In the Genesis it is told that once Adam ate the forbidden fruit God said: “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever “. How do you interpret this passage?
Love,
Paulo
How do you interpret Adam’s experience?
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una prueba muy dura para un humano no pudo resistir la tentaciòn y lo hizo, pero cuando le dijo que ahora tomara el arbol de la vida le dio todo el poder para ser lo que el quisiera ser con las oportunidades de luchar y sufrir y gozar ypodemos tambièn poner fe y volver hacia atras con amor y voluntad Dios aunque fallò adan hoy tenemos la esperanza de un paraìso y todo aquel que quiera obtener la visa para allà solamente debe tener un corazòn puro y limpio
adan no tan perfecto, curioso y desobediente ahora tenemos que seguir con el karma en que nos metiò . Solo nos queda tratar de apegarnos a las reglas impuestas por los humanos por que de lo contrario nos quitan la libertad. LIBERTAD valiosa que la podemos usar a nuestro antojo para bien o para mal
Scared and faithless.
Story from Eden
From the ribs of curiosity,
A newer version evoked.
She glared and spoke differently.
A charm I couldn’t describe.
Delightfully delicate
Thoughtfully complex
A face made of snow
Skin softer than flower blooms
Alive… erratic…
Yet Calm… romantic…
Mesmerizing wild
She spoke in codes not saying straight
She wanted nothing … yet everything sought
The first thing she asked from me
Was the only thing I couldn’t touch!
But I had a funny feeling and
I bit the apple first!
I am a common person, concerning from the eastern grade. Identification of religion is not necessary.
The answer to the following question gives birth to another question: “why a *mistake* of Adam and Eve treated as one, lead them to be sent away from heavens and if looks through an eagle’s eye perspective this mistake lead their offspring( that is us) to take birth, so is our birth a result of repentance or sorrow? were we born as a punishment to Adam and Eve?
Like the Cain and Abel story, the story of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil happens in the context of the struggle between Takers (agriculturalist, settlers) and Leavers (nomadic pastoralists and hunter-gatherers). Agriculturalists do not live “in the hand of God” – they force their will upon the land and all the species that inhabit it. They have eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – the decision of who will live and who will die that all settled agriculturalists make. Nomads and hunter-gatherers accept being creatures themselves and they accept that they are subject to creation and part of it, rather than being above it. They have not eaten of the fruit. Only the gods can eat of the tree safely; when humans do so they begin to take on a god-like role for which they lack the wisdom, namely, deciding what will live and what will die. They place themselves outside of creation and it leads them to make very harmful decisions, as is plain to see. This is also why Abel’s sacrifice was good, but Cain’s was not – Abel is a Leaver and Cain is a Taker. They are a metaphor for the basic worldview and conflict. You can find all this in Daniel Quinn’s interesting book, titled “Ishmael”.
Adam & Eve might have eaten the forbidden Fruit and sent away from Heavens, with whatever we can think of later.
Can anyone think and come up with some explanations for other living beings. What did they eat in Heavens?
It gives more weightage to scientific explanations. Science, considers the LIFE as a process in evaluation. We can just keep quiet on religious explanations, without trying any more to dig out logics.
I wish I was a scientist, able to explore without any fears and restrictions.
Well, as reflected in little variety in religious scriptures…. all these narrations create a kind of loose image of the whole episode. It may be different interpretations about the big Question of “Origin of Universe and Man”,
Borne in Muslim faith, well….. I have many big Questions to those who preach this whole episode.
What I have decided after thinking and getting nowhere, Lets look at the science and wait for more to come, as religions have given what they had.
Whatever is in the present moments have started getting more of my focus and energy, as I can feel it myself. Past, if contributing towards the betterment of my present, I must know. Rest is OK, if its only exploring and zest to know more.
la verdad no pertenesco a ninguna religion pero entiendo que el fruto prohibido es el sexo. el hombre se vio tentado y peco asi de facil el sexo es todo
Sorry, Paulo, I missed this Q until now.
I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, though not a General Authority of such.
As I understand it, we believe that each of us is a child of God, and therefore, as literal spirit offspring, created in His image, we have capacity to inherit any Blessing and capacity of our Father [We believe He also has an Immortal, Glorified Body] – given time and inclination. So, as the scripture you quoted says, we are quite capable of becoming as He is.
