Edgarcito Posted July 8 Share Posted July 8 2 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said: Irrelevant. To free moral agents, such an observation might be made. But Eve was neither free nor moral. How can they be moral agents at this point?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted July 8 Super Moderator Share Posted July 8 10 minutes ago, Edgarcito said: How can they be moral agents at this point?? Exactly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgarcito Posted July 8 Share Posted July 8 4 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said: Exactly. She lied without being a moral agent. And it appears from here that she was totally free to go one way or another... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted July 8 Super Moderator Share Posted July 8 18 minutes ago, Edgarcito said: She lied without being a moral agent. Yes. She was created sinful, but without the understanding that would make her a moral agent. 20 minutes ago, Edgarcito said: And it appears from here that she was totally free to go one way or another... It does not appear that way. It is clear that she was created sinful. She was as "free" as a robot is free to act against its programming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walterpthefirst Posted July 8 Author Share Posted July 8 1 hour ago, Edgarcito said: Good question....do all choices have a function in morality? According to the bible they do. That's what the Eden narrative is all about. Its the story of how mankind acquired the ability to make free willed moral choices. Adam and Eve were made by god without that ability. We know this because the bible tells us they only acquired it AFTER they ate. To acquire it they had to disobey god. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walterpthefirst Posted July 8 Author Share Posted July 8 2 hours ago, walterpthefirst said: And if you say that Eve was unbound before she ate, then she's in a state of not knowing, as you point out. Which brings us back to my earlier question. How can a person without the knowledge of good and evil (before they ate the fruit) make a free willed choice between good (obedience) and evil (disobedience) when they don't acquire that knowledge until after they eat? Please explain to me how a person without any of the above can make a free willed choice. Please answer the question, Ed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walterpthefirst Posted July 8 Author Share Posted July 8 1 hour ago, Edgarcito said: She lied without being a moral agent. And it appears from here that she was totally free to go one way or another... If it appears to you that Eve was free Ed, then please explain how she could be free when you wrote this? She did not yet possess the understanding, the consequences, the results, the discernment of good and evil. Those were in the fruit. She did not download all that entails until she ate. How does being like this equal free? Please explain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walterpthefirst Posted July 8 Author Share Posted July 8 1 hour ago, Edgarcito said: How can they be moral agents at this point?? According to the Prof, they cannot be. According to me, they cannot be. According to the logic of this... She did not yet possess the understanding, the consequences, the results, the discernment of good and evil. Those were in the fruit. She did not download all that entails until she ate. ...they cannot be. We all agree that they only became moral agents AFTER they ate the fruit. If you don't agree, then it falls to you to say how Eve could be a moral agent without the things you say she lacked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgarcito Posted July 8 Share Posted July 8 34 minutes ago, walterpthefirst said: According to the Prof, they cannot be. According to me, they cannot be. According to the logic of this... She did not yet possess the understanding, the consequences, the results, the discernment of good and evil. Those were in the fruit. She did not download all that entails until she ate. ...they cannot be. We all agree that they only became moral agents AFTER they ate the fruit. If you don't agree, then it falls to you to say how Eve could be a moral agent without the things you say she lacked. Free is free. We can agree they weren't moral agents. That's about as free as it gets. I'd use the words "capacity for". I'm unclear what made Satan's presentation more desirable. I feel certain all actions move towards moral or no. I don't think we have the capability to understand that past a very primitive example. Goes back very much in my mind towards our previous conversations regarding an objective absolute and our ability to understand it. Thx. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted July 8 Super Moderator Share Posted July 8 5 minutes ago, Edgarcito said: Free is free. But Eve was not "free." Not only did she not have the understanding required for a free choice, she also had been pre-programmed toward making one choice over the other. Because she was created sinful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walterpthefirst Posted July 8 Author Share Posted July 8 10 minutes ago, Edgarcito said: Free is free. We can agree they weren't moral agents. If Adam and Eve weren't moral agents before they ate, then why should they be held responsible for their actions? 10 minutes ago, Edgarcito said: That's about as free as it gets. I'd use the words "capacity for". I'm unclear what made Satan's presentation more desirable. Perhaps these verses will help you understand what made Satan's presentation more desirable? Genesis 1 : 29 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. Genesis 2 : 9 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 3 : 6 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Satan appealed to Eve's stomach. She already knew that that the other, non-magical trees in Eden were given to her for food. She also knew from experience that these non-magical trees were pleasing to the eye and good for food. So, when she approached the forbidden tree she saw that it was pleasing to the eye and good for food because it had fruit hanging upon it - just like all the other trees. Her experiences in Eden were telling her that the fruit of this forbidden tree must be just as good as all the other fruits she had eaten before then. When you combine this with her lack of moral discernment and her inability to understand the consequences of her actions its almost a slam dunk. Of course she's going to eat the tasty-looking fruit! 10 minutes ago, Edgarcito said: I feel certain all actions move towards moral or no. That would be true for us and true for Adam and Eve after they ate the fruit. But not before. As you've pointed out, they were moral vacuums. Blank slates. Empty voids. Therefore, none of their actions in Eden prior to eating the fruit would have or could have moved them towards any understanding of morality. Their moral knowledge was locked up in the fruit and until they accessed it and downloaded it they were unable to understand or comprehend anything moral. 10 minutes ago, Edgarcito said: I don't think we have the capability to understand that past a very primitive example. Goes back very much in my mind towards our previous conversations regarding an objective absolute and our ability to understand it. Thx. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgarcito Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 4 hours ago, TheRedneckProfessor said: But Eve was not "free." Not only did she not have the understanding required for a free choice, she also had been pre-programmed toward making one choice over the other. Because she was created sinful. No sir, an understanding would have biased her.....unless she was equal to God. And I really don't know how you have determined that she was created sinful. Thx. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted July 9 Super Moderator Share Posted July 9 2 hours ago, Edgarcito said: No sir, an understanding would have biased her.....unless she was equal to God. And I really don't know how you have determined that she was created sinful. Thx. Please follow along with the conversation, Ed. I have explained several times, and in several ways, exactly how scripture shows that she was created sinful. If you still do not understand at this point, I can only assume it is deliberate ignorance on your part. And if you insist on remaining ignorant, despite my best efforts, then I see no compelling reason to continue this discussion with you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 9 hours ago, walterpthefirst said: Perhaps these verses will help you understand what made Satan's presentation more desirable? Genesis 1 : 29 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. Genesis 2 : 9 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 3 : 6 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Satan appealed to Eve's stomach. She already knew that that the other, non-magical trees in Eden were given to her for food. She also knew from experience that these non-magical trees were pleasing to the eye and good for food. So, when she approached the forbidden tree she saw that it was pleasing to the eye and good for food because it had fruit hanging upon it - just like all the other trees. Her experiences in Eden were telling her that the fruit of this forbidden tree must be just as good as all the other fruits she had eaten before then. When you combine this with her lack of moral discernment and her inability to understand the consequences of her actions its almost a slam dunk. Of course she's going to eat the tasty-looking fruit! That would be true for us and true for Adam and Eve after they ate the fruit. But not before. I've quoted from Robert Alter's book before and I'll do it again here since it provides some interesting info on this verse: Quote 6 And the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and that it was lust to the eyes and the tree was lovely to look at, and she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave to her man, and he ate. 6. lust to the eyes. There is a long tradition of rendering the first term here, ta'awah, according to English idiom and local biblical context, as "delight" or something similar. But ta'awah means that which is intensely desired, appetite, and sometimes specifically lust. Eyes have just been mentioned in the serpent's promise that they will be wondrously opened; now they are linked to intense desire. In the event, they will be opened chiefly to see nakedness. Ta'awah is semantically bracketed with the next term attached to the tree, "lovely," nehmad, which literally means "that which is desired. "to look at. A venerable tradition renders this verb, lehaskil, as "to make one wise." But Amos Funkenstein has astutely observed to me that there is an internal parallelism in the verse, "lust to the eyes . . . lovely to look at." Though the usual sense of lehaskil in the hi-phi'l conjugation does involve the exercise of wisdom, Funkenstein's suggestion leans on the meaning of the same root in the hitpa'el conjugation in postbiblical Hebrew and Aramaic, "to look." And in fact, the Aramaic Targums of both Onkelos and Yonatan ben Uziel render this as le'istakala beih, "to look at." At least one other biblical occurrence is almost certainly in the sense of look, the beginning of Psalm 41: "Happy is he who maskil to the poor man"—surely, who looks at, has regard for, the poor man. A correlation between verbs of seeing and verbs of knowledge or understanding is common to many languages. mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walterpthefirst Posted July 9 Author Share Posted July 9 40 minutes ago, mwc said: I've quoted from Robert Alter's book before and I'll do it again here since it provides some interesting info on this verse: mwc That's fascinating, mwc. Thanks very much. As you know I'm playing Devil's Advocate here and confining myself exclusively to scripture. But its very interesting to see a Jewish interpretation of Genesis. Ok, I suggested that Eve was motivated by the base emotion of greed. Your input gives a more sexual twist to the verse in question. But both seem to agree that Eve was reacting to her circumstances on a very primal and instinctive level. Which is exactly what you would expect from a person who had no moral checks and balances on their behaviour. She sees something that stimulates her instinctive desires and she reacts instinctively, because she is unable to see the moral consequences of her actions. If Eve was as Edgarcito suggests, a blank slate without the ability to judge right from wrong, then perhaps this was how Satan was able to trick her. By appealing to her natural and instinctive desires. Lastly, even though in Genesis 3 : 16 god says that Eve will desire Adam, before then and before they both sinned god said something else that is relevant to your input. Genesis 1 : 27 & 28 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” So to fulfil god's command to be fruitful and increase in number Adam and Eve must have already had sexual desire as part of their created being. Otherwise, without it, how could they have bred? It therefore seems that god created them as fully sexual beings, but without any concept of shame of their nakedness. That only came after they acquired their moral knowledge from the forbidden fruit. Thank you, Walter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgarcito Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 10 hours ago, TheRedneckProfessor said: Please follow along with the conversation, Ed. I have explained several times, and in several ways, exactly how scripture shows that she was created sinful. If you still do not understand at this point, I can only assume it is deliberate ignorance on your part. And if you insist on remaining ignorant, despite my best efforts, then I see no compelling reason to continue this discussion with you. Count me lost then J. Potential for vs. sinful is different in my opinion. Again, you don't seem to want to admit to a biased creation with respect to sin, but advocate for it. Thx. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted July 9 Super Moderator Share Posted July 9 2 hours ago, Edgarcito said: Count me lost then J. Potential for vs. sinful is different in my opinion. Again, you don't seem to want to admit to a biased creation with respect to sin, but advocate for it. Thx. In that case, Ed, I'm afraid there is nothing more I can do for you at this point. I can lead you to knowledge; but I can't make you think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgarcito Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 35 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said: In that case, Ed, I'm afraid there is nothing more I can do for you at this point. I can lead you to knowledge; but I can't make you think. So in your opinion, humanity is incapable of resisting sin because God created us without that ability. Humanity, a sin-biased creation. Yea or nay amigo.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walterpthefirst Posted July 9 Author Share Posted July 9 Here's something for you to consider, Ed. What is it that makes you a free agent who is capable of making moral choices? How about these factors? 1. You were born with a moral sense and a moral compass in place. 2. You received moral training in the form of advice, explanation, reward and punishment from your parents. 3. You also received valuable life lessons from your friends and peers during your upbringing. 4. Using 1 through 3 you can therefore can discern right from wrong and good from evil. 5. Using 1 through 4 and your cognitive powers you can see and anticipate the future results and consequences of your actions and determine if they will be right or wrong, good or bad. So, please answer these two questions. Would you agree that these things either make you a free agent capable of moral choices or at least help you to be one? Would you agree that without these things you could not be a free agent, capable of moral choices? Thank you, Walter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgarcito Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 33 minutes ago, walterpthefirst said: Here's something for you to consider, Ed. What is it that makes you a free agent who is capable of making moral choices? How about these factors? 1. You were born with a moral sense and a moral compass in place. 2. You received moral training in the form of advice, explanation, reward and punishment from your parents. 3. You also received valuable life lessons from your friends and peers during your upbringing. 4. Using 1 through 3 you can therefore can discern right from wrong and good from evil. 5. Using 1 through 4 and your cognitive powers you can see and anticipate the future results and consequences of your actions and determine if they will be right or wrong, good or bad. So, please answer these two questions. Would you agree that these things either make you a free agent capable of moral choices or at least help you to be one? Would you agree that without these things you could not be a free agent, capable of moral choices? Thank you, Walter. Respectfully Walter, we are discussing Eve being created with the inability to resist sin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walterpthefirst Posted July 9 Author Share Posted July 9 33 minutes ago, Edgarcito said: Respectfully Walter, we are discussing Eve being created with the inability to resist sin. Yes. But would it hurt for you to look at what I've just written and answer those two questions? I wrote my last message and those questions with Eve in mind. So if you read my post and answer my two questions you should come to understand more about her. All will become plain once you've done this. Thank you, Walter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted July 9 Super Moderator Share Posted July 9 4 hours ago, Edgarcito said: Count me lost then J. Potential for vs. sinful is different in my opinion. Again, you don't seem to want to admit to a biased creation with respect to sin, but advocate for it. Thx. 1 hour ago, Edgarcito said: So in your opinion, humanity is incapable of resisting sin because God created us without that ability. Humanity, a sin-biased creation. Yea or nay amigo.... 57 minutes ago, Edgarcito said: Respectfully Walter, we are discussing Eve being created with the inability to resist sin. To begin with, "potential" sin versus "actual" sin are the same in god's eyes. jesus said so; and I have already pointed that out to you. Which is yet another reason you really should pay attention to the conversation instead of just listening to the sound of your own brain cells begging to be rescued from their captivity inside your head. Secondly, humanity as we understand it, is not synonymous with Eve at the time of creation. A more honest person would have admitted that by now and not phrased the question in such a dishonest framework. Thirdly, I have already addressed Eve being created sinful. Whether she had the ability to resist sin or not is a speculation which you are attempting to introduce here. As such, it is for you to state your position on it and support it with argument. I am under no obligation to take a position, or present an argument, on the subject until you have first made your case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgarcito Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 16 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said: To begin with, "potential" sin versus "actual" sin are the same in god's eyes. jesus said so; and I have already pointed that out to you. Which is yet another reason you really should pay attention to the conversation instead of just listening to your own brain cells begging to be rescued from their captivity inside your head. Secondly, humanity as we understand it, is not synonymous with Eve at the time of creation. A more honest person would have admitted that by now and not phrased the question in such a dishonest framework. Thirdly, I have already addressed Eve being created sinful. Whether she had the ability to resist sin or not is a speculation which you are attempting to introduce here. As such, it is for you to state your position on it and support it with argument. I am under no obligation to take a position, or present an argument, on the subject until you have first made your case. You are the one making the claim. We aren't talking about humanity now after generations of sin....so let's get that off the table. Secondly, no genius, potential via interaction was the previous point. She didn't sin with God's interaction, but Satan's. So the potential was there but stark differences in outcome. "thirdly"....see the aforementioned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted July 9 Super Moderator Share Posted July 9 58 minutes ago, Edgarcito said: You are the one making the claim. I haven't made any claim. You have attempted to misrepresent claims I have previously made, which is not the same as me making a claim. 58 minutes ago, Edgarcito said: Secondly, no genius, potential via interaction was the previous point. No, it wasn't. "Potential" versus "actual" was the previous point (see attached screenshot). 58 minutes ago, Edgarcito said: She didn't sin with God's interaction, but Satan's. She sinned prior to eating the fruit. At that point, god had never interacted with her, and the serpent had only asked her one single question. Interaction is therefore irrelevant. 58 minutes ago, Edgarcito said: "thirdly"....see the aforementioned. Yes, please do. See the aforementioned post in which I pointed out that resistance to sin was a concept you were attempting to shoehorn into the conversation. Therefore, it falls to you, not me, to state a position on the subject. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgarcito Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 12 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said: I haven't made any claim. You have attempted to misrepresent claims I have previously made, which is not the same as me making a claim. No, it wasn't. "Potential" versus "actual" was the previous point (see attached screenshot). She sinned prior to eating the fruit. At that point, god had never interacted with her, and the serpent had only asked her one single question. Interaction is therefore irrelevant. Yes, please do. See the aforementioned post in which I pointed out that resistance to sin was a concept you were attempting to shoehorn into the conversation. Therefore, it falls to you, not me, to state a position on the subject. Two interactions.... either with God or Adam, you choose. She took in what Adam had to say vs. taking in what Satan had to say. So where exactly in the chain of transfers did God interrupt her and make her sin? Was it in the genetics? Did He supernaturally impose himself in the conversation? You said she was created sinful. HOW? WHERE? WHEN? By WHAT MECHANISMS? You can't do it John and you know it. Put up or hush. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts