Did God set Adam and Eve up??
Here’s a question I got from a friend via Facebook that I wanted to share with Dojo readers because it’s one that’s been asked by the faithful as well by the critics and skeptics for centuries (and, as is often the case, is a result of surface-level “Sunday School” readings of the Bible).
Here’s the question:
So I was having a discussion and someone asked me a question that I don’t really have a good answer for and I was hoping you could help out? The question was. If God knew we would eat from that tree why did he put it there? It’s like setting someone up to fail. Alright how do I answer that question?
Here’s my response:
If I tell you I love you and promise to be faithful to you, but never have the ability to do otherwise, then my love is meaningless. A person who promises to not cheat on his wife while the two of them are on a desert island is no moral hero. There has to be the opportunity to NOT be faithful in order for it to mean something.
There had to be the ability/opportunity for humanity to NOT obey God in order for their obedience and hence their faith, trust and love of Him to be real.
God even set them up to win! He gave them EVERY fruit in the garden and only told them there was one which they weren’t to eat. He did everything to make it so they would demonstrate their faith and their trust and be His rightful stewards of creation…but they listened to the enemy and did the ONE THING they were prohibited from doing.
God stacked the odds in humanity’s favor, with humanity rebelling in the one way they were told not to.
And the first thing they both did was to begin shifting the blame (“the woman you gave me…”, “the serpent deceived me…”)!
This continues to the present day, most tellingly in those who continue pointing to God’s total provision, with one prohibition, in the garden as the real source of blame.
JM
F0r those wanting more on this topic, here are some recommended resources on Eden, the Fall and Genesis in general:
- Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary – by C. John Collins
- The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17 (NICOT) – by Victor Hamilton
- Genesis (TOTC) – by Derek Kidner
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Categories: Biblical Theology, Blog, Hebrew Bible, Theological issues
JM
This is something I thought about:
If I invite you to my house, and say-
“JM, you can eat anything you want in my refrigerator EXCEPT the apple pie.”
and you say
“Well if you didn’t want ME to eat the apple pie, why did you make it?!” ,
you would seem very deceived as to your place in my house and life! 🙂
In the same way, IT’S GOD’S GARDEN, WITH GOD’S TREES!! He, by his identity and Kingly Sovereignty as Creator, can forbid them to eat whatever he wants WITHOUT EXPLANATION. It is self centered to assume he “set us up to fail,” as though it was ever all about us in the first place.
I don’t believe we needed an opportunity to be unfaithful to prove our faithfulness, any more than my wife needs to have an opportunity for adultery to prove her faithfulness to me. (I know that you used the word “ability” and not the word “opportunity,” yet the ability to do something does not assume liberty to do it. In other words, if I give my son a midnight curfew, he has the ABILITY to stay out until four in the morning, but not the liberty. His ability is to be used to obey me, and in this he has liberty.)
Yet C.S. Lewis captures what you are saying very well when in “Mere Christianity.” Even if there were only one created being, and that one creature had free will, that being could make a choice between worshiping itself or it’s Creator. In other words, what was Lucifer’s “temptation?” He simply chose himself instead of God. He didn’t need an “opportunity” to be unfaithful to prove his faithfulness to God.
by olatunde on May 8, 2011 at 5:47 pm
Good points, Olatunde. I think that the opportunity was still needed, but only in the sense of growth/testing. Much like the testing of Abraham; GOD already knew what Abraham would do, but going through the test and coming out on the other side having been faithful was something that not only helped Abraham grow in his own faith, but also served as an example for all who would hear/read of it afterwards.
So while Adam & Eve didn’t NEED to be tested (in a philosophical/ontological sense) in order to truly love God, as the first stewards of creation and bearers of His Image given the mandate of filling the earth, I believe such a testing was needed in an historical sense. Of course, I have to admit that this is somewhat speculative and I don’t want to seem dogmatic about it…I’ll leave that for my Supralapsarianist, Infralapsarianist, and Sublapsarianist friends to debate (for those unfamiliar with those terms…count yourself blessed!).
This is how it seems to me at the moment, anyway. But I’m open to and appreciate other views on the subject.
by jm on May 9, 2011 at 12:31 am
To a certain extent I understand…I think? 🙂 It’s all those big words at the end, man! (I was like…what?!?……WHAT!?)
Alright, even though my wife doesn’t “need” the opportunity “philosophically/ontologically” (:)) to be tested in her faithfulness to me, when we take the vows, the question has to be asked…the question of her forsaking all others…the choice of me or other men…she has to choose me knowingly and willingly for it to be free…?
I’m thinking out loud about what you said concerning the historical need for the testing of her faithfulness. In history, the day she made a vow to me, she “passed the test” of faithfulness, and she has continued to pass that test “in sickness or health, for rich or for poor…” etc.
If you mean something like this, I feel you.
by olatunde on May 9, 2011 at 5:38 am