Can Veeky Forums help me with a Bible question...

Can Veeky Forums help me with a Bible question? My original understanding of the Adam and Eve story in Genesis was that it is supposed to explain the problem of evil; since Eve bites the apple, she is the one that introduces evil into the world, not God, and therefore humans are the cause of evil, which preserves God's omni-benevolence. After reading Genesis, however, it struck me that the tree is merely the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Therefore, it seems that Eve biting the apple only revealed the knowledge of evil, meaning that evil existed prior to humans. So did God create evil, and humans only found out about it?

TLDR; how does man introduce evil into the world if biting the apple only causes knowledge of evil?

I think with knowledge they become aware of sins are more susceptible to them. Knowledge of pleasure makes them more sinful.

That's just my guess.

It is the tree of consciousness, i.e. civilization. It is the natural man Adam being degraded and forced to toil the fields and find his own path, rather than to simply obey the voice of God.

biting the apple caused disobedience of God which was the first evil act in history thus introducing evil into the world

but god created adam and eve knowing they would sin. so god is responsible for evil.

He gave them the choice to blindly follow him or become seduced by free will it's a story about humans becoming self aware

It was just a myth about puberty before Christians started reading too much into it.

The true first sin wasn't eating the apple, since they did not know that they were committing a sin by doing so. When they lied to god about it, that is where they knew what sin was and willfully committed it.

but god knew they would sin. he knew even before creating them (according to the bible) that they and billions of others would sin and have to spend eternity in hell but he still let it all go ahead. hes not a perfect. loving god.

Why is everyone talking about an apple? Genesis doesn't mention which fruit eve ate. The Apple is just the fanfic of some renaissance painters

it was doubt

adam and eve(by default) were made in god image making them already godlike

eating the fruit changed them and made them mortal (if you eat it you will surely die)

He is perfect because he condemns those he loves to hell when they sin. He doesn't break his own laws by giving people a free pass (until Jesus comes along and atones for our sins, which is a whole other can of worms). He can still love people who are in hell. A metaphor for that would be a father who still loves his child, even though that child has forsaken him. The child might have rebelled or disowned the father, but the father still gives his love unconditionally.

>He is perfect because he condemns those he loves to hell when they sin.

there is so much wrong with that sentence.

why create a soul in the first place if you know its going to spend eternity in hell for committing a finite amount of sin. its just cruel. god is cruel to say the least.

> The child might have rebelled or disowned the father, but the father still gives his love unconditionally.

what good is unconditional love if youre buring in hell.

Frankly, this all boils down to the concept of freewill and theodicy. This has been debated back and forth since the dawn of time and a discussion on a Senegalese basket weaving forum in the middle of the night isn't really going to cover it. I could offer some books that you could read if you are truly curious about this subject.

>The child might have rebelled or disowned the father, but the father still gives his love unconditionally.
And in this metaphor the Father proves his unconditional love by repeatedly throwing lava on top of his son for the crime of "disowning" him, which involves not being slavishly obedient to his every whim. Not listening to the guy who solves his familial problems with lava is supposed to be a condemnation of the son's morality, not the father's, and pointing this out means you wear unfashionable hats.

>I could offer some books that you could read if you are truly curious about this subject.

thats ok thanks. im just an aussie having a shitpost.

Isiah 45 "...I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel... I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."

The bible gets a whole lot more interesting when you don't look at it with rose colored goggles.

>and create evil:

god confirmed for evil.

God is just 2deep4humans

Explain?

Pleasebeabananapleasebeabananapleasebeabanana

banana of knowledge of good and evil.

>I'm burning your flesh because I love you! Forever!

Wouldn't instructing God's subjects to disobey him be the first sin?

And wasn't satan cast out of heaven before Adam and Eve were created?

these are good points and i think you address them by saying that satan is a spiritual being and therefore is in a different category than adam and eve. so when people talk about introducing sin into the world they need to be more specific about it being sin in the physical world i.e. satan introduced sin into the spiritual world by rebelling against God but adam and eve introduced sin into the physical world by disobeying God. basically the decisions of spiritual beings affect the spiritual world and the decisions of physical beings affect the material world.

This is actually so easy to understand how come no one figured it out

To be evil one must be aware, if you kill someone without any knowledge or intention of doing it you have done nothing wrong.

>TLDR; how does man introduce evil into the world if biting the apple only causes knowledge of evil?

Read the FUCKING story.

Gen 3, 4-5

>4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

>And you will be like God.

It's a story about fucking hybris. Evil is the absence of Good (aka God).

>After reading Genesis
Maybe you should read the entire post. Plus your answer completely misses the point of the question.

Are you saying my question/objection is easy to understand? Or the answer should be obvious?

>Evil is the absence of Good (aka God).

God is omnipresent, there can be no absence of his presence.

Tell that to the demons in the Abyss

>literalists thinking hell is actual fire
Fuck off.
Yes, it says that also in the Bible.
First human sin,
God is also omnipotent, meaning He can not be present in Hell.

He just knows what happens there.
So?

This is just my literary interpretation not a theological one

But I see it is humanity becoming sentient. Like the first apes who started having thoughts about themselves. Apes can't do evil even when they have gay sex or kill another ape or fight or have lustful thoughts because they're apes and can't control their thoughts or actions. Eve eating the apple made her a human, not an ape, and therefore held to the same standards as God himself. Thus it could be said that God wanted the easy path for us, he wanted us to enjoy our kingship as the dominant animals without having to worry about morality and shit. Instead we had to KNOW, and that is the fundamental problem and PERHAPS blessing. I suggest reading Paradise Lost, it illumines this them very richly.

You seem knowledgeable.

Are there any theologians who think Hell might not necessarily be eternal? That people in Hell can find a way out? A second chance? Maybe at the Last Judgment they'll get a progress report or something?

But evil was already existent even before the fruit was consumed, since the Tree was that of 'Good and Evil', meaning the form and distinction of evil had already been created. And since nothing can be uncreated except God (according to Christians, anyways), then it follows that evil is also a creation of God's.

Evil existed, it just didn't exist in humans.

Evil is a creation of God, like I said earlier it's in the Bible (I'm not going to find exactly where.) What of it? God has created an infinite number of things and whether they are good or not is kind of irrelevant unless you're a Calvinist or one of those other wackos that think predestination is a thing (it's more accurate to say that there is a general 'path' that people are on and have the freedom to leave. Reducing the human will to nothing is actually a tenant of Theistic Satanism.)

You're limiting an omnipotent being by projecting a very human morality onto Him, and also presuming both a duality between free-will and predetermination.

The easiest way I can explain this is by situating a labyrinth where every single path is forked. There is an internal tugging towards both forkings, and a general idea of where to go but it is foggy and dubious. Sometimes one forking or the other has a vague sign or marking causing a person's rational side to think that is the way to go, and sometimes the 'general idea' of where to go contradicts that tugging, or goes with it. Any forking can be the end of the labyrinth, and upon choosing one path or the other the opening closes behind. The general idea of where to go may be scraped if it is deemed ineffective by the rational part because an end has yet to be found, but it isn't ever too late to follow it again even though the doors behind have closed. Choosing every 'correct' path or every 'incorrect' path does not determine whether the end will be good or bad because the purpose of the labyrinth isn't to find the end quickly as possible.

The theory of Apocatastasis in Christian Theology basically is that. When it happens is debated, and it's rejected by the Catholic Church (where Purgatory is the place of cleansing and Hell is eternal.)

The reasoning is sound though. Even Lucifer gets forgiven under it. I think it is actually Lucifer that gets forgiven, and so all under his influence are also forgiven.

"You're limiting an omnipotent being by projecting a very human morality onto Him"

The morality is divine. Or rather our morality is based on the concept of an objective and universal Good. And that Good cannot have any evil whatsoever, otherwise it would not be Good.

If an omnibenevolent Creator exists, it did not create evil. If it did, then it's evil, and we're all fucked beyond our comprehension.

You're doing it again: please stop.

What version of the Bible are you quoting here? If you're going to quote the Bible it's important to say what version you are quoting because different versions say different things and often have different meanings since each translation pushes sometimes different viewpoints.

In any case not going to disagree. The Bible certainly does get pretty interesting.

St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Thomas Aquinas would argue that Evil isn't real. Which the guy you replied to kinda touched on but didn't go quite that far. It's been awhile, so I may be off in what I'm about to say. But I think they thought that Evil isn't a real thing it's just a privation, or lacking of good. And I believe at some point there was some argument about how God is present in all things that exist not in things that don't exist. And then since Evil does not exist it's not a problem. The whole argument against evil existing was in and of itself an argument against the problem of evil. The problem of evil being:

1) God exists.
2)God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.
3)Such a being would naturally want to prevent evil, know how to, and be able to.
4)Evil exists.
5)Therefore God is either not omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient, or does not exist.

This was a paraphrasing of the expanded form of the argument on wikipedia.

Any of those conclusions was not acceptable to theologians but the argument was logically valid if all the premises are true. The premises being God exists, God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, and that Evil exists. Therefore in order to dismantle the argument they chose to argue that evil doesn't exist and thus the problem of evil isn't a problem at all. Personally I think it was creative and clever on their part to try and argue that to dismantle the problem of evil but I don't really think their argument was as successful as they would have hoped.

I think it's a particularly strong argument when you really consider the implications of the omnipotence of God, and also the free will of the things he created.

It suggests that the true evil is the active willing against God's will. The turning away from all life and creation and the turning towards emptiness and nothing. It's the spiraling inward and downward, away from the rising infinity of God and Heaven.

Or, to put it as more than one theologian has put it, no one is in Hell who doesn't want to be there.

Depends on who you ask.

