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.
Adam was blameless in his ways like Lucifer was morally, but he still had self-generated free will. He was a little creator
in God's universe placed in a beautiful garden/Eden. Adam did something that I believe most all of us would have done
in the same situation. I'm troubled by your use of "innocent of knowledge of good and evil" as though Adam had no
conscience being created in God's Image. I disagree if you believe that Adam had no moral conscience to struggle
with.... when he made his decision to die with Eve.
Satan was allowed to tempt them and Eve partook of the fruit and gave it to Adam.
Some believe that satan had just fallen from heaven due partially to jealousy of what God was doing with Adam and Eve.
Clearly Lucifer had issues of pride as well... so his fall was not so monolithic.
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?
Yet God had told them that they would die. In fact "dying ye shall die." How do we know that Adam didn't understand
what death meant? Clearly plants died by being eaten by herbivores...there are many animals which needed meat...
and those who misapply Romans 5:12 do not understand its context to apply to men and separation of fellowship from
Holy God (as well as physical death of men/women). I believe it is highly over simplistic to not allow certain verses
to be elliptical for the sake of concision in communication. I would have tremendous cognitive dissonance with such
a simplistic hermeneutic. Are we to believe no insects died before the fall? What did a spider eat?
Such rigid over simplicity misses the gist of the meaning of those verses. Adam had probably seen death from
various species in the animal kingdom who were not eating from the tree of life. Adam and Eve were eating from it.
Since they did not know good and evil, could Adam and Eve understood what the law was and the consequences?
It is true that they did not fully understand the consequences which need to be witnessed or experienced in order
to fully learn the ramifications of such consequences. This does not mean that they didn't have a moral conscience
to have some sense of "oughtness" (even if they didn't really know what evil was yet).
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.
I would say that death came to humankind...and perhaps because of God's prior knowledge of Adam's sin... God created
things in a temporary state because God knew Adam would disobey (which is sin). The galaxies/stars/planets are clearly
a temporary creation (notice I didn't say universe).
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.
God's plan can be inclusive of what God allows or what God knows will take place with free will as part of the
whole of all circumstances... I personally believe that there is something much much more sophisticated going
here with a possible infinite determiner (which is NOT a cause) which would demonstrate how God is fully justified
in allowing the inevitable with human free will and knowledge/experience/lack of loyalty/lack of faith/trust, etc.
To explain this, would take multiple posts... but it is sine qua non in understanding compatibility of human free
will in this schema alone (how God was fully justified in allowing Adam to sin... and in what way is moral evil
an inevitable byproduct of human freewill under certain conditions. It is a Neo-Federalist position rather than
a Realist' position related to the Fall).
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.
Hold on here. Saying "God wanted Adam to sin" in non-sequitur. God doesn't "want" anyone to sin/disobey
or do what is morally not optimal for them to do. I agree with you that knowledge of contrasts are important
for our eternal state and part of God's plan... but it is very important to make distinctions between what God
allows to happen or knows will happen (and how God makes this part of His plan) verses God wanting us to sin.
The latter is error. It is often the result of looking at God with a monolithic view of His "will" as though God
were a man. God's desired "will" is distinct from God's sovereign will because the English word "will" is
in desperate need of modifiers in front of it when it comes to the sum total of all circumstances. "Will"
by itself is an insufficient word to address all of the dynamics of God's relationship to human freewill.
Mankind's human "will" is quite different from God's for several theological reasons.
So to me Adam and Eve did not sin. They did transgress Gods law which had the same punishment.
Sin means to "miss the mark" and the term was derived from archery. Clearly Adam missed the mark of trusting
God to redeem Eve in some way or did not beseech God to die in her place. If you look at Romans you will see
that "sin" entered into the world by Adam... so clearly Adam DID sin. He had a moral conscience and he
violated it. Now, we do this all the time because we are cursed with original sin.
What I really feel is missing from your discussion fatboys is Adam's motive to die with Eve rather than live
with God. Some systematic theologians agree with Arthur Custance (in his Door Way Papers) that Adam and
Eve shared a tremendous LOVE relationship. That Adam DID know what a horrible thing Eve had done (by
eating the fruit) and this is where Adam's lack of faith/trust came into play. Rather than trusting God that
God would redeem Eve in someway or have mercy on her (of course how could he know what mercy/grace
was?) or raise her back from death or restore her (his love mate), that Adam chose to die with her rather
than have faith that God would do what was best for Adam. This is all very multifaceted related not only
to salvation (faith) but also to Adam's lack of knowledge about God. How could Adam know how much
God loved Him? How could Adam know about God's Self-Sacrificing love? These require Jesus.
But please don't over simplify and say that "God wanted it all to happen so He could someday send
Jesus." Often times the simple answer is either the wrong answer.. or the partial answer. In this
case I would argue that "God wanted Adam to sin" is categorically wrong. Question everything.