Problem?

[Guest Mr.godfull]

i am a christian but have troubles following the bible with so many fallacies in it. such as why would god, as his omniscient being, have created the tree of life and the tree of knowledge if he knew eve would eat from it and in turn convince adam to do so as well. also why would he have created the snake if he knew it was to convince the pair to eat from the tree? and why place the tree of life in the garden only to have it gaurded by an angel with a sword of fire?

[ayin jade]

i am a christian

Welcome to worthy, if I may ask, what makes you a Christian? What does being a Christian mean to you? Who is Jesus to you?

but have troubles following the bible with so many fallacies in it.

Such as? There are no fallacies.

such as why would god, as his omniscient being, have created the tree of life and the tree of knowledge if he knew eve would eat from it and in turn convince adam to do so as well.

God knew all of this would happen, which is why He planned for Jesus to redeem us from the beginning.

also why would he have created the snake if he knew it was to convince the pair to eat from the tree? and why place the tree of life in the garden only to have it gaurded by an angel with a sword of fire?

All of the bible is the story of the Lords plan for mankind for our redemption following our fall. All of this is to His glory. Please continue to post in general, or apologetics. We would love to answer your questions.

[Micah68]

Dear Mr. Godfull,

First of all, I don't understand your nickname. It seems a bit presumptuous to say you are full of God. If you were, you would believe Jesus. He said that He did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it. (Mt 5:17) In other words, He believed the Old Testament (all of it) and set about to fulfill the Scriptures concerning Himself. If one wishes to become a Christian, then one must want to be like Jesus because He lived an exemplary life, showing us how to love God and love our fellow man. He is the only one who could truly call Himself 'God-full' because He was full of God, one with God. He was God in the flesh. A Christian believes Jesus' teachings and tries to live them to the best of his ability.

If you really want to understand the Old Testament, instead of reading it to find fault with God, why don't you start over and read it to learn of God. Learn about His plan. Learn about how man fell and how God tried through the ages to help man and how He eventually sent His own Son to show us the way. Read it to learn about all the examples found in it of how not to live and other good examples of how to live. Why don't you see God as all-loving and all-knowing instead of thinking He's some kind of idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about. It's obvious that you think you are so much smarter than Him.

Please re-think your attitude. God knows you, knows all about the things that have happened in your life and yet He loves you and is willing that you should change your attitude about Him. He's so willing that He allowed you to think that you wrote just some inconsequential letter to a chat room so that you could find out how wrong you have been and change. God is real. He is involved with everything that happens to each one of us. He is leading us and doing the best for us so that we can find Him and learn to love Him for ourselves. He's a pretty cool dad if you ask me. He even lets you fall on your face sometimes so that you can learn a lesson, even though He doesn't like to see you get hurt. He knows that sometimes it's the only way some of us can learn. We are often blockheads and the sooner we admit it, the better off we'll be. Hope you get it soon.

[Guest P Frank]

Actually you have asked very good questions which were answered by making personal attacks upon you.Some sort of welcome to a message board that is supposed to be Christian in nature right?

Some would answer your questions by telling you that the Old Testament was not written to be read literally but instead it contains easy to remember stories that illustrate important religious teachings.If that is the case,then it's counter-productive to worry about the details of the stories but instead only grasp the meaning behind them.Since we don't have any eye witnesses,it's a waste of time to argue the point.

In your questions you made an assumption that will create all sorts of spiritual problems for you if you continue to hold on to it.If God knows how people will react with the free will he has given us,then the very purpose of our existence is made null and even worse,God very quickly can be made to appear cruel and irrational.You can start that process by asking a few questions out of today's headlines.For instance,why would God allow Michael Jackson to molest children since He knew He would?Why did God allow the suicide bomber to kill 127 people in Iraq yesterday because He knew he would?Why did God allow the BTK mass murderer to remain uncaptured for 30 years and even allow him to be elected the lay president of his Lutheran church because He knew in advance exactly what would happen?

The only way to make sense out of our senseless and morally sick world is to believe that God has given us all free will to live our lives as we please even engaging in gross evil if we choose to,in order to determine who is morally qualified for salvation.If God knew in advance what decisions each of us were going to make,then there would be no reason to put us through the testing and painful trials of our life on earth,and even worse,God would be responsible for stopping the sin in the world because He would have advance knowledge it was about to happen.This obviously is not the case.There are many people in the world who consistently shock God with their acts of hate and violence.If God knew in advance how their lives would turn out,there would be no need for the Judgement.God would just send these moral perverts to hell immediately after they were born.No need to test people if you already know everything about them is there?

Edited March 2, 2005 by Ovedya

[ayin jade]

No need to test people if you already know everything about them is there?

Pastor, do you believe in the inerrancy of the bible? His word says this:

Jer 1:5 Before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I consecrated you, and I ordained you a prophet to the nations.

To me, that says that God knew that persons actions before they were born. If God did not know what would happen, then how can you account for prophecy?

Eph 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ;

Eph 1:4 according as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,

Eph 1:5 having predestined us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,

Eph 1:6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, in which He has made us accepted in the One having been loved.

How can we be chosen before the foundations of the world if He does not know what our choices will be? How could He have planned for Jesus to redeem us before the world began if He did not know that Adam and Eve would fall? God knows us. He is not so weak a God that He is not omniscient.

1Pe 1:19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot;

1Pe 1:20 indeed having been foreknown before the foundation of the world, but revealed in the last times for you,

1Pe 1:21 those believing in God through Him, He who raised Him up from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope might be in God.

Rev 13:8 And all dwelling on the earth will worship it, those whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain, from the foundation of the world.

Rev 17:8 The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to ascend out of the abyss and go into perdition. And those dwelling on the earth will marvel, those whose names were not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

There are a lot of verses that speak of God knowing our actions before they happen.

[AFaceInTheCrowd]

I had asked a preacher friend of mine the same question about the tree.If sin hadnt entered the world we would have known GOD only as the CREATER.We wouldnt have had the oppurtunity to know how much HE loves us through HIS SON .

[silviawang]

I had seen a lot of posts like this ,I think it is not the subject the humanbeing can understand, bible is not the history literature, not the scientific literature, just a book of metaphor and enlightening ,to guide you apperceive the meaning of the world

[Ovedya]

i am a christian but have troubles following the bible with so many fallacies in it. such as why would god, as his omniscient being, have created the tree of life and the tree of knowledge if he knew eve would eat from it and in turn convince adam to do so as well. also why would he have created the snake if he knew it was to convince the pair to eat from the tree? and why place the tree of life in the garden only to have it gaurded by an angel with a sword of fire?

First of all, these are not fallacies.

The answer to your questions here lie with the issue of free-will. The simplest answer that I have ever heard to questions like this is that the purest form of love is expressed when one chooses to love, not when love is forced or directed. Had God not given Adam the choice of loving Him, but instead had forced Adam's choice, Adam would not have expressed pure love for God. Actually, it is a mercy that God gave us a choice to love Him.

[Ovedya]

Pastor Frank,

You appear to be saying that God does not have advanced knowledge of our actions. This cannot be true, since God is omniscient. Having advanced knowledge of our actions does not negate God's righteousness or holiness.

[Guest Deut]

Having spent a good portion of my college years in the theology program, I understand your line of questioning. I suffered from it myself for many many years.

Here's the conclusions I've come to.

It's a question of faith. And for me, the logic works like this.

I choose to accept the Bible as the Word of God. I choose to accept that God is God. He is infinite and omniscient. As such, He is a very complex Person. His words are to all of us, both as a population of people but ALSO to us each individually and specifically.

In other words, the Bible was written for ME, to ME, by God, many many years before I was even a twinkle in my dad's eye. It was also written for YOU, under the same conditions.

We can all read the same verse, the same words, and get a personalized, specific message. To me, that is pretty darned impressive.

And if there are what seem to be inconsistencies in the message, well, I believe the the fault lies with the reader, not the writer. How many things in your own life are inconsitent. Isn't Life itself fraught with paradox and conflicting concepts? Does it not seem logical the the 'rules' for life would address this and help us navigate through it?

When I come across something that doesn't seem to make sense, my assumption is that I haven't the wisdom to grasp the message yet. That, or that Satan is deliberately trying to get me to misunderstand the message, in the same way that he will deliberately undermine communication between mortals in an attempt to sow chaos.

Have faith in God, my friend. Pray for widsom and faith and don't think of yourself as more wise than God. Accept that you are a child and have much to learn before you start to second guess the teacher.

As a parent myself, there are many things about my decisions that my children don't understand. But that's ok. They don't need to understand. They just need to listen to their Dad and do what he (I) says. I view my relationship with my heavenly Father in the same way.

In fact, God, brilliant as He is, has already predicted and answered your question...

1 Corinthians 13:11

"It's like this: When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.* All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now."

Take care,

dewt