Did Adam sin?

[single eye]

Would Adam and Eve have been the best all human (not divine) beings, which could be cratered?

Would there genes have been as good as genes could be made since no mutations would have occurred in them?

Adam at least is described as being “very good” by God’s standard, so would that be as good as a being could be created?

Who raised (or programmed) Adam and Eve to adulthood?

Who taught Adam and Eve the meaning of all the words God would use (including the word “die”)?

If Adam and Eve were not the best human representatives than the fact that better humans were not given the opportunity to live in the Garden is unfair.

Just because Adam and Eve did not know “good and evil” (which is something they did not need to know at the time) does not mean they did not know: “right and wrong”. I may be wrong to play next to a cliff but is it evil?

There is a ton of stuff Adam and Eve and all of us learn from their Garden experience and some needed to be learned through experience early on. People even today will at some point in their life ask: “How could a Loving God allow this____ tragedy to happen”? What they are really asking for is: “why are we not all in a Garden type situation no: tragedies, hardship, illness or death.

The problem is as Adam and Eve have shown us is: the Garden is a lousy place for humans to fulfill their earthly objective.

We do not have a single earthly objective. Like Jesus we have 2 purposes, the first is a general 4 part purpose to teach, preach, heal sickness, and cast out disease. His second purpose was to disciple the saints so that they could produce scripture. Like Jesus, we have a specific purpose unique to us and geographical location is irrelevant.

 

[smaneck]

We do not have a single earthly objective. Like Jesus we have 2 purposes, the first is a general 4 part purpose to teach, preach, heal sickness, and cast out disease. His second purpose was to disciple the saints so that they could produce scripture.

Evidence that this was his second purpose?

 

[Supreme]

Yes, Adam sinned by taking the bite from the apple, when God has explicitly told him not to. It was this disobedience to God that led to Adam being banished from Eden.

 

[smaneck]

I've always seen the story of Adam and Eve as a 'myth' regarding the start of the Agricultural Revolution. If nothing else the story of Cain and Abel makes that clear. (Can the farmer and the cowman both be friends?) However, I don't think it is farming itself that makes patriarchy spin out of control. Women invented farming, after all. It was the invention of the plow where male upper body strength gave males a decided advantage over most women when it came to farming. In places where we have rice cultivation or where stick and hoe agriculture is the rule (Africa and pre-Columbian America) women continue to dominate the farming activities. Anyhow, placing Adam at the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution makes sense out of the Muslim (and Baha'i) claim that Adam was a prophet.

 

[single eye]

Evidence that this was his second purpose?

Do you have a better reason why Jesus would invite 12 publicans and sinners to follow Him before leaving them with The Spirit of Truth to reach them everything we need to know?

 

[smaneck]

Do you have a better reason why Jesus would invite 12 publicans and sinners to follow Him before leaving them with The Spirit of Truth to reach them everything we need to know?

Only one of them was a publican. As for sinners, aren't we all? In any case, only two Gospels are associated with the names of any of the disciples. If the disciples were suppose to write scripture shouldn't there be twelve Gospels?

Your argument reminds me of a line from the Last Supper in Jesus Christ Superstar:

Always hoped that I'd be an apostle.
Knew that I would make it if I tried.
Then when we retire, we can write the Gospels,
So they'll all talk about us when we've died.

 

[Catherineanne]

im asking this question because there are many who believe that Adam is a dirty dog. Here is my reasoning to why they are not and were following the plan of God. Adam and Eve were placed in the garden of Eden. They were innocent of knowledge of good and evil. Satan was allowed to tempt them and Eve partook of the fruit and gave it to Adam. I believe that Adam and Eve disobeyed Gods law to not eat the fruit. God had told them not to eat of the fruit or they would die. Since there had not yet had death enter into the garden did they understand what the consequences of their choice? Since they did not know good and evil, could Adam and Eve understood what the law was and the consequences? They did disobey and as a result death came into the world. Sin also came into the world because of imperfection. I believe that to justice it does not matter if someone disobeys having full knowledge and understanding of the law broken or if someone is innocent of the law. It is still disobedience and there are consequences that must come as a result. The punishment is the same. Logic dictates that this was Gods plan all along because why would he allow satan to tempt them? Why would God place the tree of knowledge of good and evil for them to be tempted. I believe that God wanted Adam to eat the fruit so mortality would come to this earth as well so we could know good from evil. To experience the opposites of life so we could continue to progress. So to me Adam and Eve did not sin. They did transgress Gods law which had the same punishment.

Did Adam sin?

Yes.

 

[fatboys]

Did Adam sin?

Yes.

Can a toddler sin?

 

[Catherineanne]

Can a toddler sin?

No.

 

[single eye]

Only one of them was a publican. As for sinners, aren't we all? In any case, only two Gospels are associated with the names of any of the disciples. If the disciples were suppose to write scripture shouldn't there be twelve Gospels?

Your argument reminds me of a line from the Last Supper in Jesus Christ Superstar:

Always hoped that I'd be an apostle.
Knew that I would make it if I tried.
Then when we retire, we can write the Gospels,
So they'll all talk about us when we've died.

As I suspected, you do not have a better reason. There were more gospels, they are commonly referred to as the gnostic gospels.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

I've always seen the story of Adam and Eve as a 'myth' regarding the start of the Agricultural Revolution. If nothing else the story of Cain and Abel makes that clear. (Can the farmer and the cowman both be friends?) However, I don't think it is farming itself that makes patriarchy spin out of control. Women invented farming, after all. It was the invention of the plow where male upper body strength gave males a decided advantage over most women when it came to farming. In places where we have rice cultivation or where stick and hoe agriculture is the rule (Africa and pre-Columbian America) women continue to dominate the farming activities. Anyhow, placing Adam at the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution makes sense out of the Muslim (and Baha'i) claim that Adam was a prophet.

It's pretty irrelevant who invented farming, what *really* created the world as we know it was the vastly changed material living conditions created by the transition to agriculture:
land ownership, personal property, a more stratified society, etc.
Suddenly, fatherhood became an eminently important, and women's lives were determined in terms of being a wife or a daughter. The cult of virginity and other forms of controlling or curbing female virginity became the norm.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

By the way, I'm not necessarily idealizing the fiercely egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies that dominated most of current humanity's history (ca. 190,000 years vs. 10,000 years), as well as the lives of our ancestors. However, agriculture obviously transformed our social lives just as much as our material existence (as these two factors are closely intertwined), and it is not a coincidence that another profound change coincided with the rise of Industrialization.

 

[HolyisourGod]

Adam and eve's sin was a result of God giving them freewill. Freedom was a gift from the heart of God, and since freewill gives freedom of choice, they were free to make the fateful decision they made. Freedom, I believe, is good. And all things good come from God. Good is a part of who God is and because of this, good like God, will never change. God surely had foreknowledge of Satan's temptations and the ensuing fall. Foreknowledge however, does not indicate, nor indict, neither does it lead to culpability on God's part. While it's true that He ordained whatsoever comes to pass, that again does not mean God is responsible.God's perfect plan and will was and is for us to lead a sinless, holy, righteous life. That is evident in His prescribed will also known as the Holy Scripture, The Bible. Adams fall was also according to His will, His permissive will. This allowed for the fall. Adam chose to disobey, acting against the directive will of God (for example, God desires that all men be saved (preferential will) yet only through Christ can they be saved, directive will) and His prescribed will, all in His permissive will. Permissive will is God allowing for freedom of choice. He stands actively by giving us freedom of the will. Today in our sinful nature we aren't truly free. Sin is who we are and we cannot act against, or outside our nature. This doesn't mean we are not capable of making the right decisions, but does mean we are oft to do the wrong than the right. By actively standing by I do not mean He approves...He does not. However, being sovereign even over "free creatures" He is able to use our transgressions and the pain in our lives for our good. I'm not sure if I explained this well, but I hope this helps you in some way.

 

[Hammster]

Can a toddler sin?

Mine can.

 

[Theway]

Yes, Adam sinned by taking the bite from the apple, when God has explicitly told him not to. It was this disobedience to God that led to Adam being banished from Eden.

If you put a gun in front of a 2 year old and told the child not to touch it.... If when you then leave the room the baby picks up the gun, plays with it, and shots himself dead; whose fault is it? Yours or the baby's?

Though Adam did not sin, he could not escape the consequences of his actions.

I see it as more like a choice between two actions, each having their own results and consequences. To Adam and Eve, there was no bad or wrong choice, as they did not even understand the difference between right and wrong. I see it as God "priming the pump" when it came to their free agency; forcing them to make one of two choices "on their own" otherwise it would not of been true free agency. Had they truely of understood who God the Father was, or who Satan was, they may never have made any choices at all and simply blindly followed God without ever exercising their free agency.

