To all those on this Forum, i would love to know what your take on this vital question is.
Did God know adam and eve would sin?
by gavindlt 58 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Rattigan350
Of course not.
If he did what purpose would that serve?
Predestination makes no sense
God is not all knowing. He does not know the future beyond what he wants to know or plans to do.
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truthlover123
Rat:
Presumptuous of you to know God's thoughts...where does scripture say that please?
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Vanderhoven7
My take is that He knew. To be made in God's image required it, i.e., knowing and engaging with evil and overcoming.
There is a book out entitled "God's Devil" that I believe shares this view.
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enoughisenough
I don't think he knew anymore than most newly weds know whether or not their spouse willl cheat on them. Actually, some newly weds have a better chance at knowing if they are marrying someone with whom they cheated. I think he gave them free will and let the chips fall. If Satan had not turned and fooled EVE....Strange thought: who tempted the other first. We read that Satan tempted Eve. But wasn't satan tempted by wanting the worship of the humans?
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gavindlt
Thanks Vanderhovan7 I'm beginning to think so too. I'll check out that book.
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Vanderhoven7
Since the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world, He had to know before creating man
God's Devil: The Incredible Story of How Satan's Rebellion Serves God's Purposes
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TTWSYF
God (of course), knew about the fall of mankind and allowed it. Just as he knew about the fall of angels and allowed it. Free will AND, to bring a greater good from it. What the greater good is? I don’t know, but I do have faith that my master is good.ttwsyf
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TonusOH
I think he knew it was probable. After all, he created all living beings, and that meant designing their minds and how those minds work. Why do I think it was probable? Because in the Bible, there are a few times when perfect beings break his rules. Obviously the serpent did, which means that the angel who used it to deceive Eve also turned his back on god. Adam and Eve, two perfect humans, disobeyed the single rule they were given. Later on, other angels left their posts in heaven to have sex with human women. Revelation implies that as many as a third of the angels fell along with Satan.
When that many perfect beings cannot follow god's rules, it's pretty clear that there is an issue with the design, or that the design was intended to have this effect. So the odds were in favor of Adam and Eve breaking god's rules.
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PioneerSchmioneer
It doesn't follow that there was a literal or history play of Adam and Eve "sin and thus fall from perfection" as Jehovah's Witnesses teach.
Judaism and Catholicism/Eastern Orthodox Christianity, as well as mainstream Protestantism teach that this narrative is, in the words of The Didache Bible:
"Not scientific or historical but rather a kind of prologue that uses literary image and symbolic language to express fundamental truth,"--Introduction to The First Book of Moses Commonly Called Genesis: Main Themes--The Didache Bible, Midwest Theological Forum, Ignatius Press, 2014
Not much in the Torah is narrative independent of some legal precedent. Non-Jewish readers often forget when reading Genesis through Deuteronomony that this is one book, not a library of books or independent stories. It is a book of laws. Any "story" that has found its way in (whether myth or legend or folklore) teaches or demonstrates a Jewish law in one way or another. To demonstrate, the most well-known tale about Abraham's life among Jews entitled "Abraham and the Idol Shop" does not appear anywhere in the Hebrew Scriptures but in the Talmud.* It is well-preserved folklore, but it does not teach any Jewish law, such as the Binding of Isaac (known in Hebrew as "Akedah") found at Genesis 22. So you don't find that story, though the most famous in Jewry about Abraham, in the Bible.
While Judaism and mainstream Christianity understand some sort of "fall from grace" is allegorically demonstrated in this narrative, it cannot be broken down into any type of historical timeline or explained what the imagery stood for. God, not being subject to time in mainstream religious theology and being Ineffable, is not subject to anthropomorphic concepts like comprehension or existing in time (therefore God "knowing something ahead of time" is only something a primitive idol deity would do--Jehovah's Witnesses being stuck of thinking of their "Jehovah" in antropomorphic or human-like terms.
*--For more details on the actual story, see here.