Was Adam's "fall" part of God's plan?

by dorayakii 21 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  dorayakii

  The Watchtower Society and many other Fundamentalist Christian faiths believe that God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.

  In other words he is almighty /all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good.

  His omnibenelovence though, clashes with his omnipotence in that if he is powerful enough to change the human condition, and he is willing to do it, why does he permit suffering?... This idea has spawned a number of WT attempts to answer the question in a satisfactory manner, including the brochure "Does God Really Care About Us?"

  His omnibenevolence also clashes with his omniscience in that if he knew that Adam and Eve would sin and plunge mankind into wickedness and suffering, why did he create them in the first place? and why, after they sinned, did he permit them to have children who would suffer through no fault of their own, "born into sin".

  The main questions are therefore, was the "fall" of Adam part of God's plan for mankind? and if it wasn't then why did he allow things to get so out of hand? Did he use his omniscience to see that Adam and Eve would sin? If he didn't, why did he use his omniscience to predict the King of the North/South prophecies in Daniel for examlple and not the sin of Adam and Eve? (which is more important, stopping a disaster before it happens, or predicting details of that disaster?)
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  blondie

  Actually, the Mormons/LDS do teach that God never intended Adam and Eve to be able to keep the 2 laws he gave them and live forever on earth. Earth was only meant to be a testing plan for the spirits in heaven that were being born on earth.

  1st law--not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad (the knowledge of procreation included in that)

  2nd law--to be fruitful and fill the earth with children (not possible unless they ate from the tree above)

  Too the Calvinists (and offshoots) believe that God knows each person's destiny before they are even born--predestination. So what you do after birth has no effect on your salvation.

  Blondie
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  gumby

  You thought about this threads subject after answering my thread....didn't ya now?
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  tetrapod.sapien

  
  yes. this idea of an omnimax God is really what pushed me toward agnosticism when i was leaving the wits. it's just so illogical and contradictory. the more that fundamentalist xians like the jw's try to explain it away, the more special pleading they use, and special rules to get god out of his predicament. like:

  "oh, well tetrapod, jehovah chose not to see into the future with adam and eve because they had free will."

  and of course, you can always just turn around with dumb answers like that and ask:

  1. well, how is that very omnibenevolent of him? i thought he was looking out for us?
  2. if we have free will, then how is it that he is omnipotent? if he was, we would not have free will.

  did he plan it this way? well, you know my real answer. but my answer for the lurkers is: yes. it appears that he did. sadism in it's original form. but then, this makes him not omnimax, since now he is no longer omnibenevolent.

  and if the answer is no, as you pointed out, then he is still not omnimax. so no matter which way one answers, we can see that jehovah is certainly not the God of the universe as per the way many xian groups represent him. this goes for jesus too. at some point he realized this problem, and decided to hide behind "love" for as long as he could, since he knew that us humans really go in for this concept of love. lol.

  the more we play this game, the more aparent it becomes, imo, that as sagan and so many others have said, it's not that we are made in God's image, but rather that the Gods have been made in our image.

  ts
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  roybatty

  "oh, well tetrapod, jehovah chose not to see into the future with adam and eve because they had free will."

  Even when I was a JoeHovah'd out, loyal dub, this line always made me roll my eyes back.
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  Terry

  I don't buy in to the whole "God is testing" program.

  The purpose of a test is to gain information otherwise unavailable.

  If God needs to test he is automatically not prescient or all-knowing.

  Moreover, God's perfection could only be revealed by the perfection of His work IF that work was not flawed in normal use. Two problems with the creation of humans:

  1.God deliberately made humans inferior to himself. God=Perfection Man=not Perfection (i.e. man being lesser than god was less perfect. There can be no LESS perfect in this instance; only INFERIOR)

  2. Man was ignorant of right and wrong both as an experience and as a moral paradigm due to his nature. (i.e. he was entirely dependant on what he was TOLD. This "telling" could come from any source. Man, being naive, would accept what he was told having no mechanism of skepticism to parse it.)

  Now, let's look at this whole can of worms called the FALL OF MAN.

  It is bogus.

  Why?

  The Fall of Man has only to do with one thing and one thing only: GOD'S ATTITUDE and not Adam's condition.

  Think about that.

  If God found man's actions repugnant he could put Adam back into dust and mud and no harm is done.

  If God found Adam needing rehabilitation he could forgive him and instruct him.

