Why the forbidden tree? Did God set up Adam and Eve to fail?

Answer 1

I answered this question yesterday, from another person on Yahoo Answers. Below is the response I gave:

The concept of original sin has to rank up there with being one of the most asinine ideas in all of history. First, Adam and Eve, having no background knowledge about sin, should not be held accountable for deeds that they couldn’t have known were wrong. For example, we don’t arrest a 3 year old child for playing with a loaded gun, and then accidentally killing someone, because that 3 year old child is not cognizant of the inherent dangers of wielding a loaded pistol around. We do, however, in many cases hold the parent responsible for the child, as being culpable because, through their negligence, they provided the environment that allowed for the catastrophe to happen. In fact many parents are charged with negligent homicides for scenarios like what I mentioned.

I think the same standards should apply to God. If God did not cultivate the mind of his first two innocent children (Adam and Eve), so that they will be aware of the full repercussions of their actions, and he being omnipotent, placed a forbidden tree (i.e. a loaded gun), which would ultimately lead to their demise, when he could have just as easily removed the tree in the first place, being all powerful, then God is the true guilty party in this scenario.

There is no way around this problem. And of course to compound the absurdity of the story, according to Judeo-Christian theology, we all must suffer for Adam and Eve’s transgression. Nothing can be more indicative of an unjust Creator than the act of consigning everyone to eternal pain, due to the sins of our first ancestors. Whatever angle you look at the fall of Adam and Eve myth, it is patently absurd and immoral. Thankfully, is pure fiction.

Answer 2

God did give adam and eve free will, but i heard He place the forbidden tree so he can give them a set of rules.

Answer 3

It was a design, make them in a certain image that could falter and produce a future line of increasing flaws needing a redemption that would make them pure in heaven and never ever faulty again.

Answer 4

The point of the tree was love & choice. If u have a husband or wife & can't bring them around anyone attractive cuz they'll CHOOSE to betray your trust, obviously their love for sex is greater than their love for u. Just like with the tree Adam & Eve were given instructions, if they couldn't choose not to obey God then them obeying God was not by choice it was by force. And why is it no one remembers God also had a tree of life in the garden? If he intended for them to choose evil over good he wouldn't have had a tree of LIFE to choose to eat from too.

Answer 5

That tree was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve had already eaten of the good, making the right choices, which led to positive consequences. To eat of the evil is to accept a belief into your heart that is not the truth. This causes us to make the wrong decisions, the consequences of which are negative, unfavorable.

God would have preferred that they not eat of the evil, so they would not have to suffer the consequences. But God wanted his human to have the ability to take in both thoughts, giving power to whichever one he chose to accept into his heart.

Eve took in the thought that was wrong (aka, serpent).
Eve symbolizes the mind.
Adam accepted the thought as truth.
Adam symbolizes the heart.

The word "serpent" means "learn by experience."

We have all eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, as some of what we were taught was right, and some of what we were taught was wrong. It is up to us to learn by our experiences and separate out the evil by changing those beliefs that are in error (aka, sin).

Answer 6

Of course he did!! What would have been the point of them living in a garden for eternity.
The players acted exactly, as He wanted them, too,!!
Including Lucifer, who wanted to spoil the whole plan, by destroying God's work, and so he gave Eve the apple. Lucifer had to have been ecstatic, thinking that he foiled Gods plan, and ruined everything.

All of that good hard work, gone for nothing? I don't think think so.

No, really! What would have been the point for Adam and Eve to be in the garden, year in, and year out.
The whole idea was, that God wanted the earth populated! What better way to succeed, in what He wanted.?

Answer 7

The tree did no longer actually supply them the flexibility to parent good and undesirable yet quite it became right into a representation of Gods acceptable to come again to a determination what became into good and undesirable for the human race. Gen 2:sixteen,17 needless to say indicated that there the place MANY timber to devour from so Adam and Eve weren't deprived that they had a lot of nutrients. it quite is not your fault in case you supply a canine a hundred categories of canine nutrients and he chooses to hop on the range and devour your steak. Wouldn;t u agree the canine became into in the incorrect. Jehovah God is like all father he needs willfull obedience. maximum father and mom would lots quite come residing house to a neat residing house and young little ones doing their Homework out of love for his or her father and mom quite than come residing house and would desire to fuss on the youngsters to do it. apart from all the failings that God ask us to do like all loving parent are for our own good and the coolest of others.

Answer 8

Sounds like he set them (and all of us) up to have a choice. God's way or another way. They didn't have to take it. Sure, it led to some bad stuff (duh), but apparently God thought that in light of heaven, the big picture, what we need, and eternity, freedom was worth it. What's love if it's forced?

Farian, if you read the story again (which I doubt you will) you will see that what was going on was not curiosity, but pride. Eve wanted to be as smart and great as God.
Phree- overused or not, if it's the truth, saying "you keep saying the right answer" doesn't make it wrong. Stick to relevant arguments. Refute free will. If you are talking about overused arguments, I think Adam's kid must have crawled out of the cave and asked this question.

Answer 9

God gave them a choice, either to obey him or to reject him and go their own way. The tree represented that choice, God told them not to eat the fruit and they disobeyed him and rejected him by eating the fruit. God knew that Adam and Eve were going to eat the fruit even before he created them, but he still gave them that choice.

Answer 10

Many people have said that. But if I were to do something that you wanted me to do, would you condemn me for it? . . . Then, if Adam’s sin was God’s will, why was Adam driven out of Eden as a sinner? (Gen. 3:17-19, 23, 24)’

‘But that’s an interesting point, and the answer really involves the kind of person God is. Would it be just or loving to condemn a person for doing something that you yourself planned for him to do?’ (1) ‘Jehovah is a God of love. (1 John 4:8) All his ways are just. (Ps. 37:28; Deut. 32:4) It was not God’s will for Adam to sin; he warned Adam against it. (Gen. 2:17)’ (2) ‘God did allow Adam, as he does us, the freedom to choose what he would do. Perfection did not rule out the exercise of free will to disobey. Adam chose to rebel against God, despite the warning that death would result.’
When God created Adam, did he know that Adam would sin?

Here is what God set before Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth.” “And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: ‘From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.’” (Gen. 1:28; 2:16, 17) Would you encourage your children to undertake a project with a marvelous future, knowing from the start that it was doomed to failure? Would you warn them of harm, while knowing that you had planned everything so that they were sure to come to grief? Is it reasonable, then, to attribute such to God?

Matt. 7:11: “If you, although being wicked [or, “bad as you are,” NE], know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more so will your Father who is in the heavens give good things to those asking him?”

If God foreordained and foreknew Adam’s sin and all that would result from this, it would mean that by creating Adam, God deliberately set in motion all the wickedness committed in human history. He would be the Source of all the wars, the crime, the immorality, the oppression, the lying, the hypocrisy, the disease. But the Bible clearly says: “You are not a God taking delight in wickedness.” (Ps. 5:4) “Anyone loving violence His soul certainly hates.” (Ps. 11:5) “God . . . cannot lie.” (Titus 1:2) “From oppression and from violence he [the One designated by God as Messianic King] will redeem their soul, and their blood will be precious in his eyes.” (Ps. 72:14) “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) “He is a lover of righteousness and justice.”—Ps. 33:5.