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[Hopeful]

Christians often have a logic that explains X, Y, Z within their theology, but then the question constantly arises as to WHY the Christian God couldn't simply do things differently at a "meta" level.

Remember, the Christian God is all-powerful, so the Christian God can ALWAYS do things differently if the Christian God feels like it.

1: WHY did God have to make the snake and the tree and engineer Adam/Eve with the capacity to sin? Couldn't the all-powerful Creator the Universe have made things otherwise?

2: WHY couldn't the Christian God simply forgive Adam/Eve after the disobedience? I forgive people all the time. Humans forgive people all the time. Why the vengeful wrath?

3: WHY did the Christian God choose to punish the descendants of Adam/Eve for the disobedience that Adam/Eve carried out? Couldn't God have just "cut the cord" and not transferred it and punish Adam/Eve without punishing all mankind and without punishing all those who followed? Why saddle all generations with the burden of Original Sin for something that only Adam/Eve did? Isn't it immoral to punish the descendants for the sins of their ancestors? Isn't it immoral to "punish the son for the sins of the father?" How does the transfer of Original Sin onto the offspring/descendants who followed make any more moral/logical sense that punishing me because my father or grandfather or great-grandfather committed a murder? (As nonbelievers sometimes say: "I didn't elect Adam/Eve as my representatives.")

4: WHY didn't the Christian God come up with a less immoral/savage/bizarre form of atonement for Original Sin than animal sacrifice? It's disgusting, immoral, and absurd. It doesn't even make any sense. Were there no other options? Were there no other ways for people to atone for Original Sin? God encouraged/ accepted these animal sacrifices for centuries. That's a barbaric form of recompense.

5: WHY couldn't God just forgive, rather than encourage/accept animals sacrifices for centuries? This makes God seem like an evil demon who doesn't even rise to the level of morality of an average person on the street, who can easily forgive.

6: After centuries and centuries of animal sacrifices to atone for Original Sin, God then suddenly decides that enough is enough and he will torture/slaughter an innocent person (or Himself in physical form, I guess) in order to create the ultimate sacrifice to end all sacrifices? That's the only loophole He can come up with to make moral the immoral rules that He created? What about simple forgiveness?

In each case, were there no other options? Does God have any freedom? In all these cases, were there not other options that the Christian God could've pursued?

It almost seems like the Christian God is following some weird immoral/illogical cosmic rulebook/manual and that His hands are tied. But in that case, where did that weird immoral/illogical rulebook come from?

It's these "meta" questions that have no answers.

[jimwalton]

Thanks for your questions. They all have answers, so thanks for asking.

> Remember, the Christian God is all-powerful...

But we have to define what we mean by "all-powerful." It doesn't mean God can do anything, or that there are no limits to what he can do (Mark 6:5). It means that God is able to do all things that are proper objects of his power. His power is all-sufficient, and he is able to overcome apparently insurmountable problems. He has complete power over nature, though often He lets nature take its course, because that's what he created it to do. He has power over the course of history, though he often lets that take its course also. He has power to change the human personality, but only as individual allow. He has the power to conquer death and sin, and to save a human soul for eternity. He has power over the spiritual realm. What all this means is that his sovereign will is never frustrated. What he chooses to do, he accomplishes.

There are, however, certain qualifications of his "all-powerfulness." He cannot arbitrarily do anything whatsoever we may conceive of.

- He can't do what is logically absurd or contradictory (make a square circle, make a married bachelor)
- He can't act contrary to his nature. Self-contradiction is not possible.
- He cannot fail to do what he has promised
- He cannot interfere with the freedom of man. Otherwise we're not free.
- He cannot change the past

> 1: WHY did God have to make the snake and the tree and engineer Adam/Eve with the capacity to sin? Couldn't the all-powerful Creator the Universe have made things otherwise?

No, he couldn't have made things differently. God is, by definition, eternal. Anything created is, therefore, not eternal, and therefore, not God. Since only God is incapable of sin, any created thing is capable of sin. So God had no choice but to engineer Adam & Eve with the capacity to sin. But what God did was to reveal Himself to them, motivate them to seek what was good and what was right, provide for their every need, and warn them about making a sinful decision. In other words, He couldn't have done anything differently or better, and He did everything possible to insure success.

> 2: WHY couldn't the Christian God simply forgive Adam/Eve after the disobedience?

He could and did, but the consequences of their decision and actions stood. I can be sorry I killed somebody, but it doesn't bring them back. Sin brought death as a natural consequence. (God is life, and a break from God is a break from life, viz., death.) Their action could be forgiven, but the consequences stood. What God did, though, was institute a plan to undo the consequences of their actions. That's what was possible for God to do, and that's what He did.

