A Perfect World?
From Genesis, we learn that God is the creator of the universe right from the beginning (Genesis 1:1). After taking six days of creation, "God looked at everything he had made, and he was very pleased" (v. 31). From this, it has been suggested that God has created the perfect world as God was pleased from what His own creation. Many would agree that it was only when man disobeyed God and ate the fruits of the tree of knowledge that made the world imperfect, when sin has entered into the world.
In chapter 3, the snake, being the cunning animal our Lord God has made, has tempted Eve to disobey God and eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. What baffles me is, if God really wanted to create a perfect world, then why create the snake to tempt man?
One may argue that God wants to give us freedom of choice, autonomy, so that we do not act like "machines", to let us determine what is right and what is wrong? However, does freedom of choice necessarily mean that you have to determine what is right and what is wrong?
Suppose we take the tree of knowledge and the snake out of the picture. Man could still have a choice of eating fruit from tree A, or eating fish from the river. There still is choice, freedom to do what we like, without the need to determine right and wrong.
So why is there a need for the tree of knowledge? Is it there so that human beings could have power over the fish, the birds, and all animals, domestic and wild, large and small (Genesis 1:26), so that we could seperate ourselves from the other living things? However, if we have not eaten the fruit, humans would not have had the knowledge to understand what is right and wrong, in order to make them any more different than the other living things on earth.
The tree of knowledge aside then. We know that we sin when Satan works on us to tempt us to act against God. So, why is there Satan, why create the snake to tempt man?
Are there answers to these questions? Or is it that sometimes we just may not be able to work out how God thinks: "My thoughts, says the Lord, are not like yours, and my ways are different from yours." (Isaiah 55:8)
In chapter 3, the snake, being the cunning animal our Lord God has made, has tempted Eve to disobey God and eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. What baffles me is, if God really wanted to create a perfect world, then why create the snake to tempt man?
One may argue that God wants to give us freedom of choice, autonomy, so that we do not act like "machines", to let us determine what is right and what is wrong? However, does freedom of choice necessarily mean that you have to determine what is right and what is wrong?
Suppose we take the tree of knowledge and the snake out of the picture. Man could still have a choice of eating fruit from tree A, or eating fish from the river. There still is choice, freedom to do what we like, without the need to determine right and wrong.
So why is there a need for the tree of knowledge? Is it there so that human beings could have power over the fish, the birds, and all animals, domestic and wild, large and small (Genesis 1:26), so that we could seperate ourselves from the other living things? However, if we have not eaten the fruit, humans would not have had the knowledge to understand what is right and wrong, in order to make them any more different than the other living things on earth.
The tree of knowledge aside then. We know that we sin when Satan works on us to tempt us to act against God. So, why is there Satan, why create the snake to tempt man?
Are there answers to these questions? Or is it that sometimes we just may not be able to work out how God thinks: "My thoughts, says the Lord, are not like yours, and my ways are different from yours." (Isaiah 55:8)
y did God make the serpent?
did he make the serpent to tempt adam and eve?
i think God was trying to test adam with the tree...
Posted by
Jot.. |
1:35 am, October 02, 2004
y did God create Adam and Eve
he didn't create them to sin against him, right?
if they didn't have knowledge then they don't know what sin is .... then God can't hold them responsible.
did the serpent have knowledge?... how come it can talk haha
so many questions...
Posted by
Jot.. |
9:37 am, October 02, 2004
Well, if God wanted the world to be perfect, couldn't the world exist without the tree of knowledge?
Why is there the serpent? Why is there Satan?
Couldn't there be no tree of knowledge, no serpents or any form of temptation so that the world would have remained perfect?
But then, one may argue, if you take away one thing that could be tempting one to sin, then there always would be something else out there that would tempt you to sin. So is sin inevitable when God gives us the freedom of choice?
Posted by
Ivan |
1:39 am, October 04, 2004
Hello there,
Wanted to give a few comments. A bit too late to quote from the Bible, but I realise theological justifications must be derived from it. So I will get around to that if I can. Barring that, comments are below...
[1] In a perfect world, there would be no sin. The existence of the snake would argue for the belief that Satan led his rebellion sometime between chapter 1 and chapter 3 of Genesis, since chapter 1 speaks of God creating the whole of the heavens and earth, usually understood as a way of encompassing all of creation.
So God made the world perfect (although in what 'sense' and to what 'extent' it is not easy to outline, but it would be safe to state that sin has no place in a perfect world).
One thing God made was free will in His creatures. Hence Satan's fall before chapter 3 and the temptation as a result. Understood this way, there is no contradiction between God creating a perfect world and a snake appearing to tempt Adam, since by that time sin had come into the world.
NB: I hope I have not misled you into thinking that Satan disguised himself as a snake. The Bible doesn't say that. What it does say is that the snake was craftier than any other animal. It's possible Satan used the snake, but the snake did not necessarily have TO BE Satan in disguise.
[2] Freedom of choice does not _necessarily_ mean choosing right from wrong. Like you said, humans could still choose to eat from fruits of tree A or fish from the river. I just wanted to clarify this point though. Humans were vegetarians during the antediluvian (i.e. pre-flood) period (Gen. 9:1-3). But I assume you were using the 'fish thing' to illustrate a point.
Freedom of choice would probably sooner or later come to a decision on whether to follow God or not. This is as right-wrong as anyone could get when it comes to decision making. This wouldn't be an issue after Christ's second coming, but in the world of Genesis where sin had crept in and was not yet defeated it would have been an issue.
[3] It is precisely Gen. 1:26 which gives us the clue regarding humans' nature as being different to animals. We are made in the image of God, simply because God has chosen to make us so, not because we ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, since if that was the case, Adam and Eve could not have been considered to be made separate from the animals and be told to have dominion over them (the naming of animals by Adam is indicative of his God-given authority over them, since in ancient times a person's ability to understand the name of an object was equivalent to that person's understanding of the object's nature and/or mastery of the object).
And yet clearly we see that before humankind's fall we were already considered to have dominion over the animals, for God had decreed it so (Gen. 1:28).
Eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil did not really allow us to understand "right and wrong" in the sense we think, it only made Adam and Eve aware of each other's nakedness. It further drove them away from God (Gen. 3:8-13).
So the bottom line is, we were different from the animals the moment we were created, simply because God made it this way. This is what is meant by "intrinsic value" - value that does not change regardless of our social status, salary, etc.
[4] Regarding sin. We sin if we give in to Satan's temptations. Yet we also sin when we give into our own temptations. The latter is often the case. Sometimes we may not think so, but the Bible says that our hearts are "full of deceit" (I couldn't find the verse at the time of writing this). Satan is not always responsible, though he is the principle force of evil in creation.
Why is there Satan? And why did the snake tempt Eve? No hard and fast answers there, I'm afraid.
It may have something to do with God wanting to test us to see if we would willingly choose to follow Him instead of choosing to disobey Him and sin, when given the choice. Evidently we failed, but Christ came to save the day (so to speak).
Sin entered because God's creatures have free will. There is always the risk of having God's creatures turn their backs on Him when you put free will into the equation. I guess God thought it was worth the risk. I'm inclined to agree, since if He didn't think so, He might not have created us, and well .. we wouldn't be having this discussion right now. :)
There may be answers to these questions, but it may not be for us to know right now. Why? No answer to that one either. But you can ask Him when you see Him on the Day.
Isaiah 55:8 is good. Verse 9 is good too. :)
Cheers,
SH
Posted by
Anonymous |
11:15 pm, October 10, 2004
Thx SH, that was very insightful! I am amazed!
I look forward to your comments soon! :)
Posted by
Ivan |
11:27 pm, October 10, 2004
Hi there,
I just ran across your site and enjoyed reading through everything.
I'm trying to get a blog going on my site too. But I dont think i have the patience to do it!
--Amy
My perennials Site
Posted by
Anonymous |
8:03 pm, November 15, 2005