Is Eve in Hell right now?

[Tonus]

Omniscience would not prevent him from taking any particular action, it only means that he had all of the information he needed in order to act.

His perfect love and justice would, it seems to me that people believe God can do anything He desires, that's not true and scripture reveals this if one would just take the time to search out the truth. God has no desire to do things against who He is.

What I mean is that god is not restricted from taking any action he pleases. His particular nature may mean that he does not take certain actions, but he is capable of them if he wished. I may occasionally get angry enough with a person that I'd like to hit them, but I it's extremely rare that I even yell at another person. I am capable of hitting someone, but it's against my nature to do so. If god was somehow incapable of taking certain action, then he is more limited than I am, and that doesn't make sense to me.

Nothing stops god from doing something wicked if he chooses, aside from the willingness of others to accept his actions as "good" regardless of what he does. In that sense, his treatment of Eve is "just."

His decisions with Eve were through His just nature, His decisions are made with no regard to what you and I believe. Scripture says God can do no evil because God is not capable of sin.

But is that because any action god takes is by definition good, or is it that he cannot do certain things because he is somehow limited? If god avoids sin because he is incapable, then it seems as if he is good not because he chooses to be good, but because the choice is denied him for some reason.

Eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was not 'bad' in any other sense than that god told them not to do it, and told them what the penalty would be.

I disagree, if God had not put the Tree off limits through His commandment they would have eventually eaten from it. They then would have the knowledge that would lead to sin eventually, so eating from the Tree would have been disastrous. God had a reason for putting the Tree of limits, to preserve mankind in a sinless state and a continuous relationship with Him unbroken by sin. God placed a penalty on disobeying so they would understand that this specific action would result in wrong doing.

But if that is the case, then he could have simply put the tree out of reach, or not created it at all. Thus the tree needed to serve some purpose besides being a stumbling block for mankind. The command to not eat from the tree made the tree serve as a symbol of god's sovereignty over humanity-- he could command humans because he was god, and that should be good enough for man.

The Bible makes pretty clear that the most important rule is to do as god commands. Adam and Eve did not, and paid the penalty that god promised, with only moderate changes.

What moderate changes, the penalty was death and death they did experience. The ultimate penalty of death was separation in a relationship with the Creator of the universe.

Originally, god tells them that if they eat, they will die. Some versions of the Bible even imply that it would be the same day. Only after, when he is condemning them, does he add the pains and suffering that they would experience before death (woman's birth pains, the cursing of the land, etc).

There are two issues with this, as I see it. Boru already covered one of them, in that without the notion of good/evil or right/wrong, Eve could not have understood the ramifications of breaking the rule given by god.

She knew right from wrong, why, because she understood what the punishment meant, that being so she had to understand it was wrong to disobey God. Why would God give them a consequence for disobeying, knowing they did not understand, He wouldn't, just as a parent tells a child that there will be a punishment for disobeying, they know the child understands. Eve couldn't have understood the greater picture, she was not God and could not see the future, she had one simple commandment to obey, it was all she needed to know.

But the story tells us that until she ate from the fruit of the tree, she did not have knowledge of good or evil. God gave a command (do not eat from the tree) and a punishment (or you will die) and there seems to be no additional explanation.

Her only motivation would have been the selfish desire to avoid death, and having that concern removed by the serpent's lie, she was easy prey.

Don't disregard the fact that they spent time each evening with God in the Garden, do you believe they were just passing time, I think God was teaching them many things about Him, things so wonderful we can not begin to understand.

We can at least infer that she understood, on some level, that death was not desirable, that it was something she did not want. Otherwise the command has no motivating value-- if Eve did not understand death, then the threat of death would not dissuade her from disobeying. What she understood about right or wrong is unknown, but my understanding (based on my comment just above) is that she would not have understood this. If she did, then the tree is kind of superfluous aside from serving as a test of loyalty.

The fear of death wasn't removed from Eve by the serpent, the offer of being like the God they spent time with each evening was more than she was able to resist, self greed overrode her sensibilities to love God, same thing the serpent fell to, only difference is he made his own temptation through self pride.

In this case I'm just going by the story. Eve replies to the serpent's question by explaining the rule-- do not eat of the fruit of this one tree or you will die. The serpent tells her that this is not true-- she will not only not die, but she will gain some sort of additional insight that god has. Thus the fear of consequence is removed and a temptation is added. Now she thinks there is only an upside to eating of the fruit.

This does make me wonder about the time spent with god and being taught directly by him. If Eve was this easily deceived, then god did not prepare her well enough, it seems.

The second issue I referred to in my first post, which is that the rest of humanity forever and ever would not get the same opportunity that Adam and Eve got-- they would be born in a world that had been twisted to work against them, and with bodies that had been twisted to work against them, to the degree that they could not possibly determine for themselves whether or not they deserved to continue to live.

What do you think salvation is about, it's to have the opportunity to live in a relationship with God forever, same as Adam and Eve had, it cost God a terrible price but, one He was willing to pay for us and in that I believe we can never be grateful enough. It's true man has to pay a price for sin being allowed into the creation, God did not abandon us and payed a greater price to gain a new relationship with us and give us the same chance at eternal life with Him as they had, it's about choice. I want try to influence your thought process about this but, take what I have just presented and compare it to Abraham and Issac and the sacrifice they were going to. The stories are intertwined as threads in a woven carpet. Will talk to you next week hopefully Monday, thanks for the good talk.

But it was god who chose to curse the land and make humanity imperfect. That was not his original warning to Adam and Eve-- his original warning would have made them pay the price for their own misdeed. Even if humanity was now unable to live forever, why make us disease-prone? Why curse the land, that it would no longer produce in abundance? If a perfect man and woman in the perfect setting could not remain faithful to god, why make the obstacles even more difficult for their offspring? This would guarantee that most would fail, if not all, and that is what we see happen before long-- god decides that mankind has become almost completely evil and he decides to kill all except for Noah and his family.

Imagine if god had said to Adam and Eve "your offspring will not live forever. They will grow old and die, yet they will not become sick and the world will produce all the food they need and I will offer them the chance to enjoy the life that you denied them through your disobedience. All they must do is prove themselves loyal, as you did not, and I will give them the rewards that you rejected by your rash actions." Why would that not have been more just?