> 3: WHY did the Christian God choose to punish the descendants of Adam/Eve for the disobedience that Adam/Eve carried out?

No one was punished for A&E's sin except A&E. After their sin people were born separated from God, but they were punished for their sin, as are we. We are not punished for A&E's sin, but for our own.

> Isn't it immoral to "punish the son for the sins of the father?"

Yes it is. That's why God doesn't do that. The text that says "punish for the sins of the fathers" doesn't mean that I get judged because of what someone else did. It means if my parents were sinners, it's very likely that they taught me to be a sinner also, 'cause the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. But we are each punished only for our own sin.

> 4: WHY didn't the Christian God come up with a less immoral/savage/bizarre form of atonement for Original Sin than animal sacrifice? It's disgusting, immoral, and absurd.

You misunderstand animal sacrifice. First of all, it was a very fitting symbol of the theology behind it. Secondly, it was a very practical way of them eating meat in ancient society. They didn't throw the meat away, but ate it after the sacrifice. The sacrifice had valuable theological symbolism, and then it provided valuable nutrition.

> 5: WHY couldn't God just forgive, rather than encourage/accept animals sacrifices for centuries?

See #4 above. It was theologically right on target and a practical way for the ancients to eat meat. There's nothing barbaric or demonic about it.

> 6: After centuries and centuries of animal sacrifices to atone for Original Sin, God then suddenly decides that enough is enough and he will torture/slaughter an innocent person (or Himself in physical form, I guess) in order to create the ultimate sacrifice to end all sacrifices?

First of all it wasn't a sudden decision but one that had been planned from before the creation of the cosmos. Secondly, the barbarism of the crucifixion was a rich theological symbol of sin and sacrifice. Third, God didn't torture or slaughter Christ, people did, in their animalistic, barbaric, demonic way of brutality and horror.

It wasn't a loophole that God came up with, but the only way to conquer death. The only way to escape from a prison is if you are in the prison; the only way to defeat death is if you are in death.

> In each case, were there no other options? Does God have any freedom?

No, there were no other options. These were the only was that said what needed to be said (theologically), and that properly addressed the necessary consequences of actions. If someone falls off a cliff into the valley below, the only possible option is to get down into that valley. Doing something unrelated (but a nicer option as a show of freedom) is worthless. The only choice, based on the action, is to address the unavoidable consequences: go down into the valley, do first aid, get help or carry him or her out. I have plenty of freedom, but if I want to address the problem, there are no other options.

> It almost seems like the Christian God is following some weird immoral/illogical cosmic rulebook/manual and that His hands are tied. But in that case, where did that weird immoral/illogical rulebook come from?

Not at all. This is just a false conclusion based on misunderstandings. Hopefully I have addressed some of your concerns, but in the process probably raised more questions. Let's talk.

> It's these "meta" questions that have no answers.

But they do. Hopefully I've been of help.

[Deer John]

> No, he couldn't have made things differently. God is, by definition, eternal. Anything created is, therefore, not eternal, and therefore, not God. Since only God is incapable of sin, any created thing is capable of sin. So God had no choice but to engineer Adam & Eve with the capacity to sin. But what God did was to reveal Himself to them, motivate them to seek what was good and what was right, provide for their every need, and warn them about making a sinful decision. In other words, He couldn't have done anything differently or better, and He did everything possible to insure success.

You missed two parts of the question: the snake and the tree. Could God simply have not made the snake, or the tree? Could he not have protected the tree in a giant plexiglass dome? If the snake somehow got past him the first time, could he not have squished it when he saw it talking to Adam and Eve?

[jimwalton]

Oh, sorry to have missed those. Didn't mean to do that.

It probably wasn't a snake, and it was probably a normal tree, not magical. One at a time.

It may not have been a literal snake. The Hebrew word for serpent is *nahash*, which is indeed the common word for snake, but it also possibly means "able to stand upright." There are all kinds of verbal possibilities here. For instance, *nahash* is the same root as *nehoset*, which means "bronze". We see that the shiny, upright snake in Numbers 21.9 is the same root: it was a literal thing, but a spiritual symbol. "Snake" could also be a word play, because the Hebrew word for "deceive" is very close to it, and is the same root as for magic and divination. Snakes in the ancient world were very much associated with spiritual powers, magic, and cultic rituals. So maybe that's why it was a snake and not another animal.

Back to Genesis now. So what if this "thing" (the nahash) was a spiritual power, represented to the woman as a bright creature, speaking "spiritual wisdom", and yet was deceiving her—all of these can be expressed by the word for snake? Just a little bit of research could change the whole picture. Bible scholars are still working on this text. New archaeological data, as I have just explained, are motivating them to rethink what we thought we knew. So maybe that's why there was a snake in the first place—it was actually a spiritual power (same word group).

So maybe, as I said, this wasn't a snake at all (though logically that is the word used by their culture). Maybe it was a deceiviant (my own coined word. You like it?) upright spiritual being. That may have been why Adam & Eve didn't think it was weird to converse with it. After all, who would talk to a snake? The *nahash* distorted God's words, deceived them both, and was cursed by God for what he did. And, by the way, *nahashim* are often the object of curses in the ancient world, and the curse of Genesis 3.14 follows somewhat predictable patterns, conforming to the culture's expressions and forms. The word curse (*'aror*) also means "banned," so what was happening was that this spiritual being was being thrown out of the garden, so to speak, removed from God's presence (banned), and that was his curse. Maybe that's why God punished the spiritual being. It distorted God's words, deceived them both, and motivated them to rebel against God. You'll notice in the text that the serpent was cursed, but not the man or the woman. There were consequences for what they had done, but only the serpent and the ground were cursed.

> The Tree of Life

There is no suggestion that the tree of life is the food of immortality, like the fountain of youth or something. The fruit of the tree seems to extend life (Gn. 3.22), but it doesn't instantly grant immortality. It symbolizes what is only God's to give: He is the source of life, and life is only given by him (not by eating something) and is only found in his presence (Deut. 30.11-20). So it was a literal tree, but it wasn't magical or sacramental (the eating of it didn't confer an automatic spiritual transaction). The fruit was designated by God with a particular function, and that's the only thing that made it particularly effective for anything. God gives life (Proverbs 3:16-18), and life from Him is necessary to enjoy all other gifts. Notice that the man and woman eat freely from the tree (Gn. 2.16).

It was like a line in the sand. A line in the sand is, well, just a line in the sand, but it has symbolic meaning. If you step over the line, it's an act of defiance, or of commitment, or of rebellion, depending on why it was drawn. It's just a line, and it's really there, but it's just a trivial thing—except that it takes on very heavy symbolic importance.

Obviously the tree held out hope for something the man and woman didn't already have. In other words, they were mortal (not already immortal as you are wondering)—so someday they were going to die. Eating from the tree was symbolic of them having a relationship with God and continuing in His life. This "fruit" (what it represented) was meant to be "eaten."

Why did God prevent them from eating from the tree after they sinned? Their sin had created a barrier between them and God, and by their choice they cut themselves off from God's presence. Fellowship between man and God was broken. The action of banishing them from the Garden was God enforcing what had been warned: Eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil prompts the judgment of the sentence of death. They will not be allowed to live eternally in their sin (which would only increase their pain on earth and their judgment before God in heaven).

Why did God create it in the first place if He was going to prevent their access to it? It represented a relationship with Him. It wasn't magical fruit, but symbolic sustenance. God was their life; He didn't have to create that. The overwhelming loss was not the Garden of Eden, but the presence of God. Throughout the entire rest of the Bible, the object is not to regain Eden, but to regain access to God's presence. God provides a way for this over and over: sacrifices, tabernacle, the Law, the Temple, and finally and completely in Jesus Himself.

[Busta Rhyme]

> He cannot fail to do what he has promised
> He cannot change the past

These two are moot. An omnipotent God wouldn't have promised or done anything that would potentially backfire on him sometime in the future, to warrant a need to compromise because he promised something, nor the need to change the past.

> So God had no choice but to engineer Adam & Eve with the capacity to sin...

Easy alternative: Not create anything. No sin, only perfection.

> He did everything possible to insure success.

Omnipotence says if he did everything possible to insure success, he would have been successful. Success is not self-contradictory and hence logically possible.

> I can be sorry I killed somebody, but it doesn't bring them back.

Omnipotence. Why institute a plan to undo the consequences of their actions, and not fix it there and then?

> We are not punished for A&E's sin, but for our own.

Contradicts with Exodus 34:7, you have to ignore what it says and change the meaning to "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

> You misunderstand animal sacrifice. First of all, it was a very fitting symbol of the theology behind it... crucifixion was a rich theological symbol of sin and sacrifice.

You are trying to tell me that God didn't fix things there and then at the fall for symbolic reasons; not because it was impossible and therefore beyond his power.

> No, there were no other options... necessary consequences of actions.

