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Are the trees of Life and knowledge a metaphor?

Posted on 08/31/2010 4:07:41 AM PDT by Ancient Drive

Genesis is my favorite book. I just had this thought that maybe the trees are symbolic... wait wait... don't start hurling tomatoes at me.

Tree of Life = Knowledge guided by God(our father)

Tree of Knowledge = Raw knowledge, no direction.(like giving a kid the keys to that 1957 Bell Air even though he knows the kid is gonna wreck it)

What if that was the test? God gave us free will and in doing so he put these choices before us. All knowledge flows from one place. Mankind instead followed knowledge for himself rather than be guided to such knowledge by our maker.

With every human born there is another processing unit added to the cloud so to speak and this increases our knowledge(raw knowledge.. no guidance from God. Remember we made this choice in the beginning). What we choose to do with knowledge determines the end result, and so far things are not looking good.

Every advance, every technological jump we make brings us closer to self-annihilation. We seriously need God to step in and get the bunch of bratty kids(mankind) out of the drivers seat.ahh.. I need to lay off of the coffee.


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To: verdugo

Perhaps he just wants to know what others think?

Why do you think that the Early Church Fathers and Doctors of the Church would know anymore than people now? As you said, pretty much all questions on this have been asked by now, yet people still ask them.


21 posted on 08/31/2010 10:20:45 AM PDT by stuartcr (Nancy Pelosi-Super MILF.................................Moron I'd Like to Forget)
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To: Seven_0

I was thinking that maybe God was testing his creation on wther or not his guidance would be accepted before revealing the tree of life. Testing his obedience.


22 posted on 08/31/2010 12:15:46 PM PDT by Ancient Drive (DRINK COFFEE! - Do Stupid Things Faster with More Energy!)
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To: Ancient Drive

Doesn’t God know beforehand, what the results of His test will be?


23 posted on 08/31/2010 12:25:52 PM PDT by stuartcr (Nancy Pelosi-Super MILF.................................Moron I'd Like to Forget)
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To: stuartcr

yes but a good programmer always tests masterpiece software before mass deployment.


24 posted on 08/31/2010 12:42:39 PM PDT by Ancient Drive (DRINK COFFEE! - Do Stupid Things Faster with More Energy!)
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To: Ancient Drive

I don’t understand that. Why test if you know the answer and cannot be wrong? Just to see them fail?


25 posted on 08/31/2010 12:48:36 PM PDT by stuartcr (Nancy Pelosi-Super MILF.................................Moron I'd Like to Forget)
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To: stuartcr

He gave us free will. He understands the capacity of such a thing. Some mysteries we will never know maybe.....


26 posted on 08/31/2010 1:01:58 PM PDT by Ancient Drive (DRINK COFFEE! - Do Stupid Things Faster with More Energy!)
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To: Ancient Drive

Free will isn’t the issue.


27 posted on 08/31/2010 1:05:45 PM PDT by stuartcr (Nancy Pelosi-Super MILF.................................Moron I'd Like to Forget)
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To: Ancient Drive
was thinking that maybe God was testing his creation on wther or not his guidance would be accepted before revealing the tree of life. Testing his obedience.

What is God doing? If things are going according to God’s plan, then we can assume that God’ intended man to know good and evil. If things are not going according to God’s plan …?
28 posted on 08/31/2010 1:05:55 PM PDT by Seven_0 (You cannot fool all of the people, ever!)
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To: stuartcr
re:Why do you think that the Early Church Fathers and Doctors of the Church would know anymore than people now?

LOL! That's like saying "why would Reggie Jackson and Noland Ryan play better baseball than us kindergarten students"?

For one, the early Church Fathers and Doctors were not just any persons. They were just a few great holy men. Don't waste your time on FR asking nobodies, spend your time reading the Church Fathers.

re: As you said, pretty much all questions on this have been asked by now, yet people still ask them.

From the day we are born we have questions. The problem is that you children are only asking other children. "In a country of blind men, the one eyed man is a king".

29 posted on 08/31/2010 3:27:43 PM PDT by verdugo
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To: verdugo

No, it really isn’t. We’re talking about a physical sport and knowledge of God. How can any man know anyhing more than any other, about God? Many men are/were theological scholars and know the religious writings by heart, but this is not knowledge of God, unless you believe it to be. There is no proof because the proof requires that same belief. What we call knowledge of God, is really just a self-evident truth. I happen to believe that God created us all equally and individually and our self-evidential truths, are as different as each of us.

When I ask questions, I ask them of freepers...not God, not nobodies.


30 posted on 08/31/2010 4:47:00 PM PDT by stuartcr (Nancy Pelosi-Super MILF.................................Moron I'd Like to Forget)
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To: Seven_0

How can things NOT go as God plans? He is all-powerful and all-knowing. If He knows what will happen, and cannot be wrong, how can His plan go awry?


