Does having faith mean not seeking knowledge?

[nobspeople]

Recently someone said, when discussing knowledge, "It would have been much easier, less painful, to know by listening to God and by letting him explain it." Outside of God never explaining much of anything, it got my mind wondering if faith, itself, equates to (at least partial) lack of knowledge or the need to understand more.

A few things people don't know but accept by faith:
how God came to be
what God is
how God forgives
what lies beyond the reached of our universe
how God created all things - even things we don't know about yet
how can all of the earth save for one family be guilty enough to drown in a flood (even babies that were just being born - as it's a good assumptions that this was happening without the bible specifying)
why animals need to suffer for what people did and be drowned in the flood

The list can continue but this one is what I want to discuss:
Why did God not want Adam and Eve to eat from the knowledge of good and evil?
Christians say God doesn't want robots, but when Adam and Eve ate from the tree, they weren't acting like robots, but pure individuals. Yet, they (the story goes) condemned mankind for wanting to know the knowledge the tree held.
People could counter by saying they simple wanted to disobey God - they would have eaten from any tree - but because the bible points to this particular tree and its title or name, I don't believe it was simple rebellion.


God doesn't seem to want us to know more as outlined by this story of the tree, but he does want faith. So it seems, at least in part, God doesn't want us to know certain things and rely almost strictly on faith in him.
If that doesn't sound like robots.....

So what did that tree hold, exactly, that God didn't want them to know?

[The Tanager]

Why did God not want Adam and Eve to eat from the knowledge of good and evil?
Christians say God doesn't want robots, but when Adam and Eve ate from the tree, they weren't acting like robots, but pure individuals. Yet, they (the story goes) condemned mankind for wanting to know the knowledge the tree held.
People could counter by saying they simple wanted to disobey God - they would have eaten from any tree - but because the bible points to this particular tree and its title or name, I don't believe it was simple rebellion.

Names can be given before or after/because of some act. I don't think the Genesis story directly tries to answer how this tree got its name. I think the knowledge spoken of in the name comes from their first experience of choosing for themselves what is good and evil, rather than listening to God's view on what is good and evil. I think knowledge denotes experiential knowledge in other things, like when Adam "knew" Eve, i.e., had sex. They knew each other prior to that kind of knowledge.

If this is true, then God did not want Adam and Eve to choose evil. Yes, they were acting out their free will, but in a way that God would rather they didn't.

God doesn't seem to want us to know more as outlined by this story of the tree, but he does want faith. So it seems, at least in part, God doesn't want us to know certain things and rely almost strictly on faith in him.
If that doesn't sound like robots.

How is having the choice to rely on another or not acting like a robot? Are you saying it's either be a robot or decide for one's self what is good/evil? If so, then I think that is a false dichotomy. One can be robotic, decide good/evil for one's self, or trust another person's idea of good/evil for you. The other person being talked about here is omniscient. I think it wise to trust that person's idea of good/evil over my own. That's making an informed choice not a blind one and not being a robot.

[JehovahsWitness]

Why did God not want Adam and Eve to eat from the [tree of the] knowledge of good and evil?

ANSWER: Biblically, because He had decided to use that particular tree to symbolise their recognition of his sovereignty and eating from it would therefore represent their rejection of his right to tell them what to do.






JW

To learn more please go to other posts related to...

FREE WILL, THE ORIGINAL SIN and ... THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND BAD

[JehovahsWitness]

So what did that tree hold...?

The tree in the middle of the Garden did not "hold" or posess any knowledge, since trees are inanimate objets without brains or thinking ability. Thus if you went up to any tree and asked it what it thinks about the current exchange rate or if it likes a particular book, it could not respond. Not only because it cannot communicate but because it is an object incapable of intelligent thought.


DID THE TREE HAVE "MAGIC" PROPERTIES OR CHEMICALS WHICH, WHEN INGESTED WOULD ALTER ADAM AND EVES THINKING ABILITY ENABLEING THEM TO GRASP HITHERTO INCOMPREHENSIBLE NOTIONS?

In a word, no. The Tree of Knowledge did not have any "magical fruit ". It was no doubt a tree like any other, with fruit similar to all the other trees of it's kind that God had created for Adam and Eve to eat. Nothing on a physiological basis would change because they ingested it's fruit. It wasn't poisonous and did not contain mind altering chemicals. The effect of eating from it was purely symbolic.

Simliar to burning the national flag in a public place, spitting in your father's face or taking off one's wedding ring and throwing it at your partner, the gesture sent a clear message to God, namely, that Adam and Eve rejected their maker's authority and would henceforth make their own decisions as to what was "good" or "evil".

In short, the tree was merely the instrument by which Adam and Eve performed an act of defiance.

JW






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.THE GARDEN OF EDEN , ORIGINAL SIN and ... THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND BAD

[JehovahsWitness]

why [would] animals need to suffer for what people did and be drowned in the flood

In the bible, animals were not initially given to humans as food but for human pleasure and companionship. There is no indication any of the animals in the garden of Eden repesented a threat to human life or well being. Indeed the bible indicates animals also reflect God's beautiful qualities and that, He cares for animals and is attentive to their needs. That said animals are biblically a lower life form to humans, they were not given the prospect of eternal life and humans were given dominion or rulership over the animal Kingdom.

GENESIS 1:26

Then God said: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and the domestic animals and all the earth and every creeping animal that is moving on the earth.”

This was not a licence to mistreat animals but did indicate that they were entrusted to human guandianship and thus would be affected for better or worse by how humans exercised their authority . Just as a human parent is responsable for the care of their child, if humans abused their power over animals or acted wickedly the animals would naturally suffer. For example during the preflood world the bible reports of widespread wickedness. When that wickedness resulted in adverse justement, babies, dependent children and animals all suffered as a consequence.


Mercifully God (Jehovah) took measures to ensure the continuation of both the human race and the animal Kingdom and interestingly Gods post flood promise implies that never again will He allow all lifeforms to be so impacted because of human wickedness (see Gen 8:21).

CONCLUSION: Animals SUFFER because they were given to humans under human dominion and sadly many humans abuse their power and/or make bad decisions that impact the animal kingdom.

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JEHOVAH'S WITNESS

To learn more please go to other posts related to...

.THE PURPOSE OF LIFE, ANIMALS and ... CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

[William]

Recently someone said, when discussing knowledge, "It would have been much easier, less painful, to know by listening to God and by letting him explain it." Outside of God never explaining much of anything, it got my mind wondering if faith, itself, equates to (at least partial) lack of knowledge or the need to understand more.

A few things people don't know but accept by faith:
how God came to be
what God is
how God forgives
what lies beyond the reached of our universe
how God created all things - even things we don't know about yet
how can all of the earth save for one family be guilty enough to drown in a flood (even babies that were just being born - as it's a good assumptions that this was happening without the bible specifying)
why animals need to suffer for what people did and be drowned in the flood

The list can continue but this one is what I want to discuss:
Why did God not want Adam and Eve to eat from the knowledge of good and evil?
Christians say God doesn't want robots, but when Adam and Eve ate from the tree, they weren't acting like robots, but pure individuals. Yet, they (the story goes) condemned mankind for wanting to know the knowledge the tree held.
People could counter by saying they simple wanted to disobey God - they would have eaten from any tree - but because the bible points to this particular tree and its title or name, I don't believe it was simple rebellion.


God doesn't seem to want us to know more as outlined by this story of the tree, but he does want faith. So it seems, at least in part, God doesn't want us to know certain things and rely almost strictly on faith in him.
If that doesn't sound like robots.....

So what did that tree hold, exactly, that God didn't want them to know?

The important thing to understand (which requires knowledge) is that you are dealing with mythology here. Faith is required to believe that the mythology itself is true whereas knowledge shows us that it is really nothing more or less than fireside stories used to entertain tribes. (Television is the modern day equivalent).

We know through knowledge obtained by scientific study that no flood occurred wiping out all forms of flesh, so there is no need for anyone to believe it is a true story of any actual historical event.
Likely the nature of the stories were seen to have an effect on the psyche of human individuals and religion formed through this revelation that such stories could be used to manipulate groups of individuals fairly easily by using their imaginations to induce fear and their fear to induce subservience and their subservience to produce riches power and positions of rule for those telling the stories.

This is also why the structure of religious mythology involves a hierarchy starting with a god-figure (usually enthroned) and moving down the ranks from there through archangels, angels archdemons demons ruling class humans to human slaves and then animals and insects etc...

It became a major con-job and survives today - not only in religious circles but political ones as well - rife throughout human social and economical structures.

I think that under the circumstances the whole process has been a natural enough one but the end result won't be (isn't) pretty.

Knowledge is often seen to be a problem for humankind as history shows us how it is obtained and the cost in terms of damage created through that process and how it is used to suppress the human being rather than liberate.

Knowledge itself isn't the problem. It is the lack of full knowledge and the unsavory use of partial knowledge which appears to be the problem.

Even taking into account the mythology of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit, the story shows us - not what the knowledge of 'good' and 'evil' do to humans but rather how knowledge itself can be used.

Knowledge can and does get used for good. Often though, it is used to serve the self rather than the wider reality the self is contained within.