  But, no. What we find instead is a third way:

  God cursed the human being and condemned the human race to being disconnected. This disconnect is PURELY A MATTER OF ATTITUDE on God's part. It is chosen, it is elective and it is a personality flaw.

  God has changed his mind about a lot of things (if we are to believe the scriptures). This ONE THING could have saved billions of lives. .

  What do we get in the place of either ending Adam's life or rehabilitating him? We get a wacky "plan" to salvage the dregs of human kind which entails (as I said) billions of deaths, suffering and injustice +a most remarkable necessity.

  Sinful, imperfect humans had to adjust their own attitude to accepting the details of this plan as JUSTICE, LOVE and even MERCY on the part of God.

  God cannot be damaged. God cannot suffer loss or injury. He holds the ultimate power to repair anything you can break. Yet, He has acted like the injured party in a bad lawsuit for thousands of years because He is obviously petty and holds a major grudge.

  No matter what He does or refrains from doing humans are forced to accept God or die. It is extortion and yet it is called "love". Astounding.

  One last Catch-22. Even if humans accept God they are only accepting the local rumour of who/what God is. It is the luck of where you are born that determines what story you receive in your breast milk. You could easily be Hindu, Shinto, Buddhist, Mormon, Catholic, JW or UFO baby. You have no control over the story told to you and the ethos about God it invokes. So what? So, even if you do accept God you have no way of knowing what is the truthful aspect of the messege. The game is rigged.

  My conclusion?

  There IS NOT A PLAN! A personal blundering God who holds a grudge is repugnant to my mind and I reject it.

  There are only stories, myths, primitive ideas now overblown which haunt the human race with tantalizing fragrances of rescue from their own rotting flesh. It an illusory buffet of wishful thinking and gullibility particularly abundant in religous thought.

  What God is....is what man is. Chaotic and often pig-ignorant.

  T.
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  Clam

  When Jdubbing the Adam and Eve thing always had me thinking in circles. Created as adults I wondered if they had to learn everything from scratch such as walk and talk. as if babylike. They must have been very simple and naive souls, and to have such a trick played on them as having temptation thrust in their faces was a cruel move.

  You do certainly get the feeling that they were set up.

  Another thing I mused over was Genesis 3:8. God was walking in the garden and they hid from him in the trees? Where are you? he said. So an omnipresent being can't find someone hiding behind a tree? hmmm.

  Pre fruit eating it also sounded to me like a naturist set up. Was god wearing clothing at the time or was HE naked? If so was he peeved at the fig leaf apparel and the wrecking of the all nude garden?
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  tetrapod.sapien

  yes. and where was adam when eve was off playing with the devil's "snake"?
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  Calliope

  to have such a trick played on them as having temptation thrust in their faces was a cruel move.

  for me, that spawns another question, why was the serpent even TALKING to eve. was this an apparent show of the naivety on her part? and then adam, simply going along with it, again not questioning the source. if the only source of communication they had a part from betwix each other, was with god, so then could they possibly have thought that the serpent was god? or a god.

  and THEN, if god is omni-everything, could he not have been alerted at this disturbance in the garden and rushed over to stop it before it was too late?

  or was this the dawn of televisionaries... god watching the commercial-free scene from his living room.
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  dorayakii

  Blondie: Actually, the Mormons/LDS do teach that God never intended Adam and Eve to be able to keep the 2 laws he gave them and live forever on earth. Earth was only meant to be a testing plan for the spirits in heaven that were being born on earth.

  yes blondie, it was this Morman idea that gave thought to this thread in the first place. 2 Nephi 2:22-27 says:

  21 And the days of the children of men were prolonged, according to the will of God, that they might repent while in the flesh; wherefore, their state became a state of probation, and their time was lengthened, according to the commandments which the Lord God gave unto the children of men. For he gave commandment that all men must repent; for he showed unto all men that they were lost, because of the transgression of their parents.
  
  22 And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.

  23 And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.

  24 But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.

  25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

  26 And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given.

  27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.

  Its as if God planned the fall, and that it was the only way that Adam and Eve could become real humans. Afterall it was called the Tree of "Knowledge of Good and Bad". Before, they were ignorant, and after, they had knowledge, but they had to reap the consequences of that knowledge . Ignorance is bliss, (but non-desirable) knowledge sometimes causes pain (but is what we strive for) knowledge also causes the pain of childbirth, (the evolved large head and brain of humans is difficult to pass though even the widened pelvis of the human female)... I can't think of how knowledge brings death in this view though, lol.