The Fall of Adam and Eve

orthedoxy said:

Do Calvinists believe God is powerful enough to create man with free will to eat or not to eat?

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It is not about what God is powerful enough to do, but it is about what God did and is doing. It is about what He has purposed. It is about what the Word says God did. If the Word says that God told Moses to tell Pharaoh to let His people go and the Lord also tells Moses that He will harden Pharaoh's heart so that he will not let the people go, then I believe it. It was the Lord's purpose to bring all the plagues on Egypt, to kill Pharaoh's first born and to drown the Egyptian army and the Lord did it by hardening Pharaoh's heart, so Pharaoh would disobey the Lord. If I counted correctly, sixteen times Pharaoh's heart was hardened and ten of those times it was done by the Lord. It was the Lord that Hardened Pharaoh's heart first. Romans 9 sheds some light on why the Lord did this.

Why does scripture say Pharoh hardened his heart?
Exodus 8:15
But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said.
Is it possible that God didn't harden his heart irresistibly?
I don't understand from your view why would God harden Pharohs heart so his people won't leave? Did God want his people to enter the promise land or not? Why didn't he change his heart so first borne won't die? Did he harden his heart because he wanted to kill fist born?


God created man that could sin. Isn't this the same as creating a rock heavier than he could carry since God can't sin?
Why is there a problem if God created Adam with free will and he knows Adam is going to eat of the tree before Adam actually eats of it? He simply knows the way we know the result of a prerecorded football game.

What did God say before Exodus 8?It's the same thing as Genesis 50:20. Pharaoh hardened his heart out of his own wickedness; God hardened Pharaoh's heart so that his name would be proclaimed among all the nations.
Pharaoh meant it for evil; God meant it for good.

Is it possible that God didn't harden his heart irresistibly?

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Doesn't look like it. He didn't ultimately resist.

I don't understand from your view why would God harden Pharohs heart so his people won't leave?

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Because He wanted to.

Did God want his people to enter the promise land or not?

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Did they enter or not? They did, as all things do, what God wanted.

Why didn't he change his heart so first borne won't die?

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Because He didn't want to.

Did he harden his heart because he wanted to kill fist born?

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Obviously yes, among other things.

God created man that could sin. Isn't this the same as creating a rock heavier than he could carry since God can't sin?

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No, but explaining why would appear to be a pointless endeavor.

Why is there a problem if God created Adam with free will and he knows Adam is going to eat of the tree before Adam actually eats of it? He simply knows the way we know the result of a prerecorded football game.

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Ever watch a "prerecorded" football game before it was played? God is in full control of all things past present and future. It's the story He wrote before it was "played" to glorify Himself and His Son.

Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

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Here is an excerpt of an exchange I have been having with someone on another website. I was hoping you all would read through it and give me some of your thoughts on this premise of all of us being born in exactly the same state as when Adam and Eve were frist created:

Quote from: Wycliffes_Shillelagh on October 17, 2007, 08:19:55 PM
Frankly, the story of Eden tells the story of everybody. Everyone's first sin is the decision to determine what is right and wrong under their own power. "I know best" is the foundational sin that every other sin builds on. Children do that early, but not at birth.

(my response)This is an interesting concept, however, it is not a scriptural concept.

(Wycliffes response)And yet I formed this idea based upon my study of the Bible. Is rejection of God's authority not the principal sin? the very definition of sin?
For rebellion [is] the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness [is] iniquity and idolatry. 1Sa 15:23
Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations. Isa 66:3
It boils down to this: does "deciding for myself" = "rejecting God's authority" I say yes.
Is not repentance when we turn from "our way" to "His way" ?? I believe that in order to "put the Lord on the throne of our lives," we must first get up out of the chair. In the case of Adam and Eve, their original sin was that they sat down in that chair.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...I mean back in Genesis:
Aside from the not-very-catchy-but-pregnant-with-meaning name "tree of knowledge of good and evil," we are specifically told that eating the fruit of the tree would cause them to be able to discern good and evil for themselves. And that this was Eve's "reason" for taking the fruit!
You can argue that the "original sin" was simply disobedience, but I view that disobedience as being second, a consequence of their real first sin, which was the decision to decide right and wrong for themselves. (hooray for run on sentences!)


(a quote of mine Wycliffe selects):
We are born after Adam and Eve's fall. Therefore, by logic, we cannot be born before the imposition of judgment on their lives, their bodies, and creation itself.


