Post by Alan McDougall on Jun 6, 2015 17:17:08 GMT -5
Enigma of the existence of evil and Free-will as shown in the story of the Garden of Eden
By Alan McDougall
I know the story of the Garden and Eden and the fall of man are thought, by some to be a mythical account of a people long past in the mists of time, but I base this essay on the literal reading of the Book of Genesis and that the Bible is a true account of what happened there long ago.
God really had only a few opinions in the Garden of Eden.
1) Give Adam a free will and the test to not eat of the ‘Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” We know this is what happened
2) Give Adam and free will and the same test of not eating from the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which they pass with flying colours (We know this did not happen)
3) Do not give Adam and Eve a free will and control every aspect of their lives eternally in the Garden of Eden (We also know this did not happen)
Remember that Adam's name means "Man or Humanity! Thus the story about Adam and Eve is also about humanity still to be born.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I will try in my own humble way to answer this most difficult question.
How can we ever reconcile the fact of evil, suffering and pain, existing side by side with a benevolent Holy God of light and love?
Let us go back to the story of the Garden of Eden Genesis Chap2 verse 17, where God says to Adam, that “Adam you may eat of any tree except for the "tree of knowledge of good and evil"
Note; The tree of knowledge of Good and evil, so Evil existed before Adam was made by God.
"Adam" also represents entire humanity, still to be born and how these still to be born, humans would have to relate and interact with God.
It is true that God is all-knowing, thus he knew before hand that Adam was going to fail the test and eat the forbidden fruit as urged by by his wife Eve.
(However in my opinion God suspended his all- knowingness for this test of obedience)
The name Eve means “out of man” and she was a reflection of all women still to be born and how woman would interact with God all down the history of the world, just like it did for Adam her husband.
So why then did God give Adam and Eve a test which he knew they would fail, it does no seem fair at first glance?
I hear a loud reply from the Congregation "because God wanted us to have a free will and not be robots".
The above statement is partly true, when God made Adam out of the dust of the earth his plan for humanity was to give them a free will and God did want Adam/humanity to be robots, controlled by him by some means of remote control, making them into mindless entities, always on his beck and call as mere toys for God to play with.
God eliminates the test in Eden
In this scenario, God in which God required no test but simply gave Adam/Humanity a free will, without any reservation and let Adam and Adam's, offspring, remain forever in the Garden of Eden (Which was really Paradise of Earth).
God been eternally absolutely Holy Pure and Perfect, could not allow any imperfection or wrong in Paradise, in which he walked in the evening of the day. To ensure that Paradise remained in a perfect state of Holy perfection, without sop or blemish God would have to control every aspect of Adams life and the lives of all Adam's offspring down the ages of eternity.
God would have to be constantly vigilant and observe mankind’s ever action, decision and thought and forcing them to do only right things, by manipulating Adam/Humanity, from also doing wrong things, even before Adam/humanity thought about doing an imperfect act, or could act on their imperfect thoughts. Thus without a free will Adam /humanity) would have been forced by God to act and think and perform like his puppet, into doing exactly what He wanted them to do.
If God had not given Adam/humanity a free will, God been a Holy Perfect God would have had to investigate every act of Adam/humanities their every thought and intervene on every single moment even before they might have about it, every action or decision made by Adam/humanity would have been first have had to be vetted and approved by God, before he would have allowed Adam/humanity to do what they wanted to do.
God would have to act with mankind in this way, because he is Holy and could not tolerate wrong in his perfect domain.
He would have had to prevent them from even contemplating an act to sin or come to any harm sadly in this case Adam/Humanity would have never known that they were existing and living a life of unimaginable wonder, beauty perfection of Paradise, because Adam/humanity would have had anything to compare their lives with in this heavenly place
However this is not my full explanation God could easily given Adam absolute free rain and said to him "Adam your can do anything you want without any reservations"
Surely, God could simply have give Adam a free will and allow him to anything he wanted to do without the "necessity of any test".
Nevertheless, God, in his infinite wisdom goes ahead and gives Adam (and Eve) a test he "knows they are going to fail, why? Was this fair seeing the awful consequences for humanity down through the age?
Yes absolutely as I will describe later in this essay!
Let us go back to the origin of evil, where did it come from.
Isaiah Capt. 45 Verse 7 God says "I form the light and create darkness: I make peace and create "evil" I God do all these things. God made everything so he must have made evil but why?
Let us go back to Adam and the pampered environment of the Garden of Eden. If Adam and Eve had been left in the Garden of Eden, remained there and obeyed God by not eating the forbidden fruit. In this hypothetical situation, God would have known that Adam and Eve were going to obey Him and after their obedience of passing the test allowed them to existed forever a paradise setting of beauty warmth, comfort, never ever have to toil work just reach out and eat do anything they want..
