wrong in the imperative to obey God. And practical wisdom in knowing what is beneficial and harmful (good and evil). This is the knowledge gained by eating the fruit: losing access to the tree of life and having to live by your wits. Not that there is anything wrong with wisdom, it was the grandiose desire to become God and the belief that wisdom could accomplish this - that is what made the act evil. Ironically, it made them less like God because sin damaged the image of Him.

 

[VProud]

Speaking of the knowledge of good and evil; what in this life imparts to you that knowledge?

I'm am simply of the ideology that we should limit negative emotion and propagate positive emotion.
That's where I derive my morals from.
As to why I think that, I really cannot say, what about yourself?

Also, even if they know it was disobeying God to eat the fruit, they couldn't have known it was wrong to do so, since they had no concept of such things (to my understanding.) so how can he justify punishing them?

"These people disobeyed me, but they didn't know that disobeying me was wrong. Therefor, punish them."

That doesn't make much sense to me.

Although, in fairness, I feel like I'm just out of the loop on something.

 

[Emmy]

Dear VProud. Until Adam and Eve were tempted by the Serpent, they were obedient to God, it was only after they were tempted that they succumbed.
That was the time for God to banish us, that we learned to say NO to any temptation. Instead of learning to become as God wants us to be, Mankind moved farther and farther away from God. The O.T. is filled with sins and disobedience, and the time had come for a Saviour to help us out of this Fallen
Trap. God still Loved us, and Jesus won the victory over Satan on Golgotha.
The Bible tells us more in detail how our Saviour won us all back and helped us to become once more God`s Chosen People. Jesus helped us along the road with His Love for us, and encouragement: in Matthew 5: 48: we were told:
" Be ye perfect, as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect."
What do we have to learn? We are told by Jesus in Matthew 22: 35-40:
" The first and great Commandment is: Love God with all your hearts, with all your souls, and with all your minds. The second is like it: Love your neighbour as you love yourselves." On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." God is Love, and God wants our Love freely given and NO tags attached. In Matthew 7: 7-10: we are told: " Ask and ye shall receive," there we ask God for Love and Joy, then thank God and share all Love and Joy with our neighbour. We keep asking God for Love and Joy, then thank God, and share all Love and Joy with all we know and all we meet, friends and not friends. God will see our loving efforts, and God will Bless us.
The Bible tells us: " Repent and be Born Again," change from our selfish wants and wishes to become Loving and Caring. Love is very catching, and love will change us into the sons and daughters which God our Heavenly Father
wants us to become. Love is a Christian`s strong weapon, with love we can overcome all anger and wrong behaviour.
Adam and Eve were too easily lied to, but we have learned much since then.
I say this with love, VProud. Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.

 

[juvenissun]

Right, and so the question becomes: what is the justification for punishing someone who was disobedient but does not know disobedience is wrong? Just because he can?

Disobey should be punished. Simple. It was so for Adam. It is still so now.
No argument (right or wrong) is allowed.
(Have you served in the military? That is what played there)

 

[Colter]

...before eating the fruit, how could they have known it was wrong to disobey God? How can he justify punishing them?

Adam and Eve arrived on a fallen world (the beast already knew Gods will and plan, he was working against it). This 4+ billion year old cosmically evolved world was already populated (Cain is afraid to leave the garden for fear of the people outside of it, after the spiritual rebirth he leaves, finds a wife among the Nodites and starts a city).

Adam and Eve incarnate on the earth as 2 grown educated adults who spoke the same language as the fallen beast. They had a religion (Cain and Able made offerings to it). At some point in their ordained ministry on this world that they knew had fallen, they decided to do their own will and not the Fathers. For a second time the world fell.

The Creation story of Genesis was a much older story that had been carried by way of oral tradition until he advent of writing. It appears to contain parts and pieces of stories from the distant past that were preserved in lore leaving us with some conflicted, confusing accounts. The Hebrew language, an adaptation of the Philistine alphabet, only dates to about 900+ BC, Genesis dates to about 500+ BC, or at least certain edits and redactions fix it to the Babylonian captivity period.

 

[Colter]

Sin is to know the will of God yet choose do otherwise.

Evil is relative ignorance of the divine will, imperfection of doing the will of God.

Iniquity is the knowing and persistent rejection of the divine will.

The devil was the iniquitous one.

 

[rick357]

Moreover, he created them with the flaws that would lead to disobedience, and then blamed them for being flawed.

He created them in his image...He choses to be who he is...does having choice have its dangers...yes...does telling someone the long term effects of their choice mean you are blaming them... No...Did he promise that he would restore them to life if they trusted him...yes...If they reject his promise do they remain in death...yes...is that their fault...yes

 

[Tellastory]

...before eating the fruit, how could they have known it was wrong to disobey God? How can he justify punishing them?

The irony of eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil is gaining the knowledge of good and evil which was stepping outside the word of God for eating that forbidden fruit. Then Adam & Eve knows the result where nothing good dwells outside the will of God.

Like curiosity killed the cat. Fortunately, those in Christ can live to tell the tale, and why no one shall want to step outside of God & all that is good ever again.

 

[prov1810]

Moreover, he created them with the flaws that would lead to disobedience, and then blamed them for being flawed.

No, their natures were created good-yet-changeable. They would have been stronger if they had resisted temptation but they were not morally or mentally handicapped.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

No, their natures were created good-yet-changeable. They would have been stronger if they had resisted temptation but they were not morally or mentally handicapped.

Of course they were. They lacked knowledge of good and evil, the very thing they needed to have a moral purchase on their creator's dictates and the very thing they were later punished for acquiring.

 

[prov1810]

It does, however, render your deity ultimately responsible for the way things are.

There is no one to hold Him responsible. I don't want to say He isn't good. In this world everyone does what they want and I think that's all that's required - or even possible - for responsibility. So God is just. But in saying that I am not evaluating Him. No one even begins to know how to do that.

 

[prov1810]

Of course they were. They lacked knowledge of good and evil, the very thing they needed to have a moral purchase on their creators dictates and the very thing they were later punished for acquiring.

This is standard Christian teaching: before the Fall Adam and Eve were mentally superior to every human being who would come after them except Jesus. That's why it's called a fall.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

There is no one to hold Him responsible. I don't want to say He isn't good. In this world everyone does what they want and I think that's all that's required - or even possible - for responsibility. So God is just. But in saying that I am not evaluating Him. No even begins to know how to do that.

In what way is being responsible predicated on there being someone to hold you responsible? If God is the ultimate authority, then he bears ultimate responsibility.