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Topic
#5188
Adam and Eve did not need (moral agency) knowledge of right and wrong to be obedient to their Father
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The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
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After not so many votes...
It's a tie!
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1774
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Disclaimer : Regardless of the setup for voting win or lose, The aim of this interaction, Is for those that view it, Learn and or take away anything that will amount to any constructive value ultimately. So that counts as anything that'll cause one to reconsider an idea, Understand a subject better, Help build a greater wealth of knowledge getting closer to truth. When either of us has accomplished that with any individual here, That's who the victor of the debate becomes.
I'm aware that people argue particularly atheists that you have to know right from wrong in order to follow and obey instructions and rules.
Adam and Eve disobeyed before receiving the knowledge of good and evil according to the Bible if not my mistake.
Questions, comments on topic, send me a message.
Round 1
Pro
#1
First question I have is did Adam obey or follow what God formed him for in creation before the situation occurred with the tree?
Let's go over to Genesis.
Genesis 2
"9 And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads."
Skip down to the point here and we pick up at verse 15.
"15 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
So now that the rules have been established, let's see how they were carried out.
"18 And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."
So we read now that the woman has come along to help the man in obeying and following God.
They have not eaten of the tree yet. Really case closed right here on the topic.
In the next chapter is where the downfall occurs.
Genesis
"3 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
8 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.
9 And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
13 And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
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;
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:"
So after all that, after the act was done, good and evil was known accomplished by the one who already knew evil, used it to corrupt the woman with it that in turn corrupted the man.
That's really not much to articulate. So at this point the opposing side can offer up questions to address any conflict they see in this and we can go from there.
Con
#2
Thank you Mall.
Resolution: Adam and Eve did not need (moral agency) knowledge of right and wrong to be obedient to their Father.
Here is a true dichotomy. One of the options below must be true, by virtue of the law of non-contradiction:
- Obedience is always the right choice.
- Obedience is sometimes the wrong choice.
If someone doesn't know the difference between right and wrong, they wouldn't know which of these statements is true. Furthermore, they wouldn't know in what situations disobedience would be morally permissible if the second statement is true. If we assume that obedience is always the right choice when faced with a command from God, that necessarily entails that we cannot understand the value of obedience to him without having some knowledge of right and wrong. Thus, obedience to God without said knowledge requires one of two things:
- That you are hardwired to be obedient, such that obedience IS your motivation.
- That you perceive sufficient non-moral motivation to display obedience.
Clearly, Adam and Eve were not hardwired to be obedient, because if obedience was their main motivation they would not have eaten of the fruit. That leaves only one more possibility, namely that Adam and Eve had sufficient non-moral motivation to obey God's command.
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Genesis 2.17)
God uses a threat to back up his command. He says that they will experience death if they disobey him. The snake tried to sow doubt about this punishment, saying death would not result from eating the fruit, but instead great knowledge.
Did they die the day they ate it? Yes, they did. But the death they experienced immediately was spiritual. Later physical death manifested as a consequence. The immediate death they suffered was being separated from God which was manifested by them hiding from God and eventually experiencing physical death. [carm.org]
Just like the knowledge of right and wrong, the concept of death, both spiritually and physically, would also have been foreign to Adam and Eve. They had never experienced the death of another human nor had they killed an animal for sustenance. And without ever having sinned before they couldn't know what it meant to be spiritually dead.
Because of their lack of any moral knowledge the sum of the non-moral motivation they perceived drove them to disobey their father.
In conclusion:
Adam and Eve would have needed to understand the difference between right and wrong to be obedient to their father, because without the knowledge of sin and its derivative consequences they wouldn't understand the value of obedience nor could they comprehend the threat that accompanied Gods command. The fact that they didn't obey God goes to show that they didn't posses the moral knowledge necessary to display obedience.
Round 2
Pro
#3
" 1. Obedience is always the right choice.