However, God did not want this for Adam [or for any of us for that matter] to occur in one foul swoop: Growth in life and repentance and improvement in life – each of these is a “Process” – it is not something we can gain instantaneously.
As God creates Opposites in all things, there was a tree in the Garden of Eden that was the Tree of Life – a tree in opposition to the ‘tree of death’, partaken of by Adam and Eve.
However, because growth and repentance are both Processes of life and time, God did not want Adam to simply partake of the Tree of Life and live Forever at that stage – the reason being, of course, that if Adam had partaken after disobedience to God, he would have lived ‘forever in his sins’ … and because “No unclean thing can enter or can inherit the Kingdom of God”, Adam would have lived forever unclean before God and not able to live in God’s presence at all.
In other words, Adam would have lived together Forever with Satan, had he not been given a space in which to repent and improve his lot in life.
Therefore, God placed a Cherubim and flaming sword to guard the way of the Tree of Life, lest Adam partake and live forever in his sins.
Further, I missed explaining that Adam had also ‘become as the Gods’ in that having partaken of the Forbidden fruit, he now understood both – good and evil – the tree also being referred to as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; before Adam partook, he was only aware of the goodly bliss and care of God, His eternal Father in Heaven.
After following Satan, however, he became aware of both aspects of life – thus becoming aware like God.
Good Day All;
God put “the forbidden tree” in the garden with a purpose. He gave us the option of choosing to eat it and if he stated it was forbidden it was to protect us from the price of knowledge and power. “Men has become like one of us” meaning men has gained knowledge giving him power like us (God didn’t create the world by himself; he states it repeatedly in the Bible). “And now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” now men will be able to choose between good and evil, gain more knowledge and power through reason, live forever through his children. All our ancestors live through us genetically and spiritually. This makes us some what immortal.
It’s very interesting, isn’t it?
I believe that after man ate from the tree of knowledge he developed an awareness of worldly things that led to lust, greed, murder, bad nature in general. And in the covetousness that came into the world through knowledge of right and wrong and good and bad, man might want to eat from the tree of life causing them to live forever in their suffering.
The action done by God was a loving one! It wasn’t that God wanted us to suffer or to punish us or for us to die. It was that He did not want us to remain in suffering (feeling of separation from Him) for all eternity. Can you imagine an eternity where there is no death and yet we are on this Earth where there is war and killing and rapes and the planet is dying in general? Noooo thank you!
Going back through history, I’m sure you will agree that the Bible has not only blessed people. The same book has also made people suffer. Why?
Because of interpretation.
Many people interpret the Bible literally. And when we interpret it literally, we get into all sorts of problems.
Like the one you just posted Mr. Coelho. :)
Dear Paulo, that fruit was not a fruit, and it is never possible that a God makes a evil fruit first and later on ask someone not to eat. God is the most intelligent consciousness,not a stupid being.
Dear Paulo,
In Islam, there is a Hadith Qudsi (A certified saying) in wich God says: “I was a Treasure unknown then I desired to be known so I created a creation to which I made Myself known, then they knew Me”.
How can we know the infinite Qualities of Allah, like his Mercy, Forgiveness, Compassion, and Pardon, if we didn’t make mistakes or faults that needed to be Pardoned?
The reason is so we could Know our Lord for He is a Treasure.
Salams!
The so called physical world does not exist, nothing exists unless a conscious being sees, feels, smells, tastes or hears it (measures this so called reality) which is proven by the Double slid experiment. Paradise never existed neither did the garden and all that. It is only the representation of the human mind. Be cause God does exist, in your mind, but whatever exists in your mind automatically IS be cause we are the ones who create the whole universe. When Adam ate the fruit of knowledge what really happened was a questioning process, Adam than discovered that he was naked, than become ashamed of his nudity (and so did Eve) than she discovered that giving birth is painful and also discovered death. Think about that, if you are never told that you will one day die, that death just doesn’t exist, you will never die! You will only die in the eyes of those who believe in death. Its all in our head!
“seek and you shall find” right? It only means that we could find a way to becoming immortal. And to support my hypothesis, don’t you find that there’s a weird coincidence between the neurons and trees?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c4/Neuron-figure.svg/424px-Neuron-figure.svg.png
our physical mind looks like a garden(as the paradise is described in the bible) and the neurotransmitters are like the fruits of those trees in that garden, thus this passage only means that we can find a way to do anything we want, like the gods,we became like them!
