How did Adam and Eve know good from evil?

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because up to that point, they had accepted Gods knowledge of right and wrong. God was the law maker, he was the one who decided what is good and bad and they were completely dependent on him. They were not independent prior therefore they did not think for themselves or decide for themselves....they relied completely on God for information.

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Hi again PegIn above quote you say God was the law maker and therefore you agree with the Divine Command Theory. Is that correct interpreted?If you in fact do so I believe you are familiar with the criticism of that theory. If that is not the case I recommend you to read up on it both for and against the theory. Personally, I believe it is a very interesting discussion. However, I also have an opinion in regard of this theory. The theory implies that humans are morally blind and need direct orders from God to know good from evil. However, Genesis 3:22 says: And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. I think it is very safe to assume that humans know what is good and bad since they have become like Gods. That is what the text says, but I am aware that you say humans create their own sets of moral standards, but that is in contradiction to the Divine Command Theory which you seem to agree with.I am not sure whether I have made myself clear enough, but I hope so. Of course I know that this is just my opinion, but that is no excuse to disagree; there are not many things that is not opinions, but opinions differs in whether they are informed opinions (build upon, many, arguments) or not.Furthermore, I would be very disappointed if morality was what God commanded. I want to be a good person by doing good action towards other people because I want to make people and myself of course, happy. I do not want to do it because someone commands me to do so or to acquire access to Heaven. If I am in a situation where a person is about to kill my fellow students, and I can stop it by killing him I would feel very bad to follow the Command not to kill just because God said so. If it just the command of God it seems like morality losses it meaning and is just more like obedience rather than goodness.I hope you can follow my thoughts.Edited by hotjer, : text structure

they didnt?So where are they?

Hey hotjer, yes that would be correct. that is not actually the theory you have described, its one of the critisicms of the theory. The problem is that not everyone reads the genesis account in the same way and they understand it differently as you can see from this thread.As i've stated, my understanding of the account is that, to have knowlege of good and bad means to decide for oneself what is good and bad. If the knowledge of good and bad is as you say ...that they recieved the knowledge of God because they became like God, then why do we have so many different standards of good and bad in the world today?I look at the bible as a window to past which explains the world we have today. Those events started the human race down a particular path... a path that is quite prevalent in our world. Even people within the same community can hold to different standards of living... we do not all have the same knowledge.The other question to ask, is If Adam and eve became magically endowed with Gods knowledge, why are children born as clear slates? They have no knowledge. They have to learn everything from their parents. So if it were true that Adam and eve became magically endowed with knowledge, then we should all have it. They passed on death to us, so why would they not have passed on knowledge to us? i completely understand your line of thought on this. We all have our opinions and thats perfectly fine. We should question where our opinions stem from though and test our opinions but never trust that they are 100% accurate. We need to keep our minds a little open to other possibilities. yes i can understand what you are saying and i agree with you. We shouldnt do good just because God says we should.... and he doesnt want us to work that way either.God encourages us to make morality a part of ourselves, to act because we love, not because we have to. This is why he does not force anyone to obey his commands. He gave Adam and Eve a choice and he gives all mankind a choice too. If he wanted us like robots, he could have made us like robots but he didnt. He made us with free will, that is the freedom to choose.Of course there are consequences to our actions and those consequences are inescapable. Adam and Eve did not escape the consequences of their actions and nor can we. With freedom comes responsibility.But i can tell you one thing right now...there is more freedom under Gods laws then there is under mans laws.

If morals are not independent of God, then morals are just meaningless expression of God? You probably heard the statement if God command that rape I moral, would you then do it or at least accept it as moral?. I know it is kind of rough and often used question to believers, but logically you should answer yes to that question since you believe morals are dependent of God. Otherwise you are inconsistent in your opinion and therefore irrational. I am not saying it is a bad thing to say yes and be irrational; I simply want to know what your opinion is and how you interpret my first question, since I am still a little confused about your argument.I have a little question: can you imaging the world without god to explain morals?I know my questions now leads to a discussion on morality instead of how Adam and Eve could differentiate between right and wrong, but I think it is important to talk about morals separated from my other question now.You say of course there are consequences. If we use my previous example; should I face the consequence of eternal damnation? I know it is extreme to use only one action to determine my fate, but I think the assumption is useful to come to a correct result. Furthermore, the situation is possible in the real world and not just in a model.