2. Obedience is sometimes the wrong choice.
If someone doesn't know the difference between right and wrong, they wouldn't know which of these statements is true. Furthermore, they wouldn't know in what situations disobedience would be morally permissible if the second statement is true. If we assume that obedience is always the right choice when faced with a command from God, that necessarily entails that we cannot understand the value of obedience to him without having some knowledge of right and wrong. Thus, obedience to God without said knowledge requires one of two things:
- That you are hardwired to be obedient, such that obedience IS your motivation.
- That you perceive sufficient non-moral motivation to display obedience. "
Does really any of this enter into the topic?
Are you saying it was impossible for Adam to obey his father prior to eating of the tree?
If you say yes after I provided the scripture that says otherwise, then pretty much that's saying the Bible is a lie. Which many do call it that because it's rejected based on individual rationalization.
But the scripture does teach of letting us come to reason together.
Do you believe it is impossible for a son to obey his father without the boy knowing right from wrong?
"Clearly, Adam and Eve were not hardwired to be obedient, because if obedience was their main motivation they would not have eaten of the fruit. That leaves only one more possibility, namely that Adam and Eve had sufficient non-moral motivation to obey God's command. "
Was it clear that they were obedient prior to partaking in eating of the tree?
"God uses a threat to back up his command. He says that they will experience death if they disobey him. The snake tried to sow doubt about this punishment, saying death would not result from eating the fruit, but instead great knowledge."
See even here if we take the understanding that the man didn't even know or comprehend what the punishment entailed, he still obeyed his father according to Genesis 2.
I think the opposing side is looking at this too deeply going passed the minimal idea of the topic. Before Adam and Eve took of the tree , Adam obeyed the Father and Eve was to help him in the garden. That's it. The opposing side I believe is centered on perhaps eventually failing to obey the command about the tree.
Even with that because they initially obeyed or at the start Adam and Eve were obedient, it still falls under the obedience category. Even in Genesis 3 , Eve reiterated what they were commanded so she was able to obey and did obey until the master rebellious fallen one interfered.
Another thing I believe the opposing side is centering on is what made it possible to disobey was due to being without knowledge of right and wrong which I'm not debating.
"Because of their lack of any moral knowledge the sum of the non-moral motivation they perceived drove them to disobey their father. "
Not really of debate.
"Adam and Eve would have needed to understand the difference between right and wrong to be obedient to their father, because without the knowledge of sin and its derivative consequences they wouldn't understand the value of obedience nor could they comprehend the threat that accompanied Gods command. The fact that they didn't obey God goes to show that they didn't posses the moral knowledge necessary to display obedience."
The fact is they were obedient. Just because you at some point disobey doesn't cancel out that you obeyed a rule , law or command prior. This was all without receiving the knowledge of good and evil before their eyes came open.
Con
#4
PRO has not disputed any of the arguments I presented. He has instead asked why they are relevant. I will answer that question in this round.
Are you saying it was impossible for Adam to obey his father prior to eating of the tree?
My argument is that the very act of obeying God under the circumstances presented in Genesis 2 would be a demonstration of Adam and Eve's knowledge of good and evil. This is because they did not comprehend and fear the concept of death, nor could they be sure that God was telling the truth about the prospect of punishment. Adam and Eve would have needed to understand that obeying God is the right thing to do. Since they didn't understand why they should obey God, but they did understand that the fruit was delicious, it was a foregone conclusion that they would disobey God and eat the fruit.
PRO has to demonstrate that without knowledge of good and evil humans act randomly rather than in accordance with the sum of their motivating factors.
Was it clear that they were obedient prior to partaking in eating of the tree?
No. Actually, there isn't even a single mention in the text about how long the time period was between Adam being created, him naming the animals, and him disobeying his father. Furthermore, you cannot describe Adam and Eve as obedient simply because they didn't make a B-line for the tree as soon as they heard Gods command not to eat from it. That would be absurd.
Before Adam and Eve took of the tree , Adam obeyed the Father and Eve was to help him in the garden.
The story doesn't imply that they even actively decided to follow Gods command when they heard it. They were busy with naming all the animals in the garden, eating the different fruits and probably even doing naughty stuff to each other. None of these activities were they ordered to perform, so PRO cannot claim that they were being obedient simply by existing. Especially since they immidiately broke the only actual rule that God had given them.
Demonstrating PROs weak case
PRO's main point is that Adam and Eve were in actuality being obedient up untill meeting the snake. But to call children obedient simply because there was a non-zero time intervall between them becoming aware of a rule and them breaking that rule, that is obviously absurd. It would be another thing entirely if you were actively doing the dishes as you were told, but after multiple days of obedience you stoped obeying your father, and you refused to do the dishes. The case of Adam and Eve is obviously the former. They received a command from God himself, but because they didn't know right from wrong, they decided to disobey God at the earliest convenience.
Conclusion:
Adam and Eve were infact never obedient to their father, and the reason why is because they didn't have the knowledge of right and wrong to show them that obedience was the right option. PRO has not shown us how they could have been swayed towards obedience without said knowledge. Therefore, he fails to uphold the resolution.
Round 3
Pro
#5
"Are you saying it was impossible for Adam to obey his father prior to eating of the tree?"
"My argument is that the very act of obeying God under the circumstances presented in Genesis 2 would be a demonstration of Adam and Eve's knowledge of good and evil. This is because they did not comprehend and fear the concept of death, nor could they be sure that God was telling the truth about the prospect of punishment. Adam and Eve would have needed to understand that obeying God is the right thing to do. Since they didn't understand why they should obey God, but they did understand that the fruit was delicious, it was a foregone conclusion that they would disobey God and eat the fruit.
PRO has to demonstrate that without knowledge of good and evil humans act randomly rather than in accordance with the sum of their motivating factors."
Can you answer yes or no to my question please?
"No. Actually, there isn't even a single mention in the text about how long the time period was between Adam being created, him naming the animals, and him disobeying his father. Furthermore, you cannot describe Adam and Eve as obedient simply because they didn't make a B-line for the tree as soon as they heard Gods command not to eat from it. That would be absurd."
Oh so I want to highlight something you said:
"him naming the animals"
Was this an obedient or disobedient act to his father?
"The story doesn't imply that they even actively decided to follow Gods command when they heard it. They were busy with naming all the animals in the garden, eating the different fruits and probably even doing naughty stuff to each other. None of these activities were they ordered to perform, so PRO cannot claim that they were being obedient simply by existing. Especially since they immidiately broke the only actual rule that God had given them."
You said it again: "They were busy with naming all the animals in the garden"
They were busy being obedient.
"Demonstrating PROs weak case"
Excuse me, my case doesn't even have to be that strong.
You said it for me already about what Adam was doing. He was either obedient or disobedient during the time of.
"PRO's main point is that Adam and Eve were in actuality being obedient up untill meeting the snake."
So are you saying they were already disobedient by the time the serpent convinced Eve?
Doesn't make much sense. Was Eve pretending she had not eaten already?
There Father waited till a second time and that's when they died.
This is just too easy. I think you thought the topic was one thing but it was much simpler than what you thought.
"But to call children obedient simply because there was a non-zero time intervall between them becoming aware of a rule and them breaking that rule, that is obviously absurd. "
They were either disobedient or they weren't before partaking of the tree.
"It would be another thing entirely if you were actively doing the dishes as you were told, but after multiple days of obedience you stoped obeying your father, and you refused to do the dishes. "
You're really concentrating on this timing. Are you trying to argue a standard of a certain amount of time before you call someone being disobedient or not?
You mentioned dishes. Instead of dishes, it was the garden they had to tend to , what God put them there for.
I think you should of looked over these scriptures first perhaps before taking the challenge.
"The case of Adam and Eve is obviously the former. They received a command from God himself, but because they didn't know right from wrong, they decided to disobey God at the earliest convenience."
Before their earliest convenience, they were obedient.
No matter how you slice it, Adam and Eve were obedient before they were disobedient. Also another thing,if they started out as soon as God formed man, he was disobedient, it doesn't line up very well. He made man and after everything he made it was good the scripture teaches.
"Adam and Eve were infact never obedient to their father, and the reason why is because they didn't have the knowledge of right and wrong to show them that obedience was the right option. PRO has not shown us how they could have been swayed towards obedience without said knowledge. Therefore, he fails to uphold the resolution."
I already showed you. You haven't shown outright that you need to know what you're obeying is good or bad to obey it.
Like a parent can teach and structure their child to follow a rule . That child doesn't know or understand if it's truly good or bad depending on the age. They're just doing and going by whatever the parent says that it is.
Following a rule doesn't require the knowledge of what it amounts to as good or bad necessarily. It is how that order and authority is structured that is required.
Con
#6
PRO has claimed that Adam AND Eve were infact obedient at the start (because he uses the word "they"). He bases this conclusion on two assumptions:
- Adam AND Eve were obedient because they named all the animals in the garden.
- Adam AND Eve didn't immidiately eat of the tree.
Let me adress number 1:
PRO claims that Adam and Eve were obedient because they named all the animals. There are 2 glaring problems with this analysis. First and foremost, the text doesn't say that Adam was commanded to name all the animals. "Genesis 2:19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof." Notice the lack of any divine pressure to name these animals. God simply brought the animals to Adam to see what he would name them. Adam did not have a choice between obedience and disobedience, because he hadn't recieved a command to name all the animals. He simply decided that naming the animals were something he wanted to do.
Second and most damning of all, this very part of the story explicitly states that Eve was created AFTER all of the animals had been named by Adam. So the chronology of the relevant parts of the story goes as follows:
- God creates Adam.
- God tells Adam not to eat of the forbidden fruit.
- Adam is preoccupied with naming the animals and trying to find a partner -- something God didn't tell him to do.
- Eve is created.
- Eve choses to disobey God, followed by Adam.
This is horrific for PRO's case since the resolution explicitly mentions Adam AND Eve. If either of them disobeyed that means that "Adam and Eve obeyed" is false. And according to the story the very first choice made by Eve is to disobey God. The reason for this is because she lacked the knowledge that obeying God is the right choice.
Let me adress point 2:
PRO claims that the non-zero time intervall between their creation and their eating of the forbidden fruit is proof that Adam and Eve started out obedient. This is false reasoning. The text doesn't in any way imply that Adam and Eve were expressing obedience. PRO is arguing here that every single child ever is 99% obedient because they spend most of their time not breaking the rules. But if you tell your children not to eat any candy, and nothing happens during school that day, but as soon as they get home they go eat all the candy, that child was not passively "being obedient" at school. Obedience is an active choice, not a passive one. If you do not have the will to follow a rule when confronted with temptation, you are not obedient.
To summarize
PRO's argument that Adam AND Eve were obedient at the start are fundamentally flawed and pattently false. In reality, Adam was preoccupied with naming the animals and trying to find a partner, because he was lonely. Then Eve was created. Then they had sex and forgot about the forbidden fruit altogether, until the snake brought it up again. At that point they didn't know that obeying Gods command was the right thing to do, so they ate the forbidden fruit. In order to have been willing to obey God they would have needed some knowledge of right and wrong.
Line by line rebuttals:
"Are you saying it was impossible for Adam to obey his father prior to eating of the tree?"
No, that is a blatant strawman. I am saying that he would have needed knowledge of right and wrong in order to be obedient. My R1 arguments supporting this have yet to be refuted.
Are you trying to argue a standard of a certain amount of time before you call someone being disobedient or not?
No. This is yet another strawman. Doing the dishes even for just a day is still an active choice that proves your obedience. But just because you didn't steal candy yesterday, you did it today, that doesn't prove that you were obedient yesterday but suddenly became disobedient overnight. This is such a simple concept, I can't fathomn how PRO doesn't get it.
Following a rule doesn't require the knowledge of what it amounts to as good or bad necessarily. It is how that order and authority is structured that is required.
This is where the problem lies. PRO is arguing that Adam and Eve didn't need to understand WHY the fruit was forbidden, just that it WAS. But the very concept of something being forbidden means that something is not allowed -- that it is wrong and incorrect to do. Even if you don't know why something is wrong, you still have knowledge THAT it is wrong in a certain framework. That is still knowledge of right and wrong. A human may order something immoral, but that is not a weakness that God has. If you know THAT you should follow God's command, that means you have SOME knowledge of right and wrong.
This is damning for PRO's case, because it means that Adam and Eve would need SOME knowledge of right and wrong to be obedient, which the resolution doesn't allow for.
Round 4
Pro
#7
"Adam AND Eve were obedient because they named all the animals in the garden.
Adam AND Eve didn't immidiately eat of the tree."
Are you saying they ate of the tree before God commanded them not to or after but not before the serpent said something?
Are you saying that they didn't obey or follow God's purpose by doing just that?
"PRO claims that Adam and Eve were obedient because they named all the animals. There are 2 glaring problems with this analysis. First and foremost, the text doesn't say that Adam was commanded to name all the animals."
I thought you'd harp on the specific word "command" because that's all you have to argue. What else do you have to say?
Unfortunately for you, the meaning of a word can be present without the word itself.
"Genesis 2:19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof."
"Notice the lack of any divine pressure to name these animals. God simply brought the animals to Adam to see what he would name them. Adam did not have a choice between obedience and disobedience, because he hadn't recieved a command to name all the animals. He simply decided that naming the animals were something he wanted to do."
Whoaaaaaaaa! Where in the text can I read that Adam did this because he wanted to do?
He did follow what his father put him in the garden to do. We can read that along the lines of which. Whether it was something he wanted, that's more so the opposing side's opinion as well as being bound to knowing what good and evil is to follow orders.
I mean even computers don't have to know the difference in good and evil to follow commands to execute things that would affect people.
Now let's go back to Genesis .
Chapter 2 and we look at verse 15.
"15 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it."
So Adam was doing, FOLLOWING, OOOOOBEYING, what God had put him there to do.
You know how when you keep things tidy and organized, you have a system, you keep records, you sort, you label, that type of thing. Not everything is going to be detailed out. But please don't pass over , gloss over the very details that the passage does give you.
That's why in verse 19 it basically says God brought the animals to Adam to do what God would have him to do. Adam didn't go to God and say" hey I want to do this and that, hook me up". You got to give me book, chapter and verse for that.
"Second and most damning of all, this very part of the story explicitly states that Eve was created AFTER all of the animals had been named by Adam. "
There's no scripture that says all of the animals that existed at that time were named. Scripture states that what was brought to him and he named all he did that was THERE.
So it stands to reason there was more work and so the emphasis is made over and over about a help meet.
So Eve during that time of her existence before meeting the serpent THEY BOTH were obedient.
Otherwise the meeting with the serpent would have a different light.
"So the chronology of the relevant parts of the story goes as follows:
God creates Adam.
God tells Adam not to eat of the forbidden fruit.
Adam is preoccupied with naming the animals and trying to find a partner -- something God didn't tell him to do."
Re-read that scripture again. It doesn't say Adam is trying to find a partner. God caused him to be in a deep sleep. It was God that said it is not good for man to be alone. Stop going by your thoughts and stick with the scripture.
"Eve is created.
Eve choses to disobey God, followed by Adam. "
After being obedient yes.
"This is horrific for PRO's case since the resolution explicitly mentions Adam AND Eve. If either of them disobeyed that means that "Adam and Eve obeyed" is false. And according to the story the very first choice made by Eve is to disobey God. The reason for this is because she lacked the knowledge that obeying God is the right choice"
Are you saying because the scripture is silent according to you on Eve's obedience, it absolutely doesn't exist?
