Why would God...?

[veritasseeker90]

This question isn't coming from me, but I have no idea how to answer it.

In my youth group, one of the girls are having a really hard time with the concept of God (in her mind) being a) a sexist b) setting us up for failure.

Her biggest question is, if God knew we would eat of the tree in the Garden, why would he put it there and then tell Adam and Eve not to eat of it? In her mind, she thinks that God set us up to fail. And if he knew, then why give us freewill?

Several of the older members have tried to explain that he didn't set us up to fail. But she keeps questioning and no one can really seem to give her a good enough answer.

I was wondering if you guys have any ideas on how to answer this question? And places to point her to in the Bible that explores it more in depth?

ETA: I think we've finally gotten her to understand that God is not sexist.

[seraphim]

People will tend to give answers rooted in their prefered theology. The answer that seems self evident to the Calvinist will be very different from the answer that makes sense to the Orthodox, for example. Those kind of "core paradigm" on the line discussions can get tense.

If God gives us free will then corollary to that must be the freedom to use it wrongly, which is what our first parents did. The alternative is that God prevents us from making any errant choice. Where is the virtue in that? Clocks and robots have that sort of virtue. To say "you set me up" is a very old arguement...well the serpent tricked me, well you gave me that woman. Finding someone else to blame is as old as Adam. And it's the wrong respose.

When Christ came as the Second Adam He showed the proper heart towards the fallenness of our neighbor. "... neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more." "Come unto me ye who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest..." "Father forgive them".

So rather than say, "it's not fair, its Adam's fault, God should have known better/cared more." Better to say with the prophet Moses, ""Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. "

How easy it is to say the evil I know is God's fault he should have known better, how hard to say, "Save my neighbors O Lord, and blot me out instead."

[Christian Soldier]

Amen, Seraphim!(Hey, I rhymed) When asked such questions, I usually assume some odd, often random, expression and ask them why they blame God for their problems? I like your answer better. At least I don't have to run away after saying it.

[Jeff Gerke]

Veritas, one of my (many) bizarre theories about God and the Bible involves Adam and Eve and the Garden.

Think about it this way: what if God knew He had a traitor in His midst? What if God knew that one of His chief angels had used his own free will to choose disobedience to God?

(By the way, I believe angels did have free will in the beginning. But at the Fall their choices were sealed and now they no longer have free will.)

What if God needed to purge the evil from His midst? Now, He could've chosen to simply zap the guy. But maybe this was just potential evil, evil in an unborn state, and the angel had not actually committed any crime. If God zapped Him, perhaps it might give rise to doubt in the heavenlies and others might've wondered if He were zapping angels for no reason (I'm totally speculating here).

For whatever reason, let's say God knew He had a traitor in His midst but didn't want to just zap him. That's our premise. With me?

In my first novel I constructed a scenario in which the FBI knew who the bad guy was but they hadn't actually caught him doing anything wrong. They couldn't arrest him for suspicion. They had to catch him in the act. So they created a trap for him. They set out an irresistible bait and hid in the bushes to see if he'd take it. He did, and they got him.

They couldn't arrest him before, because they had no proof of him doing anything illegal. So they staged something in order to catch him red-handed and cart him off to jail.

Now, back to the Garden. What if God decided to set a trap for His traitor? What if He wanted to provide the opportunity for the bad guy to take his potential treachery and turn it into actual treachery? Then He would be "justified when He judges." (Of course He'd be justified anyway, but work with me.)

Now, what bait to set out? Hmm... If this traitor wants to hurt Me and oppose Me and thwart Me, what irresistible thing could I set out to coax him to bring his evil into the open? (Of course God wasn't casting around for ideas, but allow me the anthropomorphism, please.)

I know! I'll create a new being and call it My favorite! I know this traitor is jealous and is afraid of losing his place. If I call some "lower" creature My favorite, it will drive him to act on his hidden evil.

And so I'll create this creature. And I suppose I'll need a place for him to live and a universe to house that place. And I'll give the whole project a blip or two of eternity to work out, and My problem will be solved.

So God creates the universe and the Garden and Adam and Eve. He declares them very good. And then He (figuratively) leaves them alone and (figuratively) hides in the bushes.

The trap is set.

Sure enough, before long here comes the traitor. He manifests into physical form--and manifests his evil into an overt act of rebellion against God.

Gotcha.

God appears. Gets confessions. And hands out punishments.

Okay, that's phase 1. Phase 2 is the blip of eternity He'd allocated to this process. The traitor is identified and incarcerated, but he's caused a mess, mixed God's children with the devil's children, and is wrecking the universe God created for the project. Time to move in to redeem it all.

God sent His Son to die on the Cross--knowing that He could get Him back. God allowed His children to be cursed and cast out into a fallen world--knowing He could get them back too.

Jesus comes, draws His sheep, blip is over, final judgment: the traitor is purged permanently. The temporary universe is erased. God is left in better than His original condition: now the evil is gone AND He's got a new vast array of redeemed humans who love Him of their own free will.

Tada!

Jeff

[seraphim]

So humans are the left over bait in a cosmic sting operation?

[Jeff Gerke]

:-)

It's not a hill I'm ready to die on, of course. What I was driving toward was a perspective shift, a way of looking at the problem from a different angle.

God doesn't leave leftovers, not in the sense of waste. But when Jesus fed the 5,000 there were 12 baskets of leftovers. These leftovers could be a blessing to many.

[Teskas]

I should like to share a link with you, a commentary on this portion of the Genesis account. It takes about 30 minutes to read and is carefully structured (which requires some concentration). I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

www.utoronto.ca/wjudaism/journal/vol1n2/eve.html

[veritasseeker90]

Jeff, I laughed at your earlier post. I don't think it was supposed to make me laugh, but I did.

Teskas, thanks!

[tris]

Veritas, part of the answer to your young friend's dilemna is found in Revelation. The tree was never intended as a trap. We tend to forget the tree of life was right next to it and God never forbade Adam and Eve to eat of that!
But like any wise parent, God sets boundaries for our growth and maturity. When my boys were little, they weren't allowed past a certain fence post (we lived in the country). We set the boundary to keep them safe until they were old enough to venture farther afield. All they knew was they'd get a spanking if they disobeyed.
Maybe once we get to the other side of eternity, we'll see that God had the same thing in mind. That particular tree was part of an over-arching plan that we weren't quite old enough for just yet.

My husband's favorite way of describing it is by saying that we picked the fruit before it was ripe.

[knightofhyn]

I've always looked at it from the idea of obedience. You can't have obedience without rules to be broken. Adam and Eve really had it easy, they only had the one rule to listen to.

[tris]

Yeah, but it was a doozy! The Garden came up in my college and career class at church. One of our students was curious about the whole Lilith myth (one of her friends brought it up). She knew it was nuts, but not why the myth was floating around.
That also led into a discussion about was it Eve's fault or actually Adam's? Everyone tends to blame Eve, but Adam is the one Paul points to as bringing about the fall.

[veritasseeker90]

^Well, Adam was the one who was actually commanded, and he was standing right there.

[knightofhyn]

It's both. Eve was responsible for Eve and Adam was responsible for both, Eve to a limited degree in that he was responsible as leader and Adam himself in that he had his own.

[The Blue Collared Philosopher]

I think people often come to the Fall with the wrong perspective. Most people look at the Fall and ask, "Why didn't God stop them?" or "why did God even give the option of failure?" Or something along those lines. God gave Adam and Eve an option, just like he gives us an option. There is ALWAYS a choice. God loves us, and because he loves us he doesn't make us love him back. He wants to be loved because we WANT to love him. God doesn't want robots. We all desire love from other people, but we don't want people to love us just because they have to. We want to be loved for who we are. Its the same with God, God didn't want Adam and Eve to love him because they HAD to. He wanted Adam and Eve to love him because the WANTED to. That is real love.

So when Adam and Eve failed, why did God let them live? Why didn't he just start over? Because he loves us. Because he is merciful, because is giving EVERYONE a chance. People don't understand how letting us live in a fallen world can be love...or mercy...but it is.

People often look at God and don't understand him, but its because they don't take into consideration all of his attributes. When the Fall happened, God had to be just, he had to punish his creation...but that didn't make him unmerciful. He was still merciful then. God was just...yet merciful. He punished Jesus, our lamb, so He could give his creation another chance. God never stops using one of his attributes to use different one, he uses all of his attributes, (love, anger, jealousy, mercy, grace, justice, etc...) altogether in perfect unision all at the same time. He never abandon's one to use another. When the Fall happened, man failed, but God prevailed. God doesn't change. He didn't change at the Fall, man did. God remained perfect.

He still loves us, he is still just, (Even when we can't see it, OR understand it), and i know that is hard cuz when things go wrong, our emotions tell us that life isn't fair. But you know what? I'm glad life isn't fair. Cuz if life was, i'd be going to hell and Jesus wouldn't have died for me...cuz Jesus didn't DESERVE to die. We do. We all do. But it isn't about us. It never was. It's always been about God.

[Divides the Waters]

"'I always thought that about the Garden of Eden story,' said Ford.

'Eh?'

'Garden of Eden. Tree. Apple. That bit, remember?'

'Yes, of course I do.'

'Your God person puts an apple in the middle of a garden and says, do what you like guys, oh, but don't eat the apple. Surprise, surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush shouting 'Gotcha.' It wouldn't have made any difference if they hadn't eaten it.'

'Why not?'

'Because if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won't give up. They'll get you in the end.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Never mind, eat the fruit.'

'You know, this place almost looks like the Garden of Eden.'

'Eat the fruit.'

'Sounds quite like it too.' "

Douglas Adams
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.




I think that the reason this is still a difficult question to answer is that we can really see this only in human terms. If I had a child, I wouldn't give him the option of putting his hand on the stove just to give him free will. For that matter, neither would I put him in a playpen full of razors. While I do believe that this world is fallen because of man's sin (clearly the message the Bible gives us consistently throughout), I do have to wonder why the level of punishment for the level of disobedience. "Didn't I tell you I'd have to kill you if you tried to be like me?" just doesn't cut it. To me, this is the essence of faith and obedience. One of my favorite scriptures is Joshua 24:15--"As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." It's not a question of understanding, or even agreeing with, God. It's a question of allegiance, with the hope of fulfillment and understanding in the end.