Of course on first glance this seems wonderful but think about it a little longer This state of eternal infinite never ending perfection, would be wonderful for say a hundred years or a thousand years a hundred thousand years, but having never ever experienced cold, they could not appreciate warmth, never being hungry never appreciate the joy and taste of food, never being thirsty they would not appreciate the taste and satisfaction of sparking water , never knowing hate the would not know what love was etc .
Therefore, after countless years paradise would become a boring never changing hell to them. Therefore, God, in his infinite wisdom and love, simply had to banish them into the world or toil sorrow and hardship, in order for humanity to truly appreciate paradise, because they had experienced suffering, pain, and sorrow in this mortal world. Thus; Almighty God was forced into creating a duality universe to avoid this reality
Adam and Eve’s offspring would have existed forever in this a one-sided reality in Eden, never knowing or appreciated the wonder of eternal life, because they would not know what death was, or how really beautiful the paradise they existed in because, they would never experienced the opposite. But God knew in his infinite wisdom that to become like him they must know evil, pain and sorrow to become fully functional free thinking beings similar to him in consciousness and indeed co- creators of their own domain and reality after death.
To conclude God was being fair with Adam and Eve/humanity and gave them the test, which he knew they would fail. God in deep and profound sorrow had drive them out from the paradise of Eden , into the present reality world of thorns, cold, dark, pain, evil etc, etc. This reality is based on a duality we know evil so we know the beauty of goodness; we know truth so we can hate the lie, and we experience the light so that we know dark.
Humanity can look back on a "paradise lost with a longing to for the eternal wonder and beauty of the original Eden, which they would love and rejoice as paradise regained
God however made a plan to rejoin him in Jesus Christ the lord, by free choice and with the full knowledge that heaven is an unimaginable wonder beautiful place of everlasting life.
I do not for one moment believe the nonsense that there is an eternal battle between God and the Satan and that this being is almost Almighty Gods equal. Satan can only do what God permits him to do as we read in the book of Job.
Duality
Good and evil
Light and dark
Truth and lie
Deception and honesty
Love and hate
War and Peace
Positive and negative
Faith and despair
Holiness and depravity
Warm and hot
Life and death
You must know the one to know the other!
God bless I hope this helps!
Alan McDougall
By Alan McDougall
I know the story of the Garden and Eden and the fall of man are thought, by some to be a mythical account of a people long past in the mists of time, but I base this essay on the literal reading of the Book of Genesis and that the Bible is a true account of what happened there long ago.
God really had only a few opinions in the Garden of Eden.
1) Give Adam a free will and the test to not eat of the ‘Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” We know this is what happened
2) Give Adam and free will and the same test of not eating from the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which they pass with flying colours (We know this did not happen)
3) Do not give Adam and Eve a free will and control every aspect of their lives eternally in the Garden of Eden (We also know this did not happen)
Remember that Adam's name means "Man or Humanity! Thus the story about Adam and Eve is also about humanity still to be born.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I will try in my own humble way to answer this most difficult question.
How can we ever reconcile the fact of evil, suffering and pain, existing side by side with a benevolent Holy God of light and love?
Let us go back to the story of the Garden of Eden Genesis Chap2 verse 17, where God says to Adam, that “Adam you may eat of any tree except for the "tree of knowledge of good and evil"
Note; The tree of knowledge of Good and evil, so Evil existed before Adam was made by God.
"Adam" also represents entire humanity, still to be born and how these still to be born, humans would have to relate and interact with God.
It is true that God is all-knowing, thus he knew before hand that Adam was going to fail the test and eat the forbidden fruit as urged by by his wife Eve.
(However in my opinion God suspended his all- knowingness for this test of obedience)
The name Eve means “out of man” and she was a reflection of all women still to be born and how woman would interact with God all down the history of the world, just like it did for Adam her husband.
So why then did God give Adam and Eve a test which he knew they would fail, it does no seem fair at first glance?
I hear a loud reply from the Congregation "because God wanted us to have a free will and not be robots".
The above statement is partly true, when God made Adam out of the dust of the earth his plan for humanity was to give them a free will and God did want Adam/humanity to be robots, controlled by him by some means of remote control, making them into mindless entities, always on his beck and call as mere toys for God to play with.
God eliminates the test in Eden
In this scenario, God in which God required no test but simply gave Adam/Humanity a free will, without any reservation and let Adam and Adam's, offspring, remain forever in the Garden of Eden (Which was really Paradise of Earth).
