Recently, we have been able to establish, reluctantly by some and without an official admission, that God could not have spared Adam and Eve from the consequences of their disobedience that led to sin, which resulted in aging, diseases, suffering, natural disasters outside of paradise and then eventually death…
The main premise of this issue is that if God had shielded Adam and Eve from the consequences of their sin, it would have made him a liar, as He had stated clearly, that if they were to eat the forbidden fruit, they would definitely die…
Genesis 2:16-17
“16 God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
So, if God had forgiven Adam and Eve, as some have suggested He should have, and let them stay in the paradise to have access to the tree of life, Adam and Eve would not have died, but God would have been clearly proven a liar…
Not only that, by forgiving Adam and Eve, God would have proven Satan’s slander true, when he (Satan) said in:
Genesis 3:1-5
“1 Now, the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the God had made. And he (Satan) said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden? 2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die. 4 The serpent said to the woman, You surely will not die! 5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Satan is identified by many Christian and other religions as the one “hiding” behind the serpent or snake…or using it as a deception…
Some claim that ever since Adam and Eve were ousted from the paradise, God causes all the bad things that happen in the world today, including tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, diseases etc.
Is it true?
It doesn’t seem to be true at least in case of Job and his family, as the verses from Job 2: 16-19 show that Satan was the one who caused all the natural disasters and diseases that directly affected Job and his family…
Job 2:16, 18, 19
“16 While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” …
“…18 While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, 19 and behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people and they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
So from these Biblical accounts, we can clearly see that Satan, and NOT God, was causing all the natural disasters and diseases that affected Job and his family…
There are several issues needing consideration:
1. Why Satan had the power to cause all the bad things to Job and his family?
2. If Satan had the power in times of Job to cause natural disasters and diseases, is he responsible for them today? If God is, what proof is there?
3. Any suggestions?
Regarding Christian views of God’s omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence please see the OP by vjtorley.
Please try to focus on the main theme of the OP. If there is something that is not directly related to this OP but it is important to you, create your own OP, so that we can try to stay on the same theme as much as possible…
I’m removing all from ignore just to give them a chance to prove their points in a civil way…that is if any of them care…
Please try not to waste my time…
The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them…
Poor guy blamed God rather than Satan.
God point Mung! Didn’t notice this one…
“Satan is identified by many Christian and other religions as the one “hiding” behind the serpent or snake…or using it as a deception…”
In which other religions is the serpent identified with Satan? Is that a Muslim reading of the text as well? I’m genuinely asking here — I don’t know!
Judaism…I think, but I’m not 100% sure… I’m learning this stuff too… 🙂
That is an interesting question. Thanks for bringing that up. As if I don’t already have enough things to look into, lol.
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-interpretation/how-the-serpent-became-satan/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_mythology
An omnipotent God can do anything logically possible, if Satan exists it is by god’s permission. When you are the only non contingent being, you are the final cause of all things.
So the guy blamed the right being?
I’d say that the correct word is “assert”, not “establish”.
Back at around age 12, my pastor had urged me to read the Bible. And he explained that it was to be understood literally.
I began with Genesis.
Genesis 1 was okay. It was wrong of course, and I knew that (I was already interested in science). But it was a pretty reasonable explanation if intended for the pre-scientific people of that era.
Then I got to Genesis 2. And my reaction was “Surely, the pastor did not mean that to be literally true. So I didn’t take it to be true (and I didn’t ask the pastor). I took it to be a “Just So” story, intended to explain what made people different from other animals. At least that made sense. The idea that it was literally true did not make sense.
I took it that God gave us brains, and intended that we use them.
Thanks Mung. It would make sense as Muslims generally accept Jesus as a Prophet and most of his teachings. It would make sense that they would also accept the origins of evil and death…
If God were omnipotent, all-knowing, he would have known that Adam and Eve would sin in the first place…
God’s permission of existence of Satan is directly related to the permission of existence of evil…I think…
I had similar experience. What did you think was wrong with it? Just literal interpretation?
I agree… to some degree…
One really smart scientists once said that if he faces a dilemma between science and the Bible, he always goes with the Bible…
When asked why he said that he was mocked by his colleague scientists back in the day when it was believed that the universe had no beginning… as the Bible says that it did…
He sure was pretty happy when it was scientifically confirmed that the universe had a beginning…. 🙂
I like how you’re talking about a yet to happen event in the past tense.
It could still turn out that Big Bang cosmology is mistaken.
So what if God is a liar?
Why are you reading the Bible starting from the position that God is not a liar?
Why not read the text as it is, rather than what you want (or need) it to be.
God is a liar…..so what?
Just about everything.
Tree of knowledge of good an evil? Abstractions don’t grow on trees.
Talking serpent?
It explains too much.
It is far more like a fable than like history.
Until you realise … it’s just a story …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNnQTaX4iLw
The serpent is not identified with Satan in Judaism.
Omniscient would be sufficient but of course He did. Redemption is unnecessary without a fall.
And what is source of all evil? Disobedience. It is almost like organized religion was created as a vehicle to enforce obedience to authority, of course that is ridiculous.
If one assumes there is the necessity to blame someone, yes.
Indeed. So an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent entity sets up a paradise for a specific couple intentionally placing the one MacGuffin in the garden that will harm (perhaps kill) our couple should they partake of it’s fruit. And allows a deceiver in the paradise to push the couple to go for the McGuffin as well. How exactly is said entity not the evil one here?
And incidentally, how exactly could said couple even know what “disobedient” meant without eating of the MacGuffin of Good and Evil in the first place? So it’s not just a setup, it’s a Catch-22 fraudulent set-up.
Of course, to my reading, it’s nothing more than a children’s fable, so not much for in-depth analysis…
Really? Hmm… The Pentateuch does contain the first five books of the Bible or the Law including Genesis, where Adam and Eve’s account with the snake has been recorded…I wonder how the “talking snake” is explained by the scholars of Judaism?
You mean it has not been confirmed that the universe had a beginning?
You mean that the big bang is a sham?
So…you must have no problem with evangelizes lying to their flock either…
I always though the tree of knowledge was symbolic…
The prohibition could have been anything, like not talking to the snake, if it ever developed vocal chords in the larynx… 😉
By suggesting that preachers would be lying to their flock all you’re doing committing the ‘appeal to consequences’ fallacy.
If God is a liar then that would be bad.
Therefore God is not a liar.
Does not compute.
So, outside of your discomfort with the idea – why can’t God be a liar?
How could the expanding and fine-tuned-acceleration of the universe be explained?
How do you explain the state of extraordinary low entropy at the conception of the universe?
How do you explain that the universe was condensed to the size of an apple 13.7 billion years ago?
Fine tuned for what?
Its all about trust…
Trust is built on truth…If I can’t be trusted because I lie, then my kids don’t believe anything I promise them…
I said I was going to buy them a hockey shooting tarp…If I keep lying about it, are they going to believe anything else I say? Families are built on trust.
So has to be with God’s family…otherwise what’s the point?
For life…
It’s all about exercising free will…
Hi J-Mac,
That seems odd to me as if we look out at the universe we don’t see any life. We only see life in the tinest fraction, us. It rather seems to me the universe is fine tuned for stars, black holes or even just empty space. Would an objective observer, looking at the universe and it’s (so far) single patch of life agree with you that the universe is fine tuned for life? It’s also been “fine tuned” for life for billions of years, and here we are only now. The universe does not seem substantially different now to what it was 5 billion years ago. Was the universe also fine-tuned for life 5 billions years ago? If so, why did it take 5 billion more years to produce us?
It seems unlikely the universe is fine tuned for life, given the lack of life in it.
So, you have comprehension issues ..Tough luck!
Try to make an argument instead…
Wasn’t Satan a fallen angel??? Sinner just like Adam and Eve…wasn’t he?
Do talking snakes need to be taken seriously or should we just treat them as what they are, fables?
I’ve always found Greek and Roman mythology to be much more interesting and compelling than Hebrew mythology. Hebrew mythology just seems so nonsensical but perhaps that’s because people alive today believe the stories actually happened and the problem comes when people try to reconcile them with reality. For example God knew before he created them that Eve would eat the apple. He knows the future after all. So how do you explain Gods motivation and subsequent events in light of that?
Perhaps we can come up with a taxonomy of solutions:
1. The Job solution: “Shut up,” he explained.
2. Everything is for the (eventual) best in this best of all possible worlds.
3. Yeah, God is evil. What of it?
4. God is not omniscient and doesn’t see a lot of evil.
5. God is not omnipotent and is unable to intervene in some evil.
6. God is not omnipotent and he has an equally powerful adversary.
7. God doesn’t exist.
Are there others? For the record, I go with #7.
They could not have “free” will until they ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
How would you distinguish mythology from history, if you were to investigate and set apart one from another?
What investigative techniques would you use to distinguish myth from historic event?
Welcome (back?) to TSZ, PaulC. Apologies that your first comment languished in moderation for a while. Further comments will appear immediately.
Tend to agree. I have a few Jewish commentaries on Genesis. Will definitely be checking.
Yes, he should have said the universe is finely tuned for us. 🙂
Best summary I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot.
2a. All the bugs are fixed in version 2.0 (heaven). I promise.
2b. And I’m working on 3.0.
Excellent question. I’ll give a few examples and perhaps we can call evaluate them and decide whether they’re history or myth.
1. When he died Mohammed flew up to heaven on a winged horse named Borak.
2. A god told Jason to bring Orpheus with the Argonauts. Orpheus was able to out sing the Sirens and saved them from destruction.
3. Kronos ate his son to prevent him from being more powerful than him
4. The founder of Taoism was carried in the womb for over 70 years. As his mother delivered him he emerged an old man speaking philosophical profundities.
5. The earth was formed by the body of a giant dead serpent named Tiamat.
6. There was a giant primordial ant. This ant defecated and that poop because the universe.
7. Townspeople came to the house of a man who had taken in 2 strangers (male). They townspeople wanted to rape them but being a good host the man gave them his daughters to rape instead.
I’m willing to believe all of these, including 5. and 6. which are mutually incompatible. So lets being our analysis!!
The first stage of my analysis is to form the opinion that autocomplete was involved in the construction of these statements.