3). Their failure does not mean they were not ready. If He knew that they had no chance of succeeding, then you would be correct.
On the contrary, it most assuredly does mean
exactly that. If He cannot see why this is the obvious and inevitable result of the setup He devised, that's on Him, not His test subjects.
Creation was not deemed to be good because it existed; it was deemed good because it existed in the way that God created it to be.
Which still results in them having no comprehension of what evil is and why it should be distrusted and/or avoided.
My point was that, if they had rejected the serpent's assertion that God was intentionally lying, they would have realized that they had encountered something that wasn't on the same wavelength as everything else. But that may be groundless speculation. Maybe they simply would have assumed the serpent was mistaken.
(emphasis added ...
FOR EMPHASIS!)
To reject it, they would first need to recognize the incongruity. Unless you can suggest some other way for them to figure this out, both are self-requisite and therefore completely and utterly impossible.
The serpent did not say anything about the command or a possible reversal of it; nothing it said could be interpreted as "Hey, guys, God's just told me that that fruit is on the menu." It only said that (1.) they would not die from eating it; (2.) God knew that if they ate it, their eyes would consequently be "opened"; and (3.) they would become like God in that they would know good and evil. Nothing in this broaches the topic of permission.
It really doesn't have to.
1 They receive vague and misleading information from one source about a fruit.
2 They receive vague and misleading information from this other source about a fruit.
3 The two sets of information cannot logically be true of the same fruit.
4 They have no means of understanding deception or applying critical thinking to assertions.
5 Fruit is literally made to be eaten and often specifically tasty and nutritious to creatures such as humans.
You've missed my point again. Hoarding, stealing, ect., etc. are all choices, regardless of the 'point' of those actions.
Well, no. Your point is obvious, as are its flaws. You can choose to lie, cheat, steal, and/or maim. You can choose to die of malnutrition, exposure, exhaustion, and/or infection. In paradise, you aren't likely to find these choices in a dichotomy; on Earth you do.
First of all, I think you guys should understand the nature of God before you say He is overreacting or He's pretty dramatic. Yes, God demands absolute and perfect obedience. But He himself is absolutely perfect. No one can enter His presence because no one is perfect, except for Jesus because Jesus is God in the flesh. %100 human % God. So it's right to say that he is extremely demanding, but He has the right to. He is the creator of the Universe and the creator of us.
Drivel. He is not entitled to demand perfection of a creation He Himself creates imperfect. He is not justified in subjecting His creations to torment and strife for falling short of His unreachable standards. If He wants obedience, He should be more than capable of making perfectly obedient creations from the very start.
James 1:13-18 I just want to turn your attention to what temptation is. It never comes from God but rather from the Evil One. Satan makes the most dangerous things look attractive.
Satan. I.e. former archangel Lucifer, created by Oh-So-Perfect God to do God's Perfect bidding. The same God who demands Perfect obedience and dictates what can and cannot be permitted within His Perfect paradise. Yes. Obviously, God is totally blameless and can only be held accountable for Good things. Anything else that results directly from His own actions must be someone
else's fault.