Note within the mythology when the god asks the rhetorical question "Did you eat of the forbidden fruit?" instead of fessing up the pair chose to point fingers of accusation away from themselves by blaming others. Clearly they were showing their capacity for self service and clearly this is something we can all relate to. They had a good life up to that point and then they were threatened by the fear of death at the hands of this god - but as it turned out, this god had other plans for them - a long hard painful life first and then death.

In relation to that it should be remembered that such mythologies as these were invented by folk who already knew what it was to be living a hard painful life and therefore it is quite natural that the stories they created would reflect such...

[William]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #12]

If this is true, then God did not want Adam and Eve to choose evil. Yes, they were acting out their free will, but in a way that God would rather they didn't.

The problem with this reasoning is that it speaks of a being who does not know before hand how things are going to go, and since most Christians believe their god knows all things, then the question of what the god would rather have happen becomes redundant because the god cannot have the luxury of not knowing and thus being able to have things go the way he would rather them go. It is contradiction.

If one is to accept the premise that the god knows all things, then regardless of the gods personal desires/agenda as to what he would rather have had, he cannot escape the fact that he would not get what he would rather have gotten by setting things up in the way that he did, which leads one to the conclusion that he got exactly what he expected/KNEW he would get, because...well he knows all things.

The mythology itself steers away from that logic by giving us the impression through the wording that the god was not aware as to exactly how the results of his creativity would unfold, but unlike human parents who have the luxury of being ignorant about how things will unfold for their children and when their children do things they would rather their children had not done, the parents can only accept that their children have free will and in that, will do whatever they want to do.
This god had no such ability yet still decided to create the situation he placed Adam and Eve within, knowing full well that the pair would use their free will to choose evil over good...there is no other conclusion one can come to in relation to the idea that this god is omniscient... but it is one in which many Christians struggle to come to grips with and face squarely because this means the god isn't blameless... which is yet another attribute given to him.

One simply cannot have the existence of evil AND a faultless omniscient creator of all that is...

[The Tanager]

This god had no such ability yet still decided to create the situation he placed Adam and Eve within, knowing full well that the pair would use their free will to choose evil over good...there is no other conclusion one can come to in relation to the idea that this god is omniscient... but it is one in which many Christians struggle to come to grips with and face squarely because this means the god isn't blameless... which is yet another attribute given to him.

One simply cannot have the existence of evil AND a faultless omniscient creator of all that is...

I never claimed God is blameless. God is responsible for people having the ability to commit evil. People are responsible for using that ability to commit evil.

God wanted a world with free will. He gets it. He also wants a world where free will beings choose good all the time. He can't guarantee that without contradicting the first desire. What's the contradiction?

[William]

This god had no such ability yet still decided to create the situation he placed Adam and Eve within, knowing full well that the pair would use their free will to choose evil over good...there is no other conclusion one can come to in relation to the idea that this god is omniscient... but it is one in which many Christians struggle to come to grips with and face squarely because this means the god isn't blameless... which is yet another attribute given to him.

One simply cannot have the existence of evil AND a faultless omniscient creator of all that is...

I never claimed God is blameless. God is responsible for people having the ability to commit evil. People are responsible for using that ability to commit evil.

God wanted a world with free will. He gets it. He also wants a world where free will beings choose good all the time. He can't guarantee that without contradicting the first desire. What's the contradiction?

There is no contradiction if your argument is that god is at fault and that your argument is that there is fault.

[brunumb]

Why did God not want Adam and Eve to eat from the [tree of the] knowledge of good and evil?

ANSWER: Biblically, because He had decided to use that particular tree to symbolise their recognition of his sovereignty and eating from it would therefore represent their rejection of his right to tell them what to do.

I'm sure you are not capable of reading the mind of God, so could you please give us specific biblical verification of your claim concerning what he decided.

[nobspeople]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #12]

I think the knowledge spoken of in the name comes from their first experience of choosing for themselves what is good and evil, rather than listening to God's view on what is good and evil. I think knowledge denotes experiential knowledge in other things, like when Adam "knew" Eve, i.e., had sex. They knew each other prior to that kind of knowledge.

Maybe. Or maybe not, as you indicated with your "I think" preface.

If this is true, then God did not want Adam and Eve to choose evil.

True or not I wouldn't say he wanted them to choose evil. But that doesn't mean he didn't know they wouldn't if he's all knowing.

How is having the choice to rely on another or not acting like a robot?

I don't understand this sentence.

Are you saying it's either be a robot or decide for one's self what is good/evil?

I'm saying God doesn't want us to know certain things and, instead of knowing these things, rely on faith in him. If that equates robot to you then that's fine ( I guess?), but that doesn't equate robot to me.