(July 29, 2014 at 7:44 pm)Chad32 Wrote: It just struck me recently. If Adam and Eve were made to be perfect, why were they even capable of making a mistake? If perfect people are capable of making mistakes, then why is perfection such a big deal?I don't think the Bible defines perfection very specifically. Does it mean that you'd never miss a free throw, ever? Or does it simply mean that your body is working at some unknown level of peak efficiency? Or does it mean that you have full control over your subconscious thought, and therefore a far higher degree of control over your actions and decisions? Dunno.
In any event, the story doesn't describe that they ate the fruit by accident, but as a clear and willful choice. Eve accepted the serpent's lie, but she knew that she was eating the fruit that god had warned them not to eat. The ability to freely choose any action allowed them to make bad decisions, or mistakes as it were.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
