The serpent’s seed

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Cool, I am glad that we can generally agree on this.

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I guess the whole thing is about whether I think they are born guilty of sin, or whether they are born [i]with the unavoidable inclination to end up committing sin when reaching the age of culpability.

@philokalia said
I guess the whole thing is about whether I think they are born guilty of sin, or whether they are born [i]with the unavoidable inclination to end up committing sin when reaching the age of culpability.

Augustine held that babes are born with all the same sinful inclinations as adults but lack merely the physical capability to act them out. The Catholic Church adopted this view as official doctrine, namely, that inclination is already sin, without acting on it. KJ parrots it, that people are sinners because they "could have" sinned even if they didn't. The position is incoherent: if a person could not sin, then he cannot take any credit for not having sinned--he hasn't not sinned out of freewill, but out of incapacity.

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Now, tell me, what was the second tree?

Read strictly, Adam was not banished as punishment for eating the fruit of the first tree; he was banished to prevent him from discovering and eating of the second, about which God had told him nothing. He was banished to prevent him from becoming "like us."

@moonbus said
Now, tell me, what was the second tree?

Read strictly, Adam was not banished as punishment for eating the fruit of the first tree; he was banished to prevent him from discovering and eating of the second, about which God had told him nothing. He was banished to prevent him from becoming "like us."

On the contrary, they had become "like us" after nourishing their minds with the forbidden fruit.

We have God's word for it if we are to seriously consider the story from within the context from which it arises. Genesis 3:22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

Moreover, the "serpent" did not lie, as God confirms what it said to Eve in enticing her (Genesis 3:4-5). And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 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.

Had God not prohibited them from consuming the fruit of the Tree of Life, they would not have died. This further supports the serpent's truthfulness. Simply eating from the forbidden tree does not result in death; if Adam and Eve had been allowed to remain in Eden and consume the fruit of the Tree of Life, they would not have perished.

The reality is that God and His trusted, wise assistant, the serpent, conspired to ensure that the two would succumb to temptation. God did state that humans were to be created in their image, embodying both Good and Evil. In this dichotomy, God embodies Good, and the serpent symbolizes Evil.