Sola Gratia said:
How does a man know what sin is if there is no sin in the world?
Again, I ask, are you contending that Adam was ignorant of the requirement to obey God and ignorant of the fact that there were ramifications of his disobedient actions? If so, you are contending that God held Adam, and all mankind, accountable for the sins of a being that had no clue what he was doing was wrong. That, in my opinion, is highly contrary to the nature of God. Have I just misunderstood you?
Sin did not enter UNTIL he sinned .God told Adam the contract and that he would die. Adam knew that there were consequences to breaking the covenant . You want to say that means he knew if he did that he sinned. I think you are using language that Adam would not have understood. I do not think he knew or understood the extent of the results.
If that is the case then you are saying it's perfectly just for God to punish Adam, who was in full fellowship with his Creator, for disobedience when he didn't know it was disobedience. I think that is a terrible position because it makes God out to be a sadist. Think about it. I don't know if you have children but I do. If I give them a rule and they break the rule before they are aware of what the rule entails punishing them would be an unrighteous thing to do. Punishment is only applicable in cases of disobedience. If the offender is unaware that what they are doing is wrong then it is not disobedience. They must learn, or know, that it is disobedience before they should be subject to disobedience. Now, I do not mean to imply that no action should be taken. However, any action in the learning stage should be instructive, not destructive. I'll give you a personal example. When my youngest son had just started walking he was interested, as all babies are, in exploring his environment. This, of course, led him to start touching things that I did not want him to touch, either because it was potentially unsafe for him to do so or because, well, he's a boy and his chief goal in life seemed to be to destroy anything he could get his hands on. Obviously I had only two choices. I could either rearrange my house, taking all temptation out of his reach, which would teach him nothing other than that he was too short to mess with these things. That was not the message I was trying to send nor the lesson I was trying to teach. Or, I could take the time to teach him to refrain from touching those things because it was against my rules. This took much effort and attention. For me to punish him for breaking my rule before he understood that it was my rule would have been heartless and unrighteous. Now,
AFTER he understood that that was my rule he would be punished for disobeying.
Now, if we apply this type of reasoning to your assessment of the Fall we are left with viewing God as a Parent who condemns His child for breaking a rule when His child didn't even understand that it was wrong to do so. Is that really the image of God that you think is portrayed in Scripture?
Did he know what it would mean to die? IF he understood the concept of death , eve did not die physically . Do you think he understood spiritual death ? Do you think knew there would be a curse? Or what that curse would be? The scriptures do not tell us that .
The Scriptures may not explicitly state the level of Adam's knowledge but it is a very probable inference when taking into account the nature of God. If Adam truly did not know that doing as he had been told to do was wrong then it seems to me that God was unrighteous for holding him accountable. Obviously I don't think God is unrighteous so I would have to say that Adam must have had, at the very least, the knowledge that he was expected to obey his Lord because He Lord had commanded him to do so, regardless of whether he fully comprehended the ramifications of his actions. Unless I can believe that Adam knew it would be wrong to disobey then I cannot see how he could justifiably be held accountable.
Before the fall a conscience was not needed. There was no sin. When he sinned , he then knew what sin was. He then ran and hid.
Just out of curiousity, what do you understand Adam's sin to be?
Let me ask you this. Do you tell your child not to touch a stove because it is "hot", when he does not understand the concept of hot to burn you?
Of course. However, if he didn't understand that touching the stove was wrong because it's hot I wouldn't punish him. It wouldn't be disobedience. Now, if I told him not to touch the stove and, because of my consistant approach to parenting he understands that he is expected to obey me, I would punish him for disobeying my command that he not touch the stove.
He does not understand the warning until he does it .. then the words have a meaning.
He may not understand the concept of hot as it relates to the stove but he understands that he is expected to obey me, just as Adam knew he was expected to obey God. Sorry, I don't see the point you are trying to make with this analogy.
Adam knew not to eat and that there was a consequence, but there was no sin in the world. I doubt he would have verbalized that it was "sin" .
It is irrelevent whether Adam would have "verbalized it as sin." God clearly stated to Adam that disobeying His command to not eat from the tree was sinful and that the wages of sin are death. Do you honestly think that Adam didn't know disobeying God would be wrong?
I think that we are talking past each other. I think he knew that God had ordered him not to .I believe He knew it was breaking the covenant when he ate it and that he should not do it. BUT remember that they did not know right from wrong (good from evil) .
That is absolutely untrue. If Adam knew that obeying the covenant was good and that he should not break the covenant then he had to know that doing so would be evil. Once again you've attributed a level of ignorance to Adam that exonerates him from any wrongdoing.
We can quibble about words , but the fact is there for all to see. They did not know good from evil, so the word sin would have been foreign to them
If one lacks knowledge then they are by definition ignorant
SG, if your child breaks a rule before they understand that it would be wrong to do so do you punish them?
God is justified because he told him what not to do and he was disobedient A parent would be unjust in punishing a child for breaking a rule he did not know, but Adam did know the rule .
If Adam "knew the rule" then Adam had to know that obeying the rule was good and disobeying the rule was evil. If he didn't, or couldn't, differentiate between understanding that obeying the rule is good and disobeying is evil then he didn't "know the rule."
He did not die immediately . What did God tell him ?
Gen 2:16
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
Gen 2:17
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
God did not say on THAT day you will START to die .
God told him it was an immediate .
The fact that the Lord did not institute His punishment to the fullest extent that He had said is an act of mercy and grace, not a limitation on the punishment. Prior to the Fall there was no necessity that man, though mortal, would die. I agree that the death spoken of includes the spiritual death of Adam and his descendants. However, to limit it to that is to deny the physical effects of what you imply was only a moral transaction.
I am a Calvinist, give me the scripture, not what you think .
Do you think I picked the user name Reformationist because I'm a sculpter? I'm a Calvinist too and I find the tone of your response extremely insulting. In fact, I will forego responding to the rest of it.
