Can I ask... Does a person that wants to take money from the bank illegally, want to break the law?
Do there do so willingly? Would you argue that they don't want to break the law?
If you mean to describe the act of stealing from a bank, I will acknowledge the act denotes a person who wants money and is willing to break the law to get it. I would not think they want to break the law, but rather they wanted the money and breaking the law was a means to that end.
Thanks for clarifying.
If you agree that while not deceived, Adam ate of the fruit of the tree, which God commanded him not to eat.
Then you must also agree that Adam willfully disobeyed God.
I can't agree because I don't actually know. There also could be a deficiency of experiential knowledge so that it allowed Adam to be persuaded or misled.
When we work off the premise that it's wrong to disobey God, it concludes with all certainty that Adam's choice/decision was wrong. So, since we're looking at two male and female images of God, without fault in a state of innocence; then as a matter of grace, it's safer for me to say that Adam didn't know what he was doing, than to say he did.
What you appear to be saying is that Adam did not want to disobey God, but willfully did.
Not willfully as in an intention to cause harm. There could exist that deviation in your paraphrase.
Scripture denotes Adam was put in a situation where he had to choose who to believe, God or Eve. Whether he willfully disobeyed would be contingent on his motive at the time. If the woman ate first and she did not die, but rather had her eyes opened, she could have been persuading Adam through questioning his reasoning to trust God, while seeing her alive and possibly telling him her eyes were opened. I don't know. He may have been focused on questioning his self and he ate to see if he was wrong, rather than he ate because he distrusted God.
So, I typically express that I think he ate reluctantly as if he were unsure about himself. But I don't know, so I go with grace.
However, since Adam was not deceived, as the Bible says, then it's a contradiction to say Adam did not want to disobey God, since Adam's choice was made with the knowledge that what he was doing was wrong against God, and so he ate the fruit, knowing full well that this was the truth.
Hence Adam willfully chose to disobey God, following the course he wanted to take.
I've said this and gave supporting evidence from scripture many times, that the scriptures do NOT denote that Adam was not deceived. You're referring to
1 Timothy 2:14 where Paul is expressing that Eve was the one deceived, not Adam. Of course, we know this would be true simply because the serpent is not depicted as speaking with Adam. Subsequently, we don't actually know if Adam would have fallen victim to the crafty and subtle beguiling of the serpent as Eve did. We only know
he hearkened to the woman who was deceived which he most likely didn't know, which denotes that she talked with him, he listened, and he ended up eating.
Please see above.
Adam knew what he was doing. He was not deceived.
Please review the meaning of deceived if you are still uncertain.
I'm not disagreeing that Adam knew what God told him. I feel the need to say that just in case you may be equating --> Adam knew what he is doing --> with -->Adam knew God said not to eat --> therefore Adam was not deceived.
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Like I have already said when we speculate that Adam knew what he was doing when disobeying God, it suggests he either wanted to die, or he was second guessing himself, or he may have misunderstood God, or Adam thought God was not truthful or something not yet thought of.
You're relying on a mischaracterization of Paul's intent in
1 Timothy 2:14 to claim Adam knew what he was doing. If that were the case, then Paul would be asserting a contradiction that the woman who had to be deceived into eating, should follow the man who willfully and knowingly rejected God as untrustworthy.
That is extreme speculation.
We do not want to add these to this discussion.
It's not extreme. There are prominent theologians like Aquinas that have written about the possibility that Adam ate because he didn't want to live without Eve.
This too, is extreme speculation.
Please, let us not get into these unverifiable guesses.
It isn't that extreme. By the way,
WE are speculating precisely because we don't know. The syntax in Genesis 3 denotes God expressing that Adam hearkened to the woman and therefore the implicature limits the speculation to the exchange between Eve and Adam that was followed by Adam eating. We don't know what that exchange was, but God's judgment suggests that Adam would not have eaten if he had not listened to the woman.
The extreme speculation is actually the one alluding to Adam knowing that God was not being truthful. That claim is that Adam was not misled by believing the woman who was deceived, but that Adam knew exactly what he was doing when he disobeyed God and began to die. And subsequently, it is said that Adam is seen blaming Eve. As I see it, that's all a mischaracterization of the events because God Himself verifies both Adam's and Eve's account that she was beguiled, and in a state of being beguiled, and that she persuaded her husband into eating the fruit.
Again. We would agree you are speculating.
Did Adam know what he was doing?
A willful act refers to an intentional, conscious, and deliberate action carried out with the purpose of achieving a specific result. It is characterized by a voluntary and knowing decision to perform an act or omission that one is aware is prohibited by law or contrary to duty.
Sources
1 2
Deceived :
To be deceived means to be caused to believe something that is not true, often through deliberate misrepresentation, lies, or misleading actions. It involves being misled or tricked, either by someone else's deceitful behavior or by one's own failure to recognize the truth. This can include being misled about facts, being manipulated into a false belief
Sources
1 2 3 4 5
I can agree we are speculating about what exactly happened when Adam was listening to Eve, and I can agree with the descriptions of the terms willful act and deceived.
According to the Bible, and secular sources, Adam was not deceived, but knew what he was doing.
This is not accurate. If they mean Adam knew God is a liar, then I don't believe that. If they mean he knew that God commanded him not to eat, then I would not disagree.
Where did you read that in the Bible? Can we agree, nowhere?
It's right here
Genesis 3:17 -->And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
If it comes from in your head, it's an idea, and we are not considering ideas, are we.
The syntactic markers of God's judgment in Genesis 3:17 show Adam believing Eve's persuasion over and against God's command. Hence it was a circumstance where Adam had to make a choice of who to believe.
Let the Bible have the say.
Adam was not forced, but yes, he had a choice, between whether he would obey God, or not.
The unwanted circumstance implies an antecedent event he did not volunteer for. The phrase "listened to" in Genesis 3:17 denotes that Adam was persuaded by his wife and he ate.
Adam and Eve are shown to be believing God right up until the serpent enters the picture and the serpent is notably described as crafty and subtle. God Himself acknowledges the account that the serpent initiated the chain of events through introducing a lie presented to two male female images of God, both pure without fault in a state of innocence. The lie was slander against God, and it was delivered through subtlety.
Adam chose to eat of the fruit God specifically told him not to eat, according to the Genesis account. Thus Adam disobeyed God. Not because he was deceived.
Genesis 3:6;
Romans 5:18;
1 Timothy 2:14
God specifically told Adam Not to eat. Obviously, when I say Adam was forced to choose who to believe, it acknowledges that. None of these scriptures say Adam willfully disobeyed God.
Pardon me?
Please explain how the fact that Adan did not eat the fruit, prior, impress on your mind that Adam did not deliberately or willingly eat the fruit.
Simple, since Adam didn't eat of it before the incident with the serpent and Eve, it infers he was believing that God was protecting them from a fruit that would bring death to him and his wife. If he deliberately wanted to disobey God and eat, he would have already done so. It's like a judge will use one's record to show a pattern or an isolated incident.
Could Adam have obeyed God of his own accord?
By "one's own accord" implies by "one's own initiative". The actual initiative is God's Love based command to obey. Human initiative is typically considered a responsive disposition, not the origin. I do know that Adam's disposition obeyed God right up until the incident with the serpent and Eve.
Please answer the question yes or no, if that is not difficult for you. Thanks.
Then I will say no and the reason why is because there are scriptures that denote God had a plan from the beginning such as “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world”. Such scriptures show God’s plan of salvation was set before Adam’s fall and subsequently they indicate Adam could not have altered the events.