(Wycliffe's response): I'm following you so far...


(Wycliffe continues with more of my quote):
You seem to think of all of us as "Adams and Eves"


(Wycliffe's response): Yes! It's always nice when someone understands you (disagreement notwithstanding). I believe that we all are non-corrupt upon birth, but corrupt ourselves by sinning.


(another quote from me):
what distinguishes us from them is that we are born of woman after the fall. Both Adam and Eve were distinctively different from us because they were not born in that fashion.


(Wycliff's resonse): I believe that when we are born, we are the same way that they were after they were "formed" and before "the fall." I guess this kind of hits the major point of this thread. You believe that children are born "already tainted," while I do not.
I do, however, believe that we are born into a pre-tainted earth and environment. Something that they didn't have...at first, anyway.


(another quote from me):
Furthermore, they were born neutral, amoral, not knowing neither the benefits of doing good nor the consequences of doing evil.


(Wycliffe's response): I believe that all people are born neutral, amoral, and not knowing anything about good vs evil. I call Moses to the stand:
Deu 1:39 Moreover your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it.
And Isaiah, too:
Isa 7:15-16 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. But before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.


(another quote from me):
After sin entered the world through them, morality was made known to them and placed into their lives, and their lives from then on were completely different, as a matter of fact, like ours, fallen.


(Wycliffe's response): Since I view the two as being the same event, I don't agree with the word "after." It's all gravy on the rest though. =)


(quote from me):
They would be exactly similar to us only if we could also be placed in a pre-fall existence as they were at one time.

(Wycliffe's response):Well, I already believe that we are born in an unfallen mode, so I'm pretty much there. Environment different, people same.


(quote from me):
Cain and Abel were not like them before the fall, no one has ever been like them before the fall. Hence, Paul's explicit discussion in Romans about what and who we are as a result of Adam.


(Wycliffe's response): I disagree and disagree, respectively. Romans...hmmm: here's the address: Romans 5:12-14. Let's go through it:
Twelve:
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Okay, sin entered the world through Adam. Check. But that doesn't say that it passed on hereditarily (making up words again).
Death came through sin. Check.
Death passed upon all men. Now here, we could work inductively, and say that since death passed on all men, and death came through sin, that sin passed through Adam.
Only problem is that the last phrase blows that right out of the Atlantic: "for that all have sinned." Looks like the reason they died was because they had their own sins.
Thirteen:
(For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
This would make a fascinating new thread. But it really isn't germaine to this thread.
Fourteen:
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
Everyone still died before the law. Pretty much an imperical fact.
Those who didn't sin in the same way Adam did still died. Well, you've probably got someone on me here. Apparently, not everyone commits the same sin as Adam. Still, everyone's death was the result of their own sin, so everyone did sin (as stated in verse twelve).
"Who is the figure of him to come."
Again, not much for this discussion.
So....I really don't see it. This doesn't really say anything about our nature, particularly as it regards to hereditary propensity to sin. It says more about the past that the present. Maybe I have the wrong address?


(quote from me):
You also seem to have a confident view of the "power" of man, i.e., his power to determine what is right and wrong.


(Wycliffe's response):No, no, no...not at all. Just the opposite in fact.


(quote from me):
But then you seem to contradict yourself by saying that man's decisional process to choose right is sin. Man is corrupted, his own power is corrupted, it cannot seek right and it is 100% predictable in all men everywhere from birth on that they won't, without God's help.


(Wycliffe's response):It's the imagination of man that is defunct. (Apparently Barney the purple dinosaur was the antichrist with his "imagination agenda")
Man can certainly "seek right," it's just that it's a futile pursuit. Man's "power," as you put it, is slightly less than nil. It's like me trying to move a mountain! I can try all I want! I just won't get anywhere on my own. With faith it's a whole different story. But with faith, it's not me doing it anymore either.


(quote from me):
From the beginning of time, it is God who has intervened to provide man the way back to him, including the ability itself to make the journey back to Him, for man would never seek it if left to himself. That's why our God is such an awesome God, he never left us in a ditch, he has purposed in His heart to redeem that which was corrupted in its entirety from the beginning of time, and He has since then, to His glory, moved in the hearts of men to complete all of his purposes, focusing on man's redemption.


Wycliffe's response: I end in accord with you.

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Thanks in advance for all your responses!

Don