Choosing Disaster

Lots of good information, Aurora.

I believe that Adam was right there present, or at least close-by. His silence is deafening.

In looking at Jesus (The New Adam) undoing what Adam did : tempted in a garden; sweating blood (sweat being one of the curses); crowned with thorns (thorns being one of the curses); going to the tree (The Cross) for His bride (the church) - should Adam have eaten from the tree of life, trusted in God, and stood up to the serpent? Easy for me to say. When Adam saw the serpent or dragon should not a red-light have gone off in his head, remembering God's word to till and to keep the garden. Again, easy for me to say.

This chapter is something I think about often. And with the thinking come alot of what-if questions. I think those questions can be a problem, a danger. I think your last paragraph is a way of tackling and moving forward from those questions. Thanks.

Great metaphors I hadn't really noted myself, Ed!

What if Adam had never sinned? What if Eve had told the serpent she didn't talk to strangers? I'd never really thought positively about what if Adam had eaten the tree of life. God prevented Adam from doing so because, He said, if man ate from the tree of life he would live forever and seemed to think that would be a tragedy.

I tend to agree. I don't think Adam would have stood up to the serpent had he been immortal. Mortal human beings rarely do and we usually get our butts kicked when we do it in our own strength (remember the disciples tried that). We need Jesus to stand up to Satan on our behalf. I think his mortality made Adam much more reliant upon God and that was a good thing. The effects of the tree of knowledge continued generationally. If the tree of life carries a similar effect, Adam and Eve would be with us today. So would Cain, who murdered his brother and apparently felt no remorse for it. Would he have softened after a few millennia or would he have become more depraved with time? Now there's a what-if that makes me shudder.

Good points all, Aurora.

But if Adam had not sinned, if human nature had not fallen through the effects of Adams sin, would Cain still have turned-out as he did?

I realize from Augustine that God does not cause evil, He causes that evil does not become the worst thing. Through the fall, and by the Redemption of Jesus we can reach a higher level than Adam would have ever reached even if he had not sinned.

That's one of those esoteric theological debates that can never really have an answer, so I typically try to avoid them, though I used to like them when I was a younger Christian.

If Adam had not sinned, the world as we know it would not exist. His descendents would not have been sinners and Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross would not have been necessary. What if wasn't which leaves us with what is. Adam DID sin, which set the rest of human history, including the Atonement, into motion. The rest of it is mere speculation. What would have happened if Adam had not sinned is just a distraction from reality and what God requires of us in this real world. I guess I could be accused of being practical about matters of faith.