The usual explanation is because God wanted humans to have free will, so interfering in their ability to self-determine would negate that.
The reality is because it makes no fucking sense, like much of the Bible.
It’s a judeo-christian-muslim god.
because he was a pussy
It was a test, but if he was omniscient, he would have known the results without having to run it. 😉
See how i didnt mention he is also “benevolent.”
He wanted the result, but needed it to be our ‘fault’ for weird passive aggressive reasons and so he could hold it over our heads for eaons. “Sorry son, I’d drive you to the store but you ate that apple. Remember the apple I told you not to eat?”
Bad character and plot writing. The Bible was written by hacks and scabs.
it sounds like you’re flirting with the Epicurean Paradox
I understand the epicurean paradox but I also understand for god to exist as some believe it would have to be paradoxical. I also understand that any true religion, anything not just societally and culturally forced, would not take hold as a probability based on geographical location of birth. I believe in a god that can give humans divine inspiration but I do not believe in a religion that is just a long tradition of group think. Any god that choses to create these structures of religion and call them right and just is of no interest to me.
I like that guy jesus, tho. He was a bro.
Ey Eve, bet you are too scared to try this apple.
If I’ve learned something from listening History in the Bible podcast is that Yaweh is an asshole and that there are layers of bad translations.
Evangelicals sweep that all under the rug with “divine inspiration.”
Yet here we are with rich assholes running the world and chasing the Antichrist story and trying to summon the end of the world.
You’d think they’d be more intelligent.
Just to add to the great answers already given by others, another aspect to it all is that the mythology that developed into Judaism/Christianity/Islam was originally polytheistic. The god known as YHWH/Yahweh was one of many, but had a dedicated cult (not unlike Greco-Roman deities that often had cults of their own, revering one specific god to the exclusion of others who were nevertheless acknowledged).
So in that sense, the idea of Yahweh being omnipotent and omniscient is a bit of a retcon, meant to highlight the superiority of Yahweh over other gods as his henotheistic sect gradually developed into a more zealous monotheistic religion that rejected the legitimacy of all other gods entirely
That being said, the idea of Satan as a sort of antagonist character to tempt humans towards sin did not emerge until much later either, after the aforementioned omnipotent/omniscient revision of Yahweh. It really just boils down to whatever plot contrivances were convenient for the successive works of religious fan fiction that would later come to be canonized within each Abrahamic religion.
Worth remembering about the Gospels, which were all written decades later and served the purpose for which they were written (which was to speak to different groups at the time, which is why they all emphasized different things).
same reason you can have anal sex and still be a virgin!
Free will. The idea is that for free will to exist you must be able to choose the wrong action.
If a supreme being rules out all wrong actions or prevented you from taking wrong actions, how could there be free will? How could you even be responsible for your own thoughts and actions. How are you not just a puppet?
Alternately you can think of it as a leveling up. It seems like the Apple is always represented as “knowledge of good and evil”. So originally they’re just animals. They take actions but there is no morality, nothing is good or bad. But if they use their free will to take this one forbidden step, they receive the knowledge of good and evil, they can act good or act bad, they know it’s good or bad, and they have the free will to choose their path. And they are accountable for those choices. Now they’re human
But if god is omniscient, then he knows what they’re going to do. And if he already knows that, then do they really have free will? Or do they just think they do?
There’s 3 philosophies I’ve seen on that question.
One is the planned domino effect, which another commentator already mentioned.
The next is the “paradoxical being” one, which is that something that is omniscient is paradoxical by default, therefore it can both know what will happen and simultaneously not know what will happen.
The last is the “unknown destiny” one, which is that even if we don’t actually have free will, as long as we think we do and can’t prove we don’t, then does it matter? Because ultimately it would be no different to us than if we actually did have it.
Interesting, thanks.
Addressed the first one on that other comment.
The second one just seems contradictory tbh, how can it be both?
The third one is interesting - but subjectively feeling like we have free will isn’t the same as objectively having it.
And if there was a god and he was allowing (in fact, causing) us to believe we had free will, when we actually didn’t, would just create the situation where god had misled us.
I think the best way out is that we do have free will, but god isn’t omniscient (if he exists at all).
The second one just seems contradictory tbh, how can it be both?
Well that’s the nature of paradoxes, isn’t it? But paradox philosophy is a whole 'nother can of worms and a very long discussion in of itself, though you’ve probably encountered some examples before, such as this one:
The next sentence is true. The prior sentence is false.
It results in an endless loop. Contradictory, yes, yet both sentences still exist, and are sentences.
The third one is interesting - but subjectively feeling like we have free will isn’t the same as objectively having it.
Yes, true, but the point of that third one is that the result would be the same in the sense that in both cases, humans believe they have free will, and therefore their actions are determined by that, whether or not that path was outlined beforehand by a being we cannot fathom / fully comprehend or not. The actions will still become as they are.
I’ve also heard this third argument combined a bit with the second one as an attempt to better make sense of the paradox (although by doing so, it’s really not a paradox anymore), and that is that God knows all possible paths humans would take, but not necessarily which one / God made infinite path he knows the outcome of but we are free to pick which one we take.
This issue I have with that one is that it’s no longer a truly full omniscient being at that point.
This s is where you have the argument that a supreme being might have set the universe in motion but deliberately does not interfere with the way it evolves. The conditions are as close to even as possible so things can go either way …. For an infinite number of decisions for an infinite time
It’s not a question of interfering or not though, it’s about foreknowledge.
Either god had foreknowledge of their choice, and therefore A&E couldn’t have made any other decision than they did, or they had genuine free will meaning he wasn’t omniscient.
Because he is a jealous god. He told people this.
Fanfiction/Please permit me to make wild allegations, I was also looking at this yesterday and wondered: is it the apple of knowledge of sexual reproduction? (I know the book says good and evil, I get it)
The other tree was the fruit of eternal life. They did not consume this fruit.
So, as for the story, humans could neither sexually reproduce nor live forever/a long time prior to eating the fruit of the knowledge of sexual reproduction. Life and death. Good and evil.
They ate it, wanted to have sex with each other and were ashamed and covered themselves to avoid sexual arousal.
The free will they received was the ability to sexually reproduce.
In the story, angels cannot sexually reproduce with each other?, but seemingly live forever/a long time, and angels supposedly did get very excited that they could now sexually reproduce with humans: nephelim. Hybrids. There are no female angels.
Two different technology trees: humans with sexual reproduction and limited lifespan and angels with longevity/eternal life/angel powers/no females.
This gave the world a third (unintended?) hybrid nephelim class and this upset the balance of power on earth/the creation.
The chaos that ensued inspired yahweh to flood his creation and try again?
Wild shit! For me these are the chaotic and confused retelling of a story of extraterrestrial influence on the development of the human species.
This particular chapter is focused on origins and bloodlines of humanity so it makes sense to me in that way 🙃
Thank you for your time.
I find the story better with “all-knowing” meaning know what is and had been and the future being unknown. A fact created by have multiple beings of free will.
That said eating the apple is very low stakes way to let someone choose to disobey you and thus learn what that means. The “punishment” seems like the plan all along.
at least how i prefer the story
At some point, one of y’all is going to have to admit that the story doesn’t actually make any sense, instead of reinterpreting it again to make yourselves feel comfy.
The “punishment” seems like the plan all along.
Then your god is a vengeful, evil monster, unworthy of worship
Im describing it purely from “as a story” concept.
The punishment is being a creature with free will on earth and the ability to comptemplatr shame for moral decisions (because we can fail).
At least at this point of the story
No, the punishment was increased pain, hardship, expulsion from the garden of Eden, and mortality.
Have you even read the book? From an “as a story” concept, whatever that means?
That is the same thing from a different perspective is what i am saying
I think it means a story instead of as a historically accurate document of fact.
Because as a story theres lots of lessons we can draw from it, and interpret in many ways like literature enthusiasts do.
As a historical document holy fuck help me satan
Exactly.
If you’re not looking for a genuine answer from a Christian, skip this.
First thing: the translation of “the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil” isn’t really that good of a translation. It’s closer to "the right to define good and evil. That means that eating the fruit is basically saying “fuck you, God. Imma do my own thing”. That’s not how God designed humans to live, and is incompatible to living alongside someone as powerful as God, which is why God told them not to eat it.
But why create that tree in the first place? Essentially, choice. When you’re in the supermarket and you see 50 different flavors, but everything is from the same brand, do you really have any choice? Same thing with God. Unless you have the option of rejecting God, choosing to him means nothing.
I’ve never heard that translation, how does that justify them noticing they’re naked as a bad thing? The idea there is simple with the fruit granting the knowledge, but doesn’t make sense with a fruit that allows you to define good and evil. But even then there’s another thing you got wrong, they’re not kicked out of paradise for eating from the tree, they get punished for that but the reason why they’re kicked out is so that they don’t eat from the immortality tree:
22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever”.
the reason they’re kicked out is so that they don’t eat from the immortality tree
I said that having eaten from the tree of good and evil put them in a state that humans were not designed to be in, so by kicking them out God is basically saying “it’s better for them to die than it is for them to live forever like this”
Well, as a descendant from someone who ate of the tree and understands good and evil I would say that’s pretty evil and egotistical, he expulsed them so they don’t become like him in two fields since they were already like him on one.
Also, you didn’t explained how they knew to cover themselves.
I’d like to see some citations on that. They’re are several scholarly theories about the what the tree represents, but I’ve never heard this one.