Notice how God says he was become like “US”. I think this is proof that we were created by aliens from a corporate sin galaxy.
From what I understand, the plot was that God did not want human to stay in Garden of Eden, that is the reason he created a tree with forbidden fruit and planted it right in the middle of Garden of Eden.
My question are:
Is there a being called God?
If he/she exists, what does she/he wants to acheive by creating human beings?
or what does he/she expects from human beings?
Respected Mr Rajesh
I liked your thought process. Raising intelligent questions is a wonderful virtue. Questioning and doubts, give rise to progress and move us closer to more of truth. Zinda Baad (Soch kee sarhad hotee naheen)
I do not understand Adam and Eve at all. If they had not been banished we would not have a human race. They’d still be in the Garden of Eden and we wouldn’t be here trying to fathom why we are here. I mean this with no disrespect to anyone – I understand things in allegories but they must make sense.
Lindsey, its not true that there wouldn’t have been a human race if Adam and Eve were not banished. In Genesis 1:28, before the First Sin, God tells them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it”. The curse after the sin was only that Eve would have pain in bearing children.
So in a sense we would probably have been on earth, but not probably discussing this now.
moitie/moitie
une part de chaque
chacun prend son partie
masculin et feminin
c’est un part age
Christ is Adam and I’m Eve.
“the man has become like one of Us” – the birth of Wisdom through Eve a woman, and gives joy and happiness to those who have pure intention in gaining Wisdom.
“and, now he might stretch out his hand, and take ALSO from the tree of life,” – he made himself the judge of what is good and what is evil, abusing the divine privilege which is Wisdom (tree of life). Man abused the gift of Wisdom by spreading deceit and evil. “ALSO” refers to the fact that the woman (Eve) had already taken from the tree of life.
“and eat and live forever.” – immortality was a pure God’s gift which man lost with his disobedience.
I think human being in paradise means,future. The last step of evolution.
The man is not perfect yet, and he needs to live in this world, than will go to paradise to enjoy God.
with a “Pink Lady”
If an authority figure placed me in that garden and told me not to eat from that fruit or i’d die, i may resist for a long time but one day (it may take a thousand years) i’ll go ahead and do it.
If that authority figure then kicked me out of the garden b/c I’ve started to become like them, and eating of the tree of life would only complete my transformation into an authority figure, i’d devise a way to get back in that garden and eat of that second tree, and that would be in keeping with my character.
What would i have to lose? I’m going to die and i’ve been cursed.
If anything, I probably stand to gain my own redemption and the respect of the authority figure. Maybe that’s what’s expected of me from the beginning.
Thousands of years after the downfall of the golden age someone started writing a holy book. The warlords that caused matriarchy to fall were evil but they were not stupid. They pondered long and hard upon the mysteries of existence to make themselves even more powerful, working with the priets, they discovered the inherent coding in the very essence of people, which we today call DNA. They symbolised it with the image of the serpent. Thus the story woven around the Garden of Eden refers to a female rebellion and an attempt to reclaim the secret of feminine redemption, for which of course women are punished even more by the new male god, and the rulers realised that this essence, the essencial coding of people, was fluid and could be altered (quantum physics). So, they wrote into a so called holy book that man has but three score years and ten upon this Earth and then he dies and returns to dust. People had become uneducated and mostly illiterate under the patriarchal system, and anyone who wasn´t – and who wasn´t also corrupt and evil – was killed, so gradually people began to believe the lie. Mind controls matter (science). Believing the lie entered the coded essence of both man and women and everyone began to die around that age because their cells now contained a little coded self-destruct instruction. People have been controlled in this way since the collapse of the matriarchal age.
This is the same story of the fall of Men (different)
1.We are people we see through the filter of our preception.
Someone wrote down the story of creation the way they understood it.
Someone else might have told u something like I will.
God is the omnipotent beeing. We do keep on forgetting that.
2. We are scared of the devil. Putting him as a close to equal force to God.
CONCLuSION: for this story we have to go beyond our preception.
Story:
Look close enough God still manages, for Luzifer to be his servant, after this one officially wants to go against everything God tells him to.
That’s right, he’s playing him, I mean come on he’s God.
In reallity he’s fullfilling Gods will in this little scene with the apple.
Notice he’s not even lying to Eve.
Weren’t Adam and Eve sinning before?
The problem is they did and couldn’t be aware of it.
Illustration:
Imagine your wife prepares the finest most delicate of meals.
Get’s a montone thanks.
Than she does something simpler still good.
-Thanks.
Something better.
-Thanks
Something worse,something horrible.
-Thanks,thanks.
She throws an apple against ur head.
-Thanks.
You see it? God saw that it was good they didn’t.
Nowerdays unthankfulness is considered one of the biggest sins.
We should be thankful to God that he opened our eyes through that simple trick, and freed us from that huge shunk of ignorance.
The real beginnig of the story:
But wait it’s worse! Or even worst?
YOU ARE NOT CAPABLE OF LOVING, IF U ARE NOT CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING.
1.You can not care and be responsible for someone if you do not try to understand them.
2.You can not respect someone if u do not try to unserstand them.
3. You can not know and unedstand someone if u do not try to understand them.
These are the 4 aspects of loving as interoduced by Erich Fromm in the Art of Loving.
He didn’t connect this in any way with the fall from paradise.
I do.
I think that Eve somehow knew, understood of her ignorance and incapacity, facing the truth presented to her by the snake.
She knew she had to risk everything, in order to love God more perfectly.
She did and that shows absolute faith.
After this she was full of love for God,herself and everyone else she wanted to share.
She had taken responsibility for her fate.
Adam saw the faith in her eyes he saw that it was good.
They didn’t really need the chemical effect some kind of magic boom.
They needed to step out of their usual boundairies.
Now God could start to teach them because they were beeings that would risk mistakes in order to understand,the essence of Love.
Eventually after the apple was devoured they realized the dual nature of their decision.
Eve’s intentions were the best, on the other hand God had commanded them differently.
They hadn’t realized anything more after eating, and felt shame, for their failure, for seperating themselfes from all the creatures by beeing able to want something moore.
Did God punish them?
Of course, any child looses respect for you if u tell it don’t, and let him do it anyway.
He’ll never listen to you again unless u provide him with consequences for his actions.
Did he reward them?
Even moore, but like i said we forget about that.
He let them find out how to make clothes, how to plant and chase and Eve how to have children.
He taught them how to be responsible for themselfes
since this had been their decision.
You can not love unless you are responsible for yourself.
He taught them everything and gave Eve what she had so longed for: Understanding and the capacity to Love him moore perfectly.
Dear sir
I’m doing a research on the persian translation of 11minutes.I would appreciate if you could give me your e.mail.Bacause i’m a student in translation studies.I’m looking for good topics for my thesis.sure yoy can help me.
regards
Dear Karthik Jain, why the question whether we can find the real one or whether we find the God in a non abstract form? The scriptures say in James 4:8 “Draw close to God and he will draw close to you.” So step on is making that effort to search for the real one, and not think that the one we were told about with the long white beard sitting on a cloud getting mad when he can’t have his way with humans, is all there ever is or will be.
I’m not “following” a God that I have been told about. I’m “worshiping” God who is Love. That’s pretty much the best thing that ever happened to me in my entire life.
LOVE is my religion.
That’s why I’m happy.
That’s my I feel at peace, with myself and others, even if they don’t share my likes or views.
That’s why I accept others the way they are and help them be a better version of themselves.
And that’s why I trust that everyone who is a lover of truth, honest hearted, and has a great burning desire to know the truth, it will set him free, and he will find God, no abstract concept. S/He find the same God that found me (with my Bible open on my table at one time, and in a small Italian village at a lake side, at another time).
Whatever circumstance, His name sounds good to me…
“he that causes to become”.
So, really, whatever YOUR mind can accept…
whatever your heart can understand…
whatever your thoughts can create…
whatever your efforts will achieve…
whatever your God may convey to you…
whatever book you read…
whatever religion, myth, legends, you want to explore…
whatever you want to believe,
whatever tradition formed you…
whatever form of worship…
whatever rocks your world,
whatever shape or color your world is…
may it bring LOVE and PEACE to YOU, and light!
Maybe then you also reconnect with the God who has made all things and made himself known and has made known his Name to all extremities of the earth so that no one can say s/he didn’t know.