The Bible alludes multiple times to the fall such as in Genesis 6. And then apocryphal books such as the Book of Enoch elude to it further. From the traditional Jewish perspective the snake was merely a snake. From the traditional Christian perspective the snake was Satan. Which is and of itself an interesting question of what Satan is and how the concept of Satan transformed and evolved over the centuries. For example in Job 1:6 "One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them." To quote the New Oxford Annotated Bible NRSV with Apocrypha's annotation for Job 1:6, "The scene is a meeting of the council of heavenly beings presided over by the Lord (cf. 1 Kings 22.19-22, Job 15.8; Ps 82.1;89.7; Jer 23.18). In the book of Job, Satan is not yet the personal name of the devil, as in later Jewish and Christian literature. Rather, the Hebrew (with the definite article) simply means "the adversary" or "the accuser", a reference to one of the members of the divine council who served as a sort of independent prosecutor (cf. Zech 3.1). The accuser suggests that Job's piety may have been bought with divine protection and provision."

Continuation of and But I digress, even in the Bible there is disagreement as to when the fall happened. Certain parts such as Genesis 6 seem to indicate the fall of angels happened after the fall of man. The Book of Enoch would seem to corroborate this. But then you have parts of the Bible such as Revelation 12:9 where it refers to Satan as "that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan" a call back to Genesis and the snake in the garden actually being the Devil which would mean the fall happened before the events of Genesis 6 and the Book of Enoch. Granted the Book of Enoch is apocryphal but still. If you wanted to say that Eve brought evil into the world, not God, and place the blame on humans as the cause for Evil then you would be contradicting John 1:1-3. Specifically John 1:3. "All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being." NRSV. By this all things that are, came into being through God. Which is part of the reason why you have people like St. Thomas of Aquinas and St. Augustine of Hippo that said evil isn't real, because otherwise it might implicate God as having created evil. It's also a way of trying to dismantle the problem of evil as stated in

I disagree about the argument about evil being a privation rather than something exists being good argument.

Granted, the argument put forward by St. Augustine is an excellent argument which relies on a proper understanding of what Evil is in order to shrug off the problem of Evil argument, but itt does however still seem to have some problems. One of the primary problems is that if evil is really simply the lack of good why then does God not make it so that we are the best we can possibly be. For example, if one were to view good and evil as water in a cup, with the cup being a human being, then evil would simply be the lack of water. Then say the cup is three quarters full; while in one sense it would be fair to say that God cannot get rid of evil because there is nothing there in yet another it would be equally fair to say that God could get rid of evil by simply filling the privation with good. But this raises an interesting point; if God were to fill the metaphorical cup then it would be fair to say that we would be 100% good. But would that make us God? If God is the most good thing there is then it would be fair to say He is 100% good. But if God were to make us 100% good by filling our privation would it be correct to say that we are as good as God? Is it possible to be as good as God? Medieval theologians and philosophers would likely try to argue that you can’t and as a result you can’t be as good as God.

continuation of in reply to Ultimately the truth of the claim is very difficult to discern if not impossible. This is because the argument relies on a semantic argument of Evil which is an abstract concept in and of itself. That is to say that it argues that those who think of Evil as actually existing in the world are mistaken because by St. Augustine’s definition of Evil, Evil does not exist as an actual entity. Others may disagree and argue that Evil is in fact an actual entity. In either case the argument would be based on an equally unverifiable claim that evil does or does not exist. Thus it is fair to say that Medieval philosophers and theologians were able to show, albeit indirectly and unintentionally, that the Problem of Evil argument does not prove that God does not exist because Evil itself is an ambiguous concept.

continuation of in reply to And of course all this is assuming that free will exists and that we aren't just marionettes with God pulling our strings. But I don't feel like going down that road at the moment. Personally I'm in favor of the existence of free will. But there are some rather good arguments against it based on claims about the nature of God.

Your response to him is practically handwaving. "Oh, he's god, it doesn't have to make sense! Except when it suits my argument."

If God knows all that will happen (and you've stated that he's omnipotent, which means he would have the power to know everything), then how can you say that things are not predetermined? If something is certain to happen then the probability of any alternative is zero. That is not a choice, but rather the illusion of it. Unless you think you can surprise God?

continuation of in reply to It's a convoluted question with even more convoluted answers. If you really wanted to you could argue that God did create evil. And then say that since God is by nature pure goodness, then evil must then somehow be good. Perhaps try and argue that it's something to be struggled against and something about free will. Anyway my point isn't that the argument I just mentioned is my personal viewpoint nor is it that it's an actual good argument, though I'm sure a good one could be made. My point is that your question has many different answers and not all of them agree with each other. So as antithetical as it may be to say considering how many posts I've dedicated to answering your question, my personal opinion is there isn't any knowable true answer to your question.

One of the good arguments I mentioned arguing against the existence of free will. A bit off topic but if you're interested in reading about how some medieval philosophers and theologians tried to deal with what you just said you should look up some of what the following people had to say on the subject: Boethius, St. Anselm of Canterbury, St. Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus. Not saying I agree with their arguments but they are interesting to say the least.

Except that's exactly right: God doesn't have to make sense.

I've explained how things are not predetermined. Learn to read.

You're thinking of time too linearly.