God been eternally absolutely Holy Pure and Perfect, could not allow any imperfection or wrong in Paradise, in which he walked in the evening of the day. To ensure that Paradise remained in a perfect state of Holy perfection, without sop or blemish God would have to control every aspect of Adams life and the lives of all Adam's offspring down the ages of eternity.
God would have to be constantly vigilant and observe mankind’s ever action, decision and thought and forcing them to do only right things, by manipulating Adam/Humanity, from also doing wrong things, even before Adam/humanity thought about doing an imperfect act, or could act on their imperfect thoughts. Thus without a free will Adam /humanity) would have been forced by God to act and think and perform like his puppet, into doing exactly what He wanted them to do.
If God had not given Adam/humanity a free will, God been a Holy Perfect God would have had to investigate every act of Adam/humanities their every thought and intervene on every single moment even before they might have about it, every action or decision made by Adam/humanity would have been first have had to be vetted and approved by God, before he would have allowed Adam/humanity to do what they wanted to do.
God would have to act with mankind in this way, because he is Holy and could not tolerate wrong in his perfect domain.
He would have had to prevent them from even contemplating an act to sin or come to any harm sadly in this case Adam/Humanity would have never known that they were existing and living a life of unimaginable wonder, beauty perfection of Paradise, because Adam/humanity would have had anything to compare their lives with in this heavenly place
However this is not my full explanation God could easily given Adam absolute free rain and said to him "Adam your can do anything you want without any reservations"
Surely, God could simply have give Adam a free will and allow him to anything he wanted to do without the "necessity of any test".
Nevertheless, God, in his infinite wisdom goes ahead and gives Adam (and Eve) a test he "knows they are going to fail, why? Was this fair seeing the awful consequences for humanity down through the age?
Yes absolutely as I will describe later in this essay!
Let us go back to the origin of evil, where did it come from.
Isaiah Capt. 45 Verse 7 God says "I form the light and create darkness: I make peace and create "evil" I God do all these things. God made everything so he must have made evil but why?
Let us go back to Adam and the pampered environment of the Garden of Eden. If Adam and Eve had been left in the Garden of Eden, remained there and obeyed God by not eating the forbidden fruit. In this hypothetical situation, God would have known that Adam and Eve were going to obey Him and after their obedience of passing the test allowed them to existed forever a paradise setting of beauty warmth, comfort, never ever have to toil work just reach out and eat do anything they want..
Of course on first glance this seems wonderful but think about it a little longer This state of eternal infinite never ending perfection, would be wonderful for say a hundred years or a thousand years a hundred thousand years, but having never ever experienced cold, they could not appreciate warmth, never being hungry never appreciate the joy and taste of food, never being thirsty they would not appreciate the taste and satisfaction of sparking water , never knowing hate the would not know what love was etc .
Therefore, after countless years paradise would become a boring never changing hell to them. Therefore, God, in his infinite wisdom and love, simply had to banish them into the world or toil sorrow and hardship, in order for humanity to truly appreciate paradise, because they had experienced suffering, pain, and sorrow in this mortal world. Thus; Almighty God was forced into creating a duality universe to avoid this reality
Adam and Eve’s offspring would have existed forever in this a one-sided reality in Eden, never knowing or appreciated the wonder of eternal life, because they would not know what death was, or how really beautiful the paradise they existed in because, they would never experienced the opposite. But God knew in his infinite wisdom that to become like him they must know evil, pain and sorrow to become fully functional free thinking beings similar to him in consciousness and indeed co- creators of their own domain and reality after death.
To conclude God was being fair with Adam and Eve/humanity and gave them the test, which he knew they would fail. God in deep and profound sorrow had drive them out from the paradise of Eden , into the present reality world of thorns, cold, dark, pain, evil etc, etc. This reality is based on a duality we know evil so we know the beauty of goodness; we know truth so we can hate the lie, and we experience the light so that we know dark.
Humanity can look back on a "paradise lost with a longing to for the eternal wonder and beauty of the original Eden, which they would love and rejoice as paradise regained
God however made a plan to rejoin him in Jesus Christ the lord, by free choice and with the full knowledge that heaven is an unimaginable wonder beautiful place of everlasting life.
I do not for one moment believe the nonsense that there is an eternal battle between God and the Satan and that this being is almost Almighty Gods equal. Satan can only do what God permits him to do as we read in the book of Job.
Duality
Good and evil
Light and dark
Truth and lie
Deception and honesty
Love and hate
War and Peace
Positive and negative
Faith and despair
Holiness and depravity
Warm and hot
Life and death
You must know the one to know the other!
God bless I hope this helps!
Alan McDougall