I ask the question about “Which God you mean” BECAUSE I have read Paulo’s books. But I don’t know what you understood from them, and bought greatly that one understands the same exact thing when reading Paulo’s books.
Whatever rings true to you, may it be your bliss. It is your freedom of thought, your perception and you make your connections.
I am an independent thinker and say what I perceive, not a follower who merely repeats what others feed him.
Paulo’s thoughts expressed in his books read beautifully and with some I can connect; some other thoughts are what I would express as “in search of” and those I like a lot because they reveal a lot about who he is and how he thinks.
I connect to the love he has and shares with others.
I connect to the universal spirit that encompasses mankind, not with an abstract kind of concept but with personality, feelings, and an amazing way of communicating, which if not experienced, is something you don’t believe unless you do.
I don’t get mixed up about WHO God is. God is love.
Who God is to you, it’s your choice. Remember, we have FREE will. You can make really anything your God; not all is beneficial. Not all is upbuilding. Not everything is constructive to this world and relationships because it creates bifurcating paths that have met at a point but then went off into the extreme ends of the planet.
That’s why relationships end up in wreckages, because people don’t believe the same thing.
Not everything is leading to the same result, and certainly not everyone will like my name, or the handle I chose to serve up some of my food of thought. Do I mind? I still think it serves the purpose. We are communicating.
With gratitude.
Dear Lydia of Light Serendipitous Adventures( it doesnt sound good, does it?)
U say it depends on which GOD i am referring to?
What i meant to convey to u was that GOD is only one and it resides in each one of us.Some call it Jesus, Some call it Allah,others call it buddha or Mahvira and so on. Each one of us follow the GOD we have been told about but did we really make an effort to search the real one? can we really find the God in some form that is not abstract?
If u really have read Paulo, then u would never say that. I dont say that dont follow a religion, but always remember that humanity is biggest of them all.
Paulo Blog – question of the week – 14 December 2007
On his Blog, Paulo Coelho posed a question relating to Adam eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, the subsequent expulsion from the Garden of Eden and the fight between Good and Evil.
Putting into a wider context, I wrote on this some time ago, under the heading ‘Christian Theology and Gaia’.
http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/christ.htm
What is curious, is that when I wrote on this, was when Paulo wrote The Devil and Miss Prym, ie 2000, which also addresses these issues.
My thoughts on The Devil and Miss Prym, go some way to addressing the question posed, these I will publish soon.
http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2007/12/17/this-weeks-question-3/
Keith
Dear Karthik Jain,
It depends on which God you’re referring to.
1 John 5:19 tells you the reason why terrorists continue to live: “We know we originate with God, but the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” This refers to Satan the Devil, the arch enemy and opposer of the creator whom he taunted in the garden of Eden by luring his creation into following his ways. He often likes to be worshiped as God also. So, here’s the dilemma…and I come to your second question about a scheme to control creation, which perhaps is just a rescue back-up plan for mankind to not be destroyed completely. But again, which God do YOU refer to?
Sorry, I keep refering to GOD as he,him(male). I believe GOD,if at all exists, has to be a female.
Once Adam had a bite of non-dualism and understood that good and evil were one, God scratched his chin and realized it would be pretty easy for Adam to then understand that life and death were one also and that we are eternal beings. There goes his leverage!
Lydia of Light Serendipitous Adventures says:
“He only goes after the wicked and those who have decided to follow him and assist him in his scheming”.
Then How come Osamas,Bush’s and terrorists like them continue to live a full life?
Does it take so much time for THE GOD to find them when even a human being(in their right senses) can see that they are wicked.Does THE GOD require a scheme to control his own creation?
I read ur novels “The Alchemist” and “The Zahir”.
They were very nice. Thanks for writing such inspiring books.
If anyone wants to attain Nirvana(Moksha…) then ur books are a good beginning.
So isnt God US?
He is very human in his thinking.
The tree of life holds the fruit which will make the man immortal. And he or probably “they” will have to be one among us rather then being superior to us. They dont want that to happen?
One can become immortal if he follows the path to Nirvana(easily said then done).The soul becomes free and the Man comes out of the cycle of life and death. And the soul becomes one of “US”.