Oh, they died... you know that.We could quibble for pages over whether it would be on that day or in the day, and how long he meant by day, but I'd rather not.Just reading the story, god says if you eat the fruit you'll die. The snake say if you eat the fruit you'll know. They ate the fruit and then they knew. Its pretty simple really. I can see that god was wrong and the snake was right.Now, you can interpret the story to be saying that they would have lived forever if they hadn't disobeyed god and use that for the whole The Fall^TM thing, but then you aren't really reading it literally anymore.So then, I could interpret it to be referring to man's evolution from the beasts and acquisition of a morality system.We can apologize for all kinds of wacky stories and throw them into this arena to battle it out, but its all stuff that we're making up and ascribing to the text that we do have.Looking at Genesis 3, we have a very anthropomorphic god bumbling about in the garden and stumbling upon adam hiding from him, so god's all WTF? and... yeah, well...Its old jewish folklore. We don't have a lot to go with here. But I betcha 1000 internets that my story can beat up your story

if morals were independent of God and produced by us, would you say they were just meaningless expressions of ourselves?Where ever a moral comes from, should it be considered meaningless? do animals have morals?If they do, then yes, we could explain morals without God. Let me put it this way. If there is no God, then there is no eternal damnation. There is only death.If there is God, then there is eternal damnation and it is still death.So which would you rather? The prospect of death whether you are moral or not, or the prospect of eternal life because you are moral?

yes we could, but you know that the scriptures tell us that 'a day with Jehovah is as a thousand years' 2Peter 3:8and how old was Adam when he died? 900 odd years. So he did die within a day according to Gods view of a day. The snake was wrong and God was right.

I understand there is a point to be made, but his analogy with Beetaratagang and clerendipity is still flawed because told him which choice led to which consequences.Now you can argue that they didn't understand what the consequences were, but then in this case another more refined analogy would be needed then the one he is presenting.

I think it is different whether we use moral standard on our selves or on other, so no, I will not say they are meaningless. They might be counter-productive in some manners but they are not meaningless. The circumstance here is God commands us to obey morals that essentially are meaningless expressions of God.I still like to hear your thoughts on this and not just a question. When I ask a question, it should not matter whether I know the answer or not for you to answer the question or at least express your opinion.Regarding morals and animals:
Environment - The Telegraph
Page not found | The Chicago Blog
Just to point out to links. Animals do have morals. If we for a moment accept our intuition; think about a dog and how it cares about its owner’.Before I answer; it is not a trick question to make you judge me — a sin in Christianity. The question is only hypothetically. I would like to hear your answer to this.
It does not matter what I rather want; I want to know the truth whether it is god that condemns me or not or no god and all other possibilities. I cannot see this as a proper answer to my question. I will claim it is more rational to ask the question what would you prefer; die now or live forever.

I certainly do not view Gods moral standards as meaningless expressions of God.
Those morals work for the benefit of all creatures therefore they are not meaningless. i really dont believe that we are talking about the same morals here. Animals are governed by instinct...they have a built in knowledge and built in set of defined behaviors. Humans on the other hand can choose what behaviors they will or wont adopt. This is completely different to the animal world. A lion will always hunt prey because it is designed with that behavior. It cannot say "i dont want to eat meat anymore, i want to be a vegetarian" It is programmed by instinct and therefore it is not governed by morals...something that can changed. im having a hard time trying to figure out what your question actually is.If you question is 'What would you prefer, die now or live forever', then of course my answer is to live forever.If your question is something else, could you please repeat the question. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

So let us go back to the question:" if God commands X is moral, therefore it is moral" where X can be anything, e.g. rape. The point is: it is just expressions of God and not necessarily beneficial or whatever you might consider attributes of morals.You say creatures now. So do you think animals have morals now and it is consistent with the bible? Afterall, the bible says animals have no souls. Why would he create them with moral standards; where can you find anything about that in the bible?I want you to answer the first question - should God condemn me of I murder a man who is about to murder my fellow students?Regarding my last question "die now or live forever"; it was not an important question in this context, but when I said die I mean like vanish and forever like forever in this universe (not heaven). My question purpose was to illustrate that I think your question was kind of extreme.Anyways, I feel like you start to avoid explaining what your evidences are. We can stop the discussion if you want. After all, I just want to acquire some knowledge, and if you do not bother help me with that then it is okay, no hard feelings.EDIT: I saw your answer to animal-stuff now.
The researches on this subject do not support your belief on this matter, just to state the consensus. Animals can choose who they like, who they want to help — of course this depend on how intelligent the animals are. What about an animal such as dolphins? Is that just instincts?Edited by hotjer, : No reason given.