What you say is necessary consequences is only necessary for us because we are not omnipotent with complete power over nature. The same does not apply to God, as none of that is actually logically necessary but merely physically necessary. Jump off a cliff? Physicals says you fall but God can levitate you with omnipotence.

[jimwalton]

> n omnipotent God wouldn't have promised or done anything that would potentially backfire on him sometime in the future, to warrant a need to compromise because he promised something, nor the need to change the past.

First of all, how can you know such a thing? Second of all, the Bible doesn't consider it a backfire. That makes it sound like an "oops" that caught God off guard.

Parents have children knowing that the child could have physical problems, that some day they may get injured, that some day they may be rebellious, that some day they might even get serious or fatal diseases, that some day the might get nasty and never speak to them again (I heard on the news the other day that Tonya Harding hasn't spoken to her mother in 15 years). We do this because we want children, because we want to love another person, and because we have a desire to create life.

So also God. God desires more children. He wants to share his love with more beings. He desires to create life. Sure he knew that anything he created would be less than divine and therefore subject to the possibility of problems, but that's why he entered the situation to provide abundantly for them, to give them life and continuing access to life, to initiate a personal relationship with them, and to warn them about the dangers of going rogue. He also already had a plan in place to restore them if they did go rogue. That's what an omnipotent God does.

> Easy alternative: Not create anything. No sin, only perfection.

That's true, but God wanted more children. Watchman Nee wrote, "The divine purpose in creation and redemption was that God should have many children. He wanted us. God was not satisfied that Christ should remain his only begotten son. He wanted more children who were like Christ and likewise glorified."

- Romans 8.16-18: heirs of God, his children
- Romans 8.29-30: Jesus is the firstborn of many more children to come.
- John 1.14: Jesus was God's only begotten, but v. 12 shows us God wanted more children
- Heb. 2.10: God wanted to glorify more sons.

> Omnipotence says if he did everything possible to insure success, he would have been successful.

Not so. You've just made this up, but it's not true. Just like parents who have a baby—that baby is a different entity, a free agent, with a different DNA and able to make their own choices. God created humanity the best they could be created (and we are amazing creatures!), but still capable of breakage.

You're right that success is logically possible, but since the best of all possible worlds is to create free agents who can reason and love (as opposed to determined robots who can think or feel), then free agents it must be. Though success is logically possible, it's only potentially realizable, depending on the decisions of the free agents. Success was within reach, but its success didn't depend on God.

> Why institute a plan to undo the consequences of their actions, and not fix it there and then?

Death came as the result of sin. It couldn't be fixed right then and there. What it required was the birth of an individual who was sinless, and therefore not deserving of death, who would die as a substitution. A plan was laid out to accomplish that very thing.

If someone falls off a cliff and is injured, why not do surgery right there? Well, any number of reasons. First you have to get to the person, secondly it helps to have a sterile environment, third you need the proper tools (like anesthesia, clamps, etc.), and fourth it helps to have a surgeon who knows what they are doing.

Sin had to be dealt with properly, according to the consequences it engendered.

> "We are not punished for A&E's sin, but for our own." Contradicts with Exodus 34:7

"He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation" is a Semitism denoting continuity and is not to be understood in an arithmetical sense. The same phrase is almost identical to a parallel from the ancient Near East (Murshilish II): "And so it is: the sins of the father come upon the son; and so my father's sins have come upon me." Breaches of the law by one generation affect future generations to come, whether by training, "rubbing off" because of bad examples," or just, as Allie Sheedy said in "The Breakfast Club": Kids become like their parents. "It's inevitable."

"The sin of the parents" refers to a destiny of calamity or destruction. It's not a prophecy, a promise, or a guarantee, but that when the parents create a destiny of destruction, the kids often get caught in it. God is not inflicting punishment to the children because of Mom and Dad, but making an observation about the natural results of sinful choices and pursuing a destructive course of action. Future generations suffer the consequences of their forebears. War, violence, drunkeness, abusive language, and immorality get caught by those who are forces to live in such an environment.

Interestingly, an on a different vein, Sharon Begley reported in Newsweek (Nov. 8, 2010, pp. 48-50) that epigenetic changes in sperm are carried forward transgenerationally: Changes can become permanently programmed. "The life experiences of grandparents and even great-grandparents alter their eggs and sperm so indelibly that the change is passed on to their children, grandchildren, and beyond. It's called transgenerational inheritance: the phenomenon in which something in the environment alters the health not only of the individual exposed to it, but also of that individual's descendants."

"Skinner’s discovery that not all those marks are erased, but are instead permanently modified (at least to 4 generations), has challenged decades-old understandings. They are finding that experiences—everything from a lab animal being exposed to a toxic chemical to a person smoking, being malnourished in childhood, or overeating—leaves an imprint on eggs or sperm, an imprint so tenacious that it affects not only those individuals’ children but their grandchildren as well. An environmental exposure can leave its mark on at least four subsequent generations."

"Transgenerational effects do not have to be harmful. They can be as positive as easily as negative."

[Regnus Numis]

> Back to Genesis now. So what if this "thing" (the nahash) was a spiritual power, represented to the woman as a bright creature, speaking "spiritual wisdom", and yet was deceiving her—all of these can be expressed by the word for snake? Just a little bit of research could change the whole picture. Bible scholars are still working on this text. New archaeological data, as I have just explained, are motivating them to rethink what we thought we knew. So maybe that's why there was a snake in the first place—it was actually a spiritual power (same word group).

> So maybe, as I said, this wasn't a snake at all (though logically that is the word used by their culture). Maybe it was a deceiviant (my own coined word. You like it?) upright spiritual being. That may have been why Adam & Eve didn't think it was weird to converse with it. After all, who would talk to a snake? The nahash distorted God's words, deceived them both, and was cursed by God for what he did. And, by the way, nahashim are often the object of curses in the ancient world, and the curse of Genesis 3.14 follows somewhat predictable patterns, conforming to the culture's expressions and forms. The word curse ('aror) also means "banned," so what was happening was that this spiritual being was being thrown out of the garden, so to speak, removed from God's presence (banned), and that was his curse. Maybe that's why God punished the spiritual being. It distorted God's words, deceived them both, and motivated them to rebel against God. You'll notice in the text that the serpent was cursed, but not the man or the woman. There were consequences for what they had done, but only the serpent and the ground were cursed.

You still haven't explained why God allowed the nahash into the Garden of Eden in the first place.

[jimwalton]

Spiritual beings are free agents. They can move about at will. Human are free agents. They make their own decisions. The first thing that comes to my mind is that it's just a charade to give the humans the power to decide if they are never confronted with a decision. Secondly, God wanted a relationship of love with the people he created. Love, by necessity, requires a willful decision. If you only love because you are forced to, that's not love. Those reasons come to mind as to why God allowed the nahash into the Garden in the first place.

[Regnus Numis]

> The first thing that comes to my mind is that it's just a charade to give the humans the power to decide if they are never confronted with a decision.

Giving Adam and Eve the power to decide is meaningless if you've already foreseen what they will choose. I'd be more willing to hear an argument for why the outcome of the Fall itself was necessary.

> Love, by necessity, requires a willful decision. If you only love because you are forced to, that's not love. Those reasons come to mind as to why God allowed the nahash into the Garden in the first place.

Exactly how does preventing the nahash from entering the Garden of Eden "force" Adam and Eve to love God? If the nahash was never permitted to deceive Adam and Eve, then no thoughts of disobedience would have even crossed their minds. I don't see any "force" involved here, except towards the nahash.

[jimwalton]

> Giving Adam and Eve the power to decide is meaningless if you've already foreseen what they will choose

Knowledge isn't causative. Many people, and it seems possibly you also, think that because God knows he has determined, but that doesn't follow. Knowledge isn't causative, only power is (if you've had physics, which I'll assume is true, you know this to be the case). People also seem to think that God's knowledge, which counts as foreknowledge since it before the incident, means that the decision has already been made by God, but that's not so, either. The relativity of time gives us enough of a glimpse into the time picture to know that it's a very real possibility that time isn't solely linear, and so God's foreknowledge doesn't require that their power to choose was meaningless.

> I'd be more willing to hear an argument for why the outcome of the Fall itself was necessary.

I'm not sure I'd say it was necessary, but I do think that possibly it was inevitable. When you have a group of truly free agents who are vulnerable to breakage because they are not divine, it would have happened sooner or later. As a matter of fact, speculate with me that perhaps Adam & Eve were not the first hominids, and possibly were not the first ones that God built a relationship with, but they were the first ones to choose to disobey. So it may not be that the Fall was necessary, but that sooner or later someone would choose against God. We hear the story of A&E, perhaps, because they were that first set of hominids to rebel.

> Exactly how does preventing the nahash from entering the Garden of Eden "force" Adam and Eve to love God?

It's not free will if one only has the choice for good. It's not free will if God overrides every possibility for rebellion. Only by an authentic temptation and opportunity to disobey is love tested and proved.