Adam and Eve?

Question

I recently got into a bit of a debate about this over e-mail. We were discussing the fall of man. My opinion is that before God ever created the world He knew man would fall. This is why Jesus is called the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world. Their opinion was that if God knew man would fall then God had set into motion intentionally all the evil man has done and thus God could not know man was going to fall.

What do you think? Do you think God knew man would fall before He ever created us?

Answer 1

I quite agree with you! God knew that we would be lead into sin. But because of His love for us, even though He knew that we would turn on Him and reject Him, He still gave us the right to choose. It doesn't mean that whatever you choose will be right, but you have the choice to choose, if you know what I mean!

Isn't it funny how you get into more religious debates anonymously online that in real life? Now it seems like I argure more with people I don't even know than the ones I do know!

Answer 2

No, I don't think so. That is the reason he became so "hurt" when the Isrealites continued to sin.

I view it the same as a Parent-Child relationship.

Many people have children thinking they will have the most wonderful experience in the world, but sadly some children grow up to be very rebellious, disrespectful, and some have even KILLED their parents.

Of course, If the parents had been able to anticipate this beforehand, I'm sure they would have thought twice before they had children.

I feel it is the same with Our Loving Creator. He probably thought creating humans would be a wonderful thing. Afterall, we should be grateful, but instead.....(Well you know the rest)

Answer 3

You cannot convict a person until after they commit the crime.
God knew the possibility 50-50 it would happen.
After Adam and Eve sinned God cursed Adams seed and Eves childbirth with pain. But not the womb, even then He knew the womb needed to be pure to produce a holy child.
Every law given , every action in the bible can be researched to the preparation of Jesus's birth. The Jewish laws that provided shelter to travelers , leaving the gleanings in the fields for food to travelers. That a person can eat fruit from your tree if they are hungry without charge "if they don't take any with them. " Every thing was made for His arrival and care for Him while He was here. Laws concerning marriage to keep lineage pure . Israel was given to Abraham for obedience. This took it from Satan , so even the land Jesus traveled on was prepared ahead of time.
To answer the question ... all of this was done after they sinned.
You and I are born of sin ,we know sin . God is holy, he does not know sin, He knows what sin is "disobedience to Him".
A sad reality is the fact that Jesus before he died also did not fully know sin, as it is in a sinful nature. He spoke with great anticipation of the coming of the Holy Spirit and anticipated we would conquer the world in very little time with this marvelous message of salvation and it would go into all the world like a raging fire across a field. Being innocent and pure he could not realize people would chose not to accept it.
For God to intentionally set it into motion would require God to sin against himself . This is impossible ,whatever God wills "it is"exactly that.

Answer 4

Yes.
The reason is:
God is omnipresent, everywhere in everyway at the same time.
God also, does not live in time, he created time, before he said for their to be time, there was no before and after, there was no time. Very difficult concept to grasp, I have trouble imagining a time with no time.
Anyways, if he lives outside of time (think film strip that he is watching) he has already seen the future, as if it is happening right now same with the past ect.
Weird, now you see where people get all those funny time travel theories from.

Anyways, he did not set in motion all the evil, he simply knew about it.
We have two options, no free will and no evil, or free will and evil.
With the free will option comes the fact that some people are going to make a free will decision to do bad things, otherwise we wouldn't have free will.

God wants us to choose him, with free will, thats why we have it, he doesn't force us to believe in him, he gives us the opoutunity to believe in him.

Any loving God would grant free will.

Any person who thinks they serve a loving God, should understand that he gave us free will out of love.

One thing though, while God doesn't take away our free will, he helps us, by giving us opourtunities to turn the bad things that happen into good things.

Jessica - feel free to email

Answer 5

God new man would fall, however God gave man free will and thus God can't be held accountable for what man does. All we know is that God will take care of the sin problem once and for all through the God-man Jesus. Sounds like they forgot the satan factor.

Answer 6

God is sovereign.

Creation, the fall, redemption and everything else were ordained by Him for His purposes. Its hard to understand but that doesn't make it any less factual.

I like to look at this way.

Technically speaking in a "perfect" world situation God is limited in showing many of His attributes like grace, mercy and forgiveness. In a fallen world God can very clearly display those attributes to all of creation including us and the Heavenly Hosts. God's power is significantly manifested in weakness and where there is pain and suffering so for me a fallen world makes perfect sense. The fact that God has ordained what exists today is more easily understood through a proper Biblical understanding of who God really is. I suppose that for those that challenge the sovereignty of God it is more of a matter of Biblical ignorance. I'm not suggesting that my theology is dead on but there is certainly no room for questioning God's sovereignty.

If God is sovereign then what we have is exactly what He planned.

Answer 7

I believe that God is at the centre of all things. To be at the centre means that all things revolve around Him as a sphere and that everything is an equal distance from Him. I believe that as He created, all creation burst into place around Him. The beginning of creation is exactly the same distance from Him as the end of time, because God is timeless and He gave us a timespan because we are mortal and have a limit to the number of our days. He knows all things because He sees all things, He is the First and the Last. The Perfection and wonder of His creation is the Lord Jesus Christ, because He was set apart as God's Holy and Anointed One from the very beginning, to come into the world at the exact time that we would need His salvation. Amazing, isn't it? :)

Answer 8

In my opinion given the fact that before eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil man was not sentient almost by definition--he was in fact an animal--perhaps capable of being trained like one would train a dog--but if man truly did not know the difference between good and evil/right and wrong (intellectual concepts these--you have to be sentient to understand them)-then in my opinion eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was not the fall of man but the elevation of man. I'd rather have to scratch the earth for a living and grow my own food, than to be some butt kissin trained dog for some cosmic emotionally needy deity.

Answer 9

God gave Adam and Eve, and subsequently us, a choice. He knew the outcome of the initial choice and made a way to for us to redeem ourselves; to reconsider and admit our mistakes. The choice then remains in the here and now for everyone. A person then does evil because they choose to do evil. The defense such a person would present then is to deny responsibility by saying, "I would not have chosen to do evil if I had no choice. It is then God's fault for giving me that choice". In essence, it is shifting the responsibility or blame for our decisions off of ourselves and onto God. Well, then what is God's response to this? To take human form in the person of Jesus and assume the responsibility for our indiscretions and offer forgiveness to those who would admit their indiscretions and seek forgiveness.

Answer 10

God definitely knew man would fall. By His great love He gave man free will and choice. Eve, though deceived, sinned. Adam willing sinned. But God through His infinite wisdom had planned a course of action for this event also, read Ephesians 1:3-14 and Eph. 3:10,11.