Ok, im sorry i missed that question earlier.Hypothetically, you are correct. But Gods morals are always for the 'benefit' of others, so this 'hypothetical' would never enter into reality. actually the bible says that animals ARE souls.
Genesis 1:20, 24 says Let the waters swarm forth a swarm of living souls....let the earth put forth living souls according to their kinds, domestic animal and moving animal and wild beast of the earth according to its kind. Therefore, all living creatureshuman or animaldont 'HAVE' souls but 'ARE' souls.And according to the bible, our soul is no different to that of animal souls
Eccl. 3:19-21 says There is an eventuality as respects the sons of mankind and an eventuality as respects the beast, and they have the same eventuality. As the one dies, so the other dies; and they all have but one spirit, so that there is no superiority of the man over the beast" There is a way to know if animals have the same morals as mankind. We have the ability to reason on our actions before we do them...that is our conscience going into action. Do animals do this? Will a dog who attacks its owner reason on the consequences of biting its owner before it attacks? We may never know, but what we do know is that a dog who bits will tend to always bite...this is why we destroy such animals. If the dog could reason on its actions, then it would surely choose to not bite, yet thats not what we see. God does not condemn us for protecting ourselves. If you look at the accounts about the 'cities of refuge' in the OT, you'll see that these cities were where a manslayer (not a willful murderer) could go to for protection from punishment (the law required life for life) for his accidental manslaying. Numbers 35:6 These are the cities that YOU will give to the Levites: six cities of refuge, which YOU will give for the manslayer to flee there, and besides them YOU will give forty-two other cities."This would include the case where a person was defending himself from an assailant, and the assailant came off second best. my understanding of death is exactly that. It is non existence, it is the opposite of life. Adam and eve were told they would return to the ground when they died...'ashes to ashes and dust to dust'The bible is very clear on what death is...there is no consciousness in death therefore, death is not a path to another realm. Ps. 146:4: His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts do perish.thats why the writer of ecclesiasties said that there is no superiority of man over beast.
Eccl 3:19For there is an eventuality as respects the sons of mankind and an eventuality as respects the beast, and they have the same eventuality. As the one dies, so the other dies; and they all have but one spirit, so that there is no superiority of the man over the beast, for everything is vanity. 20All are going to one place. They have all come to be from the dust, and they are all returning to the dust. 21Who is there knowing the spirit of the sons of mankind, whether it is ascending upward; and the spirit of the beast, whether it is descending downward to the earth?When we die, that is it for us... our consciousness ceases and we return to dust...nothing more. No going off to live in heaven, no going to a fiery hell, we simply return to the ground. Death is what eternal damnation is. Its eternally dead. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

What about Genesis 9:4
But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.As far as I know the word "life" is translated from a word meaning soul - do not eat flesh with soul. If animals have souls we may not eat them... I might be wrong about the translation, but it seems pretty obvious to me. Furthermore, I hardly believe animals have a concept of God.You say God's morals are for the benefit of others, but we do not need God to explain that......Argh, I am to sleepy now, I write back later xD

thats right, life and soul are one in the same. If a creature was alive, it was a soul. All living things are called 'souls' in the bible. But dead things are no longer souls, they are the opposite of a soul (alive)...they are dead.Noah was given the instructions that he could eat the animal but he must remove the blood of the animal before he ate it. The blood was something sacred to God and he used blood to redeem mankind...this is why blood was not to be abused, rather it was something to be respected.But im not sure what point you are trying to make here...could you elaborate on how this fits with the discussion and my previous post? no i guess not. However he did explain to Adam and Eve what the consequences would be if they went against his laws. So he does explain the consequences. We only need to know that his morals are for the benefit of all and therefore there should be no further need of explaining it. We can see how his moral standards benefit us... again, im not sure what your point is on this...can you elaborate?? Edited by Peg, : No reason given.Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

I am probably a little off-rail since I was damn sleepy. But my thoughts were just on animals and morals. Your opinion just seems to be in contradiction with many other Christian I have encountered. I am pretty sure if you look at the Hebrew the words life and soul does not originate from the same word and therefore they are not souls as human souls. Furthermore, consensus about the interpretation of G9:4 nowadays is not that you must not eat blood but more like do not shed blood — on flesh with soul (humans). I might have misunderstood you, but it seems like you do not agree with on this. One of the reasons why it seems unlikely that the command in G9:4 should be about do not eat blood/living things is that the bible do not really contain any eating rules — compared to Judaism and Islam. I ask these things just to clarify your points so I can asses your argumentation. Might be a little jumpy and complex.And to be a bit jumpy:
I just read an answer to another person about the subject in similar manners:
Or one can assume (which I do) that to "know good and evil" is a Hebrew expression for obtaining active sexuality, just as the word "know" of course can mean "to have sex with." It can be seen already in 1 Genesis 4.1, where Adam, just after the human pair have been shown away from the garden, immediately have sex with Eve.
Hans Jrgen Lundager Jensen, professor in Religion.What do you think of this interpretation? I personally think it is a very likely explanation, however, then my question about how they knew good from evil to be about sex and we both are wrong it seems like xD