Why God: Adam & Eve (Part 1)

I was recently informed about a young lady who posted a series of questions addressed to God entitled "Questions to God/Allah/ or whoever is in charge". Since i am not God nor in charge of whatever she meant, I can't pretend speaking for God. However, she has open a caveat allowing anyone else to feel free to answer her series of questions addressed to God. Not shying away from this, i will try to help her understand the why of her questions as best as i can while keeping in mind that i am limited in print to explain my views. I will take her blog-post entry in piece meal. Today i answer two of her questions. She has posted a good 20 questions, that's gonna be fun, at least i think (grin).

Question 1: What are you (God) doing right now. Are you very busy?What does your day look like?

God is always acting to bring his everlasting purpose to fulfillment. As Jesus succinctly put it in John5:17 (Bible)  "... Jesus answered them, "My Father has been working until now, and I, too, am working." God is never idle. One specific activity He is involved in is about human eternal salvation and redemption: “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some people understand slowness, but is being patient with you. He does not want anyone to perish, but wants everyone to repent.” – 2 Peter 3:9 (Bible)

Question 2: 

A. Remember that tree you put in the garden?  The one that had apples on, Why did you put it there? You made the tree in the first place right? Why?

You could have put an invisible charm on it, you could have put it on the sun. Somewhere unreachable you know… I mean our parents for example  hide certain things from us especially when they know they could be toxic. 

A story of trees:  

The tree under question was purposely put in the garden to allow humanity to make a choice. That is why it couldn't situated in unreacheable place like say, in the Sun.

The text referring to this is the Genesis book of the Bible. However what is less known is that God did not only put a tree to bring independent knowledge about goodness and evilness apart from God (Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil), He also did put another tree in the same garden that gave life. It was called the tree of life. As if He wanted to point to humanity its existence, He purposely put it right in the middle of garden so as that no one could miss it.

“The LORD God caused every tree that is both beautiful and suitable for food to spring up out of the ground. The tree of life was also in the middle of the garden, along with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” - Genesis 2:9 

God was very explicit as of the consequence of choosing a life of independent morality apart from the divine; He warned men that this will lead to death.

“The LORD God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden in order to have him work it and guard it.  The LORD God commanded the man: "You may freely eat from every tree of the garden, but you are not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because you will certainly die during the day that you eat from it." - Genesis 2:15-17.

Unlike the image of vulnerable toddlers and kids playing danger portrayed in the questions, Adam and Eve were no children. They were created adult and not as vulnerable as we are often led to believe. They were created mature, with the front-loaded knowledge about life experience. God expected them even to create a family and to work and steward the earth as the verse above shows. These are tasks given to and expected of responsible, adult person. So why the tree?

The text allows us to speculate within the parameters of revealed information. These trees, namely the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, represent two life principles by which humanity guide their destiny. 

The tree of life speaks about the divine life which requires the cooperation of humanity to submit to God’s will on their own accord (willingly). It is a life that is dependent of God. 

The second tree that God forbade and still forbid matter of fact, is the principle that humanity has the freewill to live a life apart from God and make their independent choice with regard to what is good and what is evil. God reject this one as an accepted way of life, but He is not willing to force His choice about what is good to man on us, He want man to take responsibility and choose willingly to follow Him or to reject Him. This is part of what Free-Will mean, and God gave man the perfect opportunity to make use of their freewill. Unfortunately Adam and Eve chose wrongly. The question now for you is to know how are you using your freewill? Do you choose God as the source of your life’s decision (Tree of Life) or do you choose to make your own choice about what you want to believe on earth independently of God (the Tree of knowledge of good and evil)? A wise king recognized that man estimation of good solely on the basis of his own volition doesn't serve him well most of the time, "There is a pathway that seems right to a man, but in the end it's a road to death." - Proverb 14:12  (Bible).

God has never stopped to challenge men to make best use of their freewill, and He always plead with men in each generation to choose Him for He is life and reject other path that seems attractive but only lead to death. 

"I call heaven and earth to testify against you today! I've set life and death before you today: both blessings and curses. Choose life, that it may be well with you—you and your children.” - Deuteronomy 30:19 (Bible)  

This is the lesson that Genesis teaches us about choice making, Life (God's path) or Death (human path).

B. Ohh and while we are still talking about the beginning, you know how you created Adam and Eve who then had 2 boys Cain and Abel; How did we get to 7 billion people? I never read any mention of them having a sister…

 

Matter of fact, the Bible speak of other children of Adam but it just doesn’t speak more on them. Here is an example, “Adam lived another 800 years, fathering other sons and daughters after he had fathered Seth.” - Genesis 5:4 

I will follow up with other questions later on.