[HarleyD]

There are two possibilities:

In either possibility you'll have problems:

1) either Eve made a foolish decision, but a decision nonetheless, believing it was good, or

It is God who gives wisdom, knowledge and understanding. To say that Eve made a "foolish" decision is to say God purposely did not give her the capability to make a good decision. (This is my belief.)

2) God forced the Serpent to deceive and Eve to believe his deception. I have no problem believing the former but the latter is not the humble and loving God we know in Christ.

I wouldn't say "forced" but this is not out of the realm of God's nature. Please consider:

1Ki 22:19-23 Micaiah said, "Therefore, hear the word of the LORD. I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left. The LORD said, 'Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?' And one said this while another said that. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD and said, 'I will entice him.' The LORD said to him, 'How?' And he said, 'I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' Then He said, 'You are to entice him and also prevail. Go and do so.'" Now therefore, behold, the LORD has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; and the LORD has proclaimed disaster against you."

The Lord simply asked a question. A "spirit" (demon) volunteered. The Lord gave permission.

It should be noted that Job is very similar. The Lord makes a statement about Job, Satan wants to afflict Job, God gives permission. It is not out of the realm of possibility that the Lord saw the same thing with Adam. Just as in the case of Ahab and Job, God remained in control and knew the entire outcome.

BTW-It should be pointed out that God knew that He was consigning many to hell at this point.

[kosta50]

In either possibility you'll have problems

I have no problem with the first possibility because God did give Eve the right choice — not to eat the fruit. In a more general sense, we know what is morally right, so our decisions should always conform to God's goodness, as revealed to us. But they don't.

God did not make us purposefully imperfect. We are not God, but only God-like (at best); everything else is a deformed image of that. Our thinking and decisions, therefore, are also God-like (at best), or a various degree of corruption thereof. As long as we cleave to God, use God rather than man as a measure, we will function within our created capacity to make rational decisions of good moral character. Using God as your guide and golden standard is the only way we can be fully human — rational and morally just beings.

But your other quote is problematic. First, if God deceives, does that mean we can too? After all, if we are created to be God-like, then the way you interpret the OT tells us that YES! deception is God-like, morally justified thing to do. And if God kills, then we can kill too.

This goes back to my earlier assertion somewhere (maybe on another thread) that while I trust that the faith of Jesus and the Apostles was that of Abraham, I simply do not see Christ-like anything in most of the OT quotes. I wish someone would show me otherwise. I do see Christ-like God in Gensis, but as we move into other books of Moses that likeness takes on a different and often unrecognizable luster.