"PRO claims that the non-zero time intervall between their creation and their eating of the forbidden fruit is proof that Adam and Eve started out obedient. This is false reasoning. The text doesn't in any way imply that Adam and Eve were expressing obedience."
I've shown the opposing side the scripture that demonstrated Adam's obedience. I've shown it to you. You skipped over it of course. We'll get to Eve.
"PRO is arguing here that every single child ever is 99% obedient because they spend most of their time not breaking the rules. But if you tell your children not to eat any candy, and nothing happens during school that day, but as soon as they get home they go eat all the candy, that child was not passively "being obedient" at school. Obedience is an active choice, not a passive one. If you do not have the will to follow a rule when confronted with temptation, you are not obedient."
Nothing in this illustration demonstrated that the knowledge of good and evil or moral consideration has to be known. You can talk about what someone's individual will is , what they want. Just like Adam, he was obedient until someone that was already disobedient first to move him.
Would you call sleeping passive?
Passive means not doing anything. Sleeping does nothing to murder someone. So I'd be doing something that's doing nothing to obey the law and in the same instance managed to obey it by such.
So actually passive and active go hand in hand.
"PRO's argument that Adam AND Eve were obedient at the start are fundamentally flawed and pattently false. In reality, Adam was preoccupied with naming the animals"
His obedience yes.
"and trying to find a partner, because he was lonely. Then Eve was created."
This is error. Correct that.
"Then they had sex and forgot about the forbidden fruit altogether, until the snake brought it up again. At that point they didn't know that obeying Gods command was the right thing to do, so they ate the forbidden fruit. In order to have been willing to obey God they would have needed some knowledge of right and wrong. "
This is all opinion. The opposing side has given no scripture showing that they died before eating of the tree or eyes being open or realizing they were naked before hand.
"No, that is a blatant strawman. I am saying that he would have needed knowledge of right and wrong in order to be obedient. My R1 arguments supporting this have yet to be refuted."
It's not a strawman. It was a question. Realize the difference. If it was a statement I made , that'd be something different. So by you saying "no", you welcome the idea of Adam possibly being obedient before eating of the tree. So we're getting you there.
"Are you trying to argue a standard of a certain amount of time before you call someone being disobedient or not?"
"No. "
Ok no. All that other stuff you can have that. So I shouldn't see any points about a length of time or anything. So Adam did not break the command until he broke the command. So until Eve talked to him, he had to of been obedient to his father. During the time Eve was talking to the serpent and before then.
"This is where the problem lies. PRO is arguing that Adam and Eve didn't need to understand WHY the fruit was forbidden, just that it WAS. But the very concept of something being forbidden means that something is not allowed -- that it is wrong and incorrect to do. Even if you don't know why something is wrong, you still have knowledge THAT it is wrong in a certain framework. That is still knowledge of right and wrong. A human may order something immoral, but that is not a weakness that God has. If you know THAT you should follow God's command, that means you have SOME knowledge of right and wrong.
This is damning for PRO's case, because it means that Adam and Eve would need SOME knowledge of right and wrong to be obedient, which the resolution doesn't allow for."
What's damning is your understanding. You got that damnable doctrine.
Now just through my questions alone and you may have ducked some, demonstrated the topic statement true . Your answers solidified it whether you realized it or not.
Round 5
Con
#10
Sorry for my forfeiture, I had arguments written but forgot to post it in time. Regardless, I don't think PRO has a justification for saying case closed. There is a huge problem with PRO's case. He never defined the word obedient, even though I gave him ample time to do so. According to Oxfor dictionaries, Obedience means compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another's authority. So being obedient is not something you can do passively, it requires that you actively acknowledge the validity of an order or authority, and why you should follow it. PRO makes my point for me:
Sleeping does nothing to murder someone. So actually passive and active go hand in hand.
A serial murderer is not actively obeying the law by sleeping, that is a stupid argument. PRO has built his entire case on faulty logic. I don't think it is reasonable to assert that Adam was obeying the command that God had given him just because he was preoccupied.
So Adam did not break the command until he broke the command.
Wow. So even if after hearing the command Adam instantly teleported to the tree and ate the fruit, he would still have been obedient according to PRO? This avenue of argumentation is ridiculous and should be rejected by voters.
Another huge flaw of PRO's argument is that he didn't define "knowledge of right and wrong" or the lack thereof. To me, the very concept of lacking any knowledge of right and wrong is ridiculous when we are talking about adult human beings. Because if you remove the complicated moral principles that we abide by, you will only find other more basic guiding principles like fight for survival and search for pleasure. Then those become your new knowledge of "right" and "wrong" choices. Even if we assume that we are talking specifically about right and wrong in God's eyes, that still solves nothing. It would be ridiculous to say that eating to prevent starvation isn't objectively the right choice in God's eyes since he told them to eat. So if Adam and Eve knew that they should be eating to survive, they would have some knowledge of right and wrong. And if they knew that they should follow God's command, then that definately constitutes knowledge of right and wrong.
Do you believe it is impossible for a son to obey his father without the boy knowing right from wrong?
PRO has not adressed my main argument. I said in R1 that if you are obedient to God, then you must have knowledge of right and wrong. Because by recognizing his authority and the validity of his command, you are demonstrating some knowledge of right and wrong. You may not know why you should obey God but you do know that you should. That still counts as knowledge of right and wrong because the action God tells you to do is automatically the right one.This argument cannot be applied to a human father, because they are fallible. So knowing that you should follow a human father is not inherently knowledge of right and wrong. So even if PRO is correct in saying that Adam was obeying God, that just proves that he did in fact have knowledge of right and wrong.
Where in the text can I read that Adam [named the animals] because he wanted to do?
Okay, lets assume he didn't want to. The text still does not say that God ordered him to do it or even asked him to do it. So PRO cannot prove that Adams was obeying God here.
It doesn't say Adam is trying to find a partner.
It says that for Adam no suitable partner was found. Obviously it was not an omniscient God that failed to find him a partner, he would have already known this.
There's no scripture that says all of the animals that existed at that time were named.
Chapter 2.
20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam[f] no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs[g] and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib[h] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. [End of chapter]
Chapter 3.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” ... 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ... 12. The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
So yes the story literally says that the animals where all named before Eve was created.
Eve choses to disobey God, followed by Adam. "After being obedient yes.
Eve disobeyed the very next Bible verse after she was created. There was no story happening inbetween. Since PRO doesn't think they had sex before eating of the tree then it harms his case even more because it means Eve literally made 0 choices in the story before her decision to disobey God. It is also interesting to read that Adam made no objection when Eve was eating of the fruit and handing it to him. That suggest that he never respected God's authority or his commands.
P1. Eve never did anything God told her to do.
P2. Eve disobeyed God at her earliest convenience.
P3. Eve's objection to eating the fruit was not that it would mean disobeying God, but that she would die.
C: Eve was not obedient.
I don't know how anyone could possibly reject this argument, but I digress.
Summary and conclusion:
I have provided solid arguments that obeying God is by evidence of knowledge of right and wrong. PRO has not adequately refuted this. PRO claims to have proven that Adam and Eve were being obedient by passively existing and being preoccupied with activities God didn't command them to do, which is a ridiculous claim. Either way, he never proves that they didn't have knowledge of right and wrong, nor that this concept even makes sense. So PRO has not demonstrated a scenario where Adam and Eve were obedient without needing knowledge of right and wrong. Furthermore, I am the CON position, and have no BoP unless specified in description. Even if voters are not convinced by my arguments disproving the resolution they should still vote for me since PRO has not fullfilled his BoP or even made a basic framework with definitions to even begin proving the resolution.
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Sorry I forgot to post my argument.