Luckily they made the "BETTER" choice.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

The whole "free will"-argument is built around two diametrically opposed tenets:

1. Free will is the greatest gift ever, and God wants us to be free to choose our own paths in life.

2. God's Will is the only thing that matters, and any deviation from that path is so utterly horrible that anyone found straying from this course only deserves to perish or suffer eternally.

These two are *utterly* incompatible the moment you penalize free choice. If only ONE path is acceptable, and that ONE path is whatever God wants, then free will can never be a blessing - not even if we strive to align our own will with the deity's. Because every ounce of freedom takes us away from the Divine Will.

 

[Niblo]

If you put a gun in front of a 2 year old and told the child not to touch it.... If when you then leave the room the baby picks up the gun, plays with it, and shots himself dead; whose fault is it? Yours or the baby's?

With respect, I don’t think your analogy stands up. Adam was by no means a child. He was an adult, capable of tending and cultivating the land entrusted to him, and of understanding commandments: ‘Yahweh God took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden to cultivate and take care of it. Then Yahweh God gave the man this command: “You are free to eat of all the trees in the garden. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat; for, the day you eat of that, you are doomed to die.”' (Genesis 2: 15-17).

If disobeying a command of Yahweh is a sin, then Adam sinned. Some might disagree, claiming he did not understand that commands are meant to be obeyed. Why then did he hide: ‘The man and his wife heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from Yahweh God among the trees of the garden.’ (Genesis 3: 8).

Why then did he blame his wife: ‘The man replied: “It was the woman you put with me; she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”’ (Genesis 3: 12).

The first recorded application of the ‘Look-what-you-made-do’ fallacy. To which the correct response is always: ‘No, sunshine, you did that all by yourself.’

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

With respect, I don’t think your analogy stands up. Adam was by no means a child. He was an adult, capable of tending and cultivating the land entrusted to him, and of understanding commandments:

Lacking knowledge of good and evil, how should any being - adult or not - be able to understand moral choices? If I lacked such a basic understanding of ethics, I would be incapable of figuring out why obeying a command ought to be regarded as a better choice than disregarding it.

Alas, every Christian denomination has a different way of spinning this tale. Sometimes, God WANTS Man to fall (knowing in advance what's going to happen and having predetermined the outcome); sometimes, He is genuinely surprised (having given free will, and thus being unable to determine Man's choices in advance). Sometimes, the Fall is regarded as almost fortunate (enabling us to relate to God with genuine understanding), sometimes it's the worst curse ever.

At its core, it's a Promethean story: Man gains a piece divine insight, becoming more akin to the god(s), and is punished for it because the deity in charge does not want them to become fully equal.

 

[Theway]

The whole "free will"-argument is built around two diametrically opposed tenets:

1. Free will is the greatest gift ever, and God wants us to be free to choose our own paths in life.

2. God's Will is the only thing that matters, and any deviation from that path is so utterly horrible that anyone found straying from this course only deserves to perish or suffer eternally.

These two are *utterly* incompatible the moment you penalize free choice. If only ONE path is acceptable, and that ONE path is whatever God wants, then free will can never be a blessing - not even if we strive to align our own will with the deity's. Because every ounce of freedom takes us away from the Divine Will.

Not if our will is aligned with God's Will.

The problem is that we have to learn that His Will for us is what is best for us.
We learn that through this earth life... Even Christ learned this way... Hebrews 5:8.
If people find themselves on a horrible path... Then that is their choice to do so. But they are only on that path because they choose to be there, thinking their way was the better way.

The only other option is for God to force people to do His Will... Would you really rather have that?

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Not if our will is aligned with God's Will.

Nope. Not even this solves the initial dilemma, because then the only purpose of freedom is to UNLEARN it, re-creating a state of utter submission to another's will. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. Either God's Will is the only thing that matters, or freedom of choice.

The only other option is for God to force people to do His Will... Would you really rather have that?

Is this really the only other option? People keep repeating this even after being called out on it.
We've all heard the "robot"-argument a million times before, but nobody's ever bothered to reply to the rebuttal, namely that Jesus wasn't a robot, either, and fully human as well. In short: if we assume that an omniscient, omnipotent deity wanted to create a universe of free-willed creatures who choose to do the right thing of their own accord at all times (in spite of having the theoretical capacity of going astray), then that is EXACTLY what He'd have.