BTI:
Hey, there!
Satan, (formerly "Lucifer") was supposedly God's most glorius individual angel, and man was made in "God's image". Well, the story goes that both Lucifer and Adam (along with all of Adam's descendants and a good portion of angels under Satan) "rebelled" against God. Not a good track record for a being who apparently is desperate to fashion creatures who will worship Him?
I still don't see how the fall of Lucifer and the fall of Man are God's "failed attempts". God is not diminished by the rebellion of any of His creatures. He was perfect, without need, before we or any other creature, heavenly or earthly, was made by Him. He could not be God and be otherwise. It is this fact, among many others, that makes our worship of Him His due. He is perfectly holy, perfectly wise, just, merciful, and loving. He is all powerful, all-knowing, and all-present. There is none like Him. He is infinitely superior to all that exists. Thus, by His very nature, God deserves our praise. It is not that He is some spoiled, hyper-egotistical superhuman up in Heaven screaming, "Worship me! Worship me! Why won't you worship me?!" Not hardly. His command to us to worship Him is intended to fulfill us; for it was for the purpose of worshiping God that we were made. When we worship God as He intends we find the deepest, greatest fulfillment that is possible in life. However, were none of us ever to worship Him, He would not be lessened in His nature. Our worship of our Creator is not vital, or necessary to His being. So, it is not true, to my way of thinking, that God is "desperate" for creatures who will worship Him. Nor is it true that, when His creatures despise Him, He has somehow failed.
Sounds like a good little obedient girl to me? A loving father would have stepped in right there and made the serpent "hit the road". Would you forbid your daughter to eat from the cookie jar which was "in the midst of the kitchen" and then hide behind a counter watching while the neighborhood bad boy tempted her to? Who's the real in all this?
If God had intervened, His command to Eve not to eat of the fruit of the Tree, which He gave to her because she had the freedom to choose right or wrong, would have been quite pointless. It sounds to me, BIT, like you think God should intervene "as a good father" at every point when a person is tempted and chooses to do what is wrong. But, if God did this, His creatures would be merely puppets whose choices are really no choices at all since they are forced by God's constant intervention to follow only one course.
What you see as evil in God's conduct toward Eve in Eden I see as the necessary action of God in giving His creature genuine moral freedom.
So why create beings with free will and an inquisitive nature if to excercise that is considered a sin punishable by death? Why create a bird with wings if he's not allowed to use them? Something inherently cruel here?
The implication in the wording of your question is that people will only use their free will and inquisitiveness to evil and destructive ends, which they do not. If we are "birds" with "wings", then we are birds able to fly toward, or away from, harm. We are not prevented from using our wings; we are prevented from using them to do self-destructive things without suffering from doing so.
By making them "truly moral agents", you mean "cursed". (yes, you do - if you'll think it through) Besides, the planting of the forbidden tree within their reach did not make them "free moral agents" - they already were free moral agents, right? Positioning the tree there was to allow them to be tempted. Why? So they would fall, of course.
There is nothing in the Genesis account that I am aware of that suggests Adam and Eve encountered anything in Eden that provoked a choice between obedience or disobedience to God except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In fact, while they had the capacity to choose between right and wrong Adam and Eve didn't appear to have obtained a distinct understanding of the difference between the two options
until they had eaten the forbidden fruit. Therefore, I continue to contend that the presence of the forbidden fruit created an opportunity necessary to their condition as moral free agents.
No, by making Adam and Eve moral free agents I don't mean "cursed". Their capacity to choose brought the curse of Sin upon them, but the capacity to choose was not itself a curse.
Why is God so threatened by finite beings who might excercise the free will He gave them to be and do what they want?
Threatened? Huh? What makes you think God is threatened? He is holy and just and punishes our sin as a result, but He is not threatened by it.
Doesn't God do what He wants? Isn't man made in the "image of God"? Why would God make beings in his image only to prevent them (by threat of eternal punishment) from behaving as he would?
Ah, but He doesn't prevent them, does He? People sin all the time. And He doesn't set only Hell before us in prompting us to do what is right; there is also Heaven and the blessings of living in obedience to His commands.
Be well. :D
In Christ, Aiki.
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