Dear Paulo,
What does God mean When he said, “THE MAN HAS BECOME LIKE ONE OF US”? Is there more than one God? Then which of those really created this World?
When the God says “and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.” and expels the couple from Eden, and the gate of Eden is sealed by a cherub and a flaming sword “to guard the way to the tree of life.”
Is God being Selfish? Did he intend to make man similar to other animals who dont have the power to think and distinguish between good and bad?
And what such things the Tree of life holds that he expelled them and sealed the gate of eden?
Was God successful in doing so?
” the man has become like one of us”
It refers to trinity, God the father, the son and the holy spirit.
We are also tripatite being, We are a spirit, living in a body, posssesing a soul.
If we look at humankind’s evolution, it has always been about a search for something greater–some knowledge, meaning, and purpose.
At first it was about survival. The earliest human beings did what they did because they had to fight off predators and find ways of beating the odds.
Then, humans learned how to fashion tools for themselves, and science and technology were born. As the centuries passed, we learned more and more to control our environment to make it comfortable for us. Once the prey struggling for survival, we now became the predators–searching for conquest and control. This is what the great wars were all about. Until now, we seem stuck in this “mode” of conquering and controlling.
The tree of knowledge taught us truths that we learned to understand and use. Now we want the tree of life to ultimately control everything and make ourselves masters of the Universe, of creation.
However, this is not our true purpose here. Humankind was made to be STEWARDS of creation, and not its lords or masters. Interpreted in a negative way, we human beings have become so used to control and power that we now are using technology to achieve the impossible: immortality. This is not wrong or bad, per se, but it leads to a way of thinking that is unhealthy–because we are not the Ultimate, our lives are not the Ultimate. We are just threads in the greater fabric of creation.
Looking at this in a positive way, human beings can “take from the tree of life” and use this to make life better for everyone else. Just as we are finding ways to live healthier, grow stronger, and look younger, we are also now realizing the mistakes of our past actions and are trying to somehow reverse the ecological damages brought upon by past generations. We are trying to reduce carbon emissions, we are trying to save endangered species, we are trying to right the wrongs that ignorance has caused our forefathers to do.
So, yes, we once acquired knowledge and learned how to use it. Now we want Life, and it is up to us to decide how this will be done–and, ultimately, what kind of Life we do want to have for humankind as a whole.
Dear Tom Caylor,
I agree!
I like the way you express it.
Best regards,
Liany
Dear all,
as i spoke about this topic to my friend on the phone, my friend’s 5 years old son suddenly gave his cmment. “If God didn’t send Adam and Eve outside the Eden, there could be three Gods at this moment.”
:-)
Love to all
Liany (Indonesia)
Dear Eric,
Everyone can quote the Bible and it has been quoted in many contexts, which is OK, I won’t insist on being “right” or you being “wrong”. It essentially is just a matter on what fence you’re standing. I have my views, shaped by diligent study of the Bible. What I wrote is, and you can test and research, what is written in this inspired book that man wrote on God’s command.
No, I don’t think MAN = GOD.
You can take the matter up with God who, also according to the Bible, is love but by far not perfected in the individual being. His great love was perfected in that he sent Jesus. He was the only perfect man to live after Adam. Why did he die for us? WHY in the world would a LOVING father send his son to die?
Because Adam, another son, betrayed his trust and ignored his warning about the tree of knowledge of good and bad, and that way lost perfect life. Anyone that would succeed him in his line would have to die.
I respect your views, Eric. At one point, I might have even had similar thoughts. Now since I did “change my mind” according to the teachings of the Bible I made the changes in my life that had to happen. It all made sense to me.
I don’t share your views and still love you, respect you and won’t argue this fact.
Keep searching for God, because he’s merciful and kind. For you to say he doesn’t exist is hurting him, I would suppose, but he is used to hearing it. He never lashes out to anyone, especially not the one who sincerely wants to search for him. He only goes after the wicked and those who have decided to follow him and assist him in his scheming.
I have no intention to convince you of how I see things. It is essentially the way the Bible tells it. Love is only then unconditional when you are able to feel it for all human beings, despite the many stabs and pains they cause you, and only Jesus has perfected this, and God’s love for man was personified in Jesus.
I also do not share the convictions of God and Jesus being a part of a trinity.
Peace, love and light to all.
Lydia
ha ha ! eric !
u have started the rock scene here ! the whole place is rocking ! i wonder how Paulo is able ro hold himself in writing something here, despite so many requests !! i bet it is one of the ‘policy’ decisions !! sadly all good things start dying as soon as ‘institutions’ take over their upkeep ! ‘institutions’ a necessary evil !! hope Paulo would prove an excption on this one too..
God is infinite in his variety and glory. There are many ways in which we can be like God. In fact, man/woman was made “in the image of God”. This does not mean that we are like God in every way. It is impossible for anything/anyone to be like God in every way, except for God Himself. But we do reflect his glory, each of us reflecting God in a unique way, like the colors of the rainbow, so that each one of us has a crucial role to play in the adventurous story that goes on forever.
We can actually deduce a lot by using reason and what other Scripture passages say. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they became like God in one additional way in which they were not like God previously, “knowing good and evil”. We have to assume that for Adam/Eve “knowing good and evil” means essentially the same thing as God “knowing good and evil”, since by taking on this trait Adam and Eve became “like God”. So, what does it mean that God/Adam/Eve knew good and evil? It must not be referring to the act of disobedience itself, since how could God disobey himself? God knew good and evil without ever doing evil. “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.” The very definition of evil/sin is that which is against God. But ever since Adam and Eve sinned we have this truth for every human being, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We have lost something. We find do not reflect God’s glory. The mirror has become dirtied. We find we do not fulfill the original intent and crucial role that was meant for us in God’s heart before the foundations of the world.
To “know good and evil” is to be aware of this rift which has been made between God and anything/anyone else. God is One and He cannot be divided, but He can be aware of the division between good and evil. It makes sense that if there is evil, God certainly is aware of it, since evil is what is against God! This is the difference between our knowledge of good and evil and God’s knowledge of good and evil. We are on the other side of the rift. At least this is how it was for Adam and Eve at the moment that God said these words under discussion. And yes this is how it is for all of us, “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned, every one, to his own way…” that is, this is how it is for all of us until… “But the Lord has laid on Him (the Messiah), the iniquity of us all.” This is how God brings us back to Him, by bridging the rift Himself, by sending His Son Jesus. This was the only way to bring us True Life, by becoming a human Himself. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” There’s the word “glory” again! In order to rescue us from across the rift, God had to cross the rift Himself by sending His Son. In order to clean the reflecting mirror of His glory, His image, he had to get dirty Himself. Not by sinning (gosh how would that help?) but by taking the rift/death on Himself. His only Son was emptied (kenosis) of his *glory* (!), and God was separated from His Son, so that the separation would no longer have to be between us and God. “He (God) made him who know no sin (Jesus) to become sin for us (on the cross), that we could become the righteousness of God in him.” That is, if we want to be with God, and thus accept God’s love. Across the rift, we say, “God doesn’t love me.” And yes that is what it seems like on the other side of the rift. Love is not just a statement. It needs an action. That is why the news that God did something is called the Gospel, which means Good News. It is the news that God actually did something to love us, so that we can actually respond, take His hand reaching out across the rift.
Yes, by eating of the Tree of Life, Adam and Eve would have become like God in yet one additional way, living forever. Again this does not mean that they would then be fully like God, just as being made in his image or knowing good and evil did not make them fully like God either. What it would have done is this: Adam and Eve would have “lived forever” in the state that they were in at that moment, on the other side of the rift from God, on the other side of the rift between good and evil. So I see God’s keeping them from living forever at that point as an act of mercy. I don’t see this “living forever” as being the same as the True Life, the Life Abundantly that has been Brought To Us through Jesus, “I have come that you may have life, and that you may have life abundantly, life to the full.” How could Adam and Eve have Life Abundantly on the other side of the rift from God? God is the Source/Author of Life. God is Love. He came to us. He is wildly in love with us. He made us! He is bringing us back to Him, growing us, for a life of adventurous infinitely many-faceted glorious love forever, which can be lived in even now.
Aditya rocks!
Mike gets it.
WE are GOD
GOD is US
WE live forever in HIS heart
as HE does in OURS
i love darwin.
God was Good. Good lost an O along the way. Maybe when the first one soiled its name by his mouth. Doog became a dog.
Yes, WE are GOOD
GOOD is US
We live forever in HER Heart
as SHE does in OURS
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