Can't sleep...

[waterspyder]

So I've been reading subversive literature again. I mean, really, should there be any other kind?

Anyhow, it got me thinking about temptation, and being a parent, and for some reason my mind wandered to the story of Adam and Eve. What if we're interpreting it wrong? I mean, the Bible itself is a pretty dense read, and so most people rely on the interpretations of those who came before.

What if the lesson we're supposed to take away is that if you make something taboo, you will inevitably be disappointed.

Think about it. God is the father, and he forbids his children from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The parental figure has then introduced temptation, a concept that the children don't even understand until they've committed the act and been punished for it. So the children, of course, do eat the fruit, and because it was forbidden, the parent is now forced to punish his children, or lose the power of authority he holds over his children. It's such a lose/lose situation.

So do we learn to never make anything taboo so that we don't incite temptation? Or do we continually reinforce authoritarian control over our child and hope they will obey? One of those methods sