Question:

I wonder about the Eden "project" and the fact that it was so imperfect, so how did God plan for it to exist (even if man haven’t sinned)? – If Adam and Eve were immortals, why did God ask them to multiply; where would all their descendents live if there would be billions of billions of people and nobody would die? – If Adam is not supposed to sin, why tempter in the first place? Would snake try again and again and again for years or even centuries until somebody of Adam’s descendents sin? So if Adam haven’t sinned, somebody would eventually… – What was purpose of fruits? Eating? (Gen 1:29) What was the purpose of eating? If one doesn’t eat one dies – how would they die if they were immortal? – Were animals eating each other back there? Or they just ate vegetables (Gen 1:30)? If the latter is answer, when did animals start eating each other? Is it when Adam sinned and death came into world? – If God created Eve out of Adam’s rib, seems like Eve was not in plan in the first place; how come, when all the mammals come as male and female. Why would man have nipples then if he was not created out of woman or at least at the same time? Those questions can sound funny, but they seem to repeatedly come back to me at the times, whenever there are existential issues. Thanks in advance for your time and effort to answer.

Answer:

Good questions! Here is my very short outline of the entire Bible:

1. Genesis 1 God created the entire universe out of nothing.

2. Genesis 2 God created man (and woman) in a state of innocence, with the intention and purpose that they would love him and he would love them.

3. Genesis 3-4 We messed up!

4. Genesis 5-Revelation 20 God is doing all he can to fix the situation and to bring us back into a relationship with him.

5. Revelation 21,22 God has fixed the problem.

I believe this is the crux of the matter. God loves us and wants us to love him. That is why we are here–plain and simple. The bottom line is that love, by definition, includes choice. You cannot force someone to love you. Again, this is true by definition. So, God was either going to give us a choice of whether we would love him and worship him or whether we would rebel and use the gifts he gave us for our own selfish purposes, or he was not going to give us a choice. He gave us a choice. In fact, our having a choice is one of the major aspects of our being made in God’s image. This is why the tree of knowledge of good and evil was in the Garden. It was not because God wanted to tempt us. God never tempts us to evil (James 1:13). It is because He loves us. That is right! The reason the tree of knowledge of good and evil was in the garden is because God loves us. The way I see it, either God was going to give us a choice or not. And the choice could not be a hollow one. It had to be a real one.

You seem to feel that it was inevitable that one of us would mess up eventually and find this to be uncomfortable. I see where you are coming from on this, but I am not going to question God on his plan here. It was all because of love. I agree. It was probably inevitable that, if Adam and Eve had not messed up, someone was going to choose evil eventually. It is not God’s will that we do evil, but it is his will that we have free will.

Why was there a tempter? Because God gave his angels a choice as well. God is not evil. Neither does he create evil. God did not make Satan evil. However, it is apparent that some of his angelic beings rebelled as well. Satan rebelled and chose to reject the wonderful relationship with his Creator which God wanted for him. Satan chose evil. This is not God’s fault. It is Satan’s fault. We could perhaps fault God for creating the plan in the first place. However, on Judgment Day, I do not plan on challenging God’s plan to create me, to love me, and to give me a choice. I also do not plan on blaming Him for my bad choices. Those are on me. This is going to sound a little bit crazy, but the reason Satan was tempting Adam and Eve, at least indirectly, is because God loves us.

I understand that many Calvinists believe that Adam and Eve, in their physical bodies, were immortal. I personally do not believe this. I used to believe that when they ate that fruit, their bodies became mortal. I cannot absolutely prove this thesis, to be honest, but I believe that their bodies were not immortal. God intended to give them different bodies all along, like the ones we will receive at the resurrection (1 Cor 15:50-54). The death which fell to them when they ate the fruit of the forbidden tree was spiritual death and separation from God. This death and separation can only be healed by the blood of Jesus. Might the eating of the fruit have shortened their physical lives? Perhaps. Did it make that life much more full of suffering? Definitely.

The purpose of the fruit was both to give glory to God in its beauty and usefulness and to provide food to the animals and to Adam and Eve and their descendants. Like I said, I believe that the Calvinist teaching of physical immortality for Adam and Eve is not supported by the text. This teaching comes from a theological presupposition rather than from the scripture. Common sense as well as scripture combine to inform me that the reason they ate food is that if they did not, they would have died of starvation.

Your next question also comes from being exposed to a Calvinistic bias, in my opinion. Obviously, lions ate meat and whales ate krill before the "fall" of Adam and Eve. Life was around for hundreds of millions of years before Adam and Eve ever walked the earth. There is plenty of evidence that Tyranosaurus Rex ate meat!!! Genesis 1:30 does not teach that animals did not eat flesh. This is a Calvinistic "spin" on this passage which is not supported by the text. It is true that the Bible says that plants were created, at least in part, so that they could be eaten by animals. This fact speaks for itself. What it does NOT say is that no animals ever ate animals. Where is the biblical text which teaches that animals did not eat meat before the "fall"? It is simply not there. It is rather obvious that lions are not designed to eat vegetables.

It is true that Genesis 2 tells us that Eve was made out of Adam’s rib. I am not sure if this is literal or metaphorical. Perhaps it is literal. What I can say for sure, is that it was God’s plan all along to make them male and female. Genesis 2:24-25 seems to make this plain. Besides, the physical design of men and women makes it abundantly clear that God intended all along for there to be male and female. Genesis 1:21 does say that God made Eve as a helper to Adam. What it does not say (although some read this into the passage) that God was surprised and shocked to realize that Adam needed companionship. Companionship was the very reason God made us, so this was certainly no surprise to God. I hope this helps.

John Oakes