31 posted on 08/31/2010 4:49:35 PM PDT by stuartcr (Nancy Pelosi-Super MILF.................................Moron I'd Like to Forget)
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To: Ancient Drive

***God gave us free will and in doing so he put these choices before us.***

And our ability to choose God was so corrupted (died) on that day that we can only choose evil.


32 posted on 08/31/2010 4:57:55 PM PDT by Gamecock (To see both the love of God and the wrath of God, look at the cross- Terry Johnson)
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To: stuartcr
Doesn’t God already know what our free-will choices will be...and the results of those decisions?

One theory is that omniscience is a power, not a mandate. Just because God can know, doesn't mean he can't decide not to peek at the answer. And such a decision by God (who, being all-powerful can certainly make) is critical to the idea of free-will.

Biblical accounts where God expresses disappointment seem to support this. A God who engineers or foresees an outcome cannot possibly be disappointed. And yet, there He is, angry and disappointed over and over. Or, alternatively, very happy. So He must have chosen to be surprised.

Just my two cents, anyway.

33 posted on 08/31/2010 5:04:15 PM PDT by Larry Lucido
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To: stuartcr
How can things NOT go as God plans? He is all-powerful and all-knowing. If He knows what will happen, and cannot be wrong, how can His plan go awry?

Exactly. And sin is part of God's plan.

34 posted on 08/31/2010 5:05:36 PM PDT by Seven_0 (You cannot fool all of the people, ever!)
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To: Gamecock
And our ability to choose God was so corrupted (died) on that day that we can only choose evil.

In an ultimate sense, I'd have to concur. We haven't the power to simply decide ourselves into Heaven.

And yet some men (Noah and Abraham come to mind) chose just enough good to get God's attention.

Unless of course you interpose the premise that God, in advance, called these figures and set them on a gooder course than others of their time. But as I recall, scripture says God called Noah because he was already good.

35 posted on 08/31/2010 5:07:47 PM PDT by Larry Lucido
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To: Larry Lucido

Theories and faith are both good things to have.


36 posted on 08/31/2010 5:45:35 PM PDT by stuartcr (Nancy Pelosi-Super MILF.................................Moron I'd Like to Forget)
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To: stuartcr

Hmmm.....what a great question. For sure I can’t speak for God as to “why” He made them, for the “why” behind anything He does is only conjecture on our part - unless scripture clearly tells us why. An example is “why” Jesus came to earth. There are many “whys” to “why” He came that are valid - “to seek and save the lost” for one. But His answer was to Pilate is found in John 18:37 (thank you, Truth Project).

I personally know of no scripture that tells why He created the two trees. But I can surmise a few reasons.

One, while God knows our choices in advance (He does not dwell in time), we are held responsible for making them. Adam was given the simplest of all choices: only one command to live by, and it was nothing difficult at all.
Yet when presented with a lie that offered independence from God, He elected to take it.

So man has done (including you and me) ever since.

However, God provided a sacrifice for Adam’s sin. What was it? God gave Adam & Even skins with which to clothe themselves, and the skins had to come from an animal being killed - the actual first physical death after creation. Symbolic of the future sacrifice of His Son, as was His provision of the sacrifice for Abraham later.

What is the final message in all of this? Grace. It is all grace. God’s grace, God’s mercy, God’s forgiveness, God’s provision.

In the end of the 1,000 year millenial reign, Satan is released, and again deceives the world. Man again chooses the lie - even after a millenium of grace.

Proving what? All is God’s grace, love and mercy, to save His own out of their own selection/choice of being against Him.

The two trees are presented to us many times a day. Which will I choose? Relationship with God, relying on Him for my very being, my thoughts, my wisdom, my thinking, my life? Or, my own intellect, wisdom, strength, etc.

I personally think they were presented then as actual trees, for us today to be a symbol of the choices we have to make every day, so we may never forget. Will the Lord Jesus Christ be my “all-in-all”? Or, will I, wanting my independence, my own will - choose my own wisdom, intellect, strength, etc.

But again, I only “see through a glass darkly” (I Corin. 13:12, KJV)

arlis


37 posted on 08/31/2010 5:46:45 PM PDT by Arlis (- Virginia loghome/woods-dweller/Jesus lovin'/Bible-totin'/"gun-clinger")
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To: Larry Lucido

Hebrews 11:7By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

Noah’s righteousness came the same way ours did, by faith.


38 posted on 08/31/2010 5:46:57 PM PDT by Gamecock (To see both the love of God and the wrath of God, look at the cross- Terry Johnson)
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To: Gamecock

Okay, good answer. :-)


39 posted on 08/31/2010 6:04:06 PM PDT by Larry Lucido
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To: Seven_0

If it really exists, then I would agree.


40 posted on 08/31/2010 6:06:52 PM PDT by stuartcr (Nancy Pelosi-Super MILF.................................Moron I'd Like to Forget)
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