Given the idea of a supernatural being who is omnipotent, omniscient, and entirely benevolent, here is how Eve's temptation in the Garden of Eden would more likely have gone.
As the serpent, a force of Satan's evil, tempts Eve to take a bite of the forbidden fruit, God, an omniscient being, realizes what Eve's free will is about to result in. God forsees the future of mankind as a race of creatures predisposed to sin. He acknowledges the likelihood of strife, violence, and pain such a predisposition would incur. God's loving nature is concerned by this and He, being all-powerful, intervenes to prevent Eve from damning the entire human race. God truly saves our species, not by sending His only son to be murdered, but by ensuring that we are not capable of bringing such unnecessary harm onto ourselves. This makes better sense, does it not?
Ah, but this goes against the notion of free will. If God chose to control Eve's actions by not allowing her to defy Him, we would not truly be free. But, conceiving of God as a perfect being who created man in His divine image, this inherent inclination to sin would not have been possible, unless God Himself was also guilty of sin. In which case, is He really perfect, and is He truly omnipotent? At any rate, given the circumstances as we can logically contemplate- that God created man and gave him free will so that he may choose to love God in earnest- why did Original Sin have to occur? The Original Sin is not even among the 7 deadly sins, it is based in defiance. Consider two children who are told by their father that they cannot have a piece of candy. The two children, when they think their father is not looking, sneak and eat the candy regardless, in an act of sheer defiance. This is how the infamous act in the Garden occured. Perhaps it was temptation that overcame Eve, but whether the temptation was for the fruit itself or for the act of defiance is difficult to say. I would be more apt to assert that human nature is more inclined to acts of defiance than giving into mere temptations of a more tangible nature.
So, if we consider Original Sin to be rooted in an act of defiance- against God- the necessary conclusion is that God was angered by this defiance and chose to punish all of mankind for all eternity because of this. Going back to the analogy of a child eating candy after being told not to, this would be similar to the father punishing the child by kicking him out and then punishing his other children for their entire lives, as well as his grandchildren, and so on. A bit extreme? But we consider God to be just; in fact, He is seen to be the supreme force of Justice. As God is just, He eventually felt bad for overreacting to the original defiance by His creation. So, He decided to send His only son, Jesus, to the earth to save the human race.
Jesus is born and, for most of his life, I couldn't tell you what he did. But, upon adulthood, he began vocalizing these radical ideas of brotherly love. As most ideas considered radical at one time, they were not popular among the majority of those encountered by Jesus. Eventually, these ideas lead to the extreme punishment of crucifixion. God's plan all along, it seems, was for His son to come to earth and start the religion his Father truly intended His creation to ascribe to, and then have the humans crucify His son so that all of mankinds' sins could be atoned for through the death of Jesus Christ.
But wait a minute- God doesn't control the will of the people. Though He is omnipotent and omniscient, He would not have intervened in the life and brutal death of His son. So, why then did Christ die? The sinning humans chose to kill the son of God because they despised his message. This means that God's plan was not to have His son die for mankind, but to have him preach to the masses the messages of brotherly love that God wanted us to all embrace. In God's benevolence, when Jesus was killed, He chose to reward mankind by allowing for the atonement of their sins, so long as they accepted the message of Christianity and recognized His son as the savior and repented for their sins. So now we have the option of attaining the ultimate heavenly rewards in the afterlife, if we choose to commit our lives to the teachings of Jesus Christ. In doing so, we must forget the fact that if God was truly omnipotent He would not have given humans the will to commit sin, nor the will to harm themselves or others; neglect the fact that if God was truly benevolent, He would not have allowed evil in the world, and would not include brutal slayings and savage wars in His Plan; and disregard the notion that if God was truly omniscient, He could stop any cruel acts before they happen. If you allow yourself to be coaxed into believing that God works through you (and, given that God is omniscient, wouldn't that make it impossible for any human to have an original thought? That's a bit depressing), and your choices are only made under the supervision of the supreme being that created you, you can receive eternal rewards upon your death. If you choose not to truly live for yourself, you will be rewarded when you die. Isn't that exciting!?
posted by: mblog (reply)
post date: 03.19.04 (4:32 pm)
You covered a lot of things here, and I don't think I want to get into all of those areas. But the idea of tracing original sin back to Adam and Eve does not make much sense. After all, there was no such concept until Christianity came along. If God truly had that in mind, why would it have been irrelevant for everybody who came before Jesus, and probably for those who came a bit after? Why would God give one set of rules and explanations if they were not correct and then replace them with another? Why was it left out of the Bible?
As for radical ideas, Jesus did have some. But loving thy neighbor was not one of them. Most of what Jesus was preaching was mainstream Judaism as it was practiced 2000 years ago. Jesus' teachings were not identical to those of every rabbi of the day, but then again that could have been said for any two rabbis then, and of many rabbis now. But the core ideas of loving thy neighbor came from what Christians call the Old Testament. (Leviticus.) Rabbi Hillel was teaching ""What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor." Most of what Jesus was teaching, including most of what Christians say were radical teachings were simply mainstream Judaism.
Christianity became radical when it became Christianity. That's when it adopted some Greek/Roman concepts such as a God born from a mortal woman, virgin birth, resurrection, salvation through Jesus alone, and the idea that this life is not worth anything but it's all for the next life. The same is true for a more concrete notion of heaven and hell as distinct places, eternal damnation, a literal devil as a demigod with horns, etc. None of that came from the Bible.
The comparison between the Garden of Eden and giving children candy is a good one. In real life, there are many temptations, and it's not always easy to resist. But it's also not realistic to assume that an eternity in hell is the appropriate punishment.
Also, the notion of salvation through faith alone undermines the very concept of morality. If Hitler can ask for forgiveness on his deathbed and go to heaven, as Jerry Falwell stated he hoped happened, then living a life free of sin is pointless. Also, the notion that you can commit a sin against me, but not have to ask me for forgiveness, but get it from God also undermines this concept. If you can do whatever you want to me, but be forgiven for having faith alone, the faith does not do much good.
The idea that God let anybody die for somebody else's sins and it was a divine act goes against the Bible, since that would have been a human sacrifice. The clear reason why Jesus died is that he went against Roman authority. If he was really claiming to be the messiah, and was therefore going to free the Jews from their occupiers, then it's obvious why the Romans wanted him dead. But if Christians wanted to convert the Romans a few years later, then telling them that the whole thing was their fault would not exactly fly. It was no secret that Pontius Pilate was a very brutal dictator even by Roman standards, and the Romans were pretty brutal to begin with. But Pilate was recalled from power for going well beyond that. So the idea that he was this mellow guy who just did it because some Jews told him to makes as much sense as believing that Saddam would have asked Israel before executing a prisoner. Actually, it makes far less sense.
I agree. Even if for some reason God would want us to have Free Will, that does not mean he could not have created us without the desire to sin. There is a difference between a creature that 'could' sin and a creature that 'would' sin. He could have simply created a species that had the freedom to sin, but didn't want to. For example, I have the freedom to commit homosexuality, (a sin under traditional Christianity) but I do not have the desire. If God wanted, he could have simply extended that non-desire to all parts of sinning.
"Tragically, a nation that was created by intellectuals and visionaries has now been completely taken over by venal corporate gangsters, delusional Christian fruitcakes and hopelessly shallow Texas shit-kickers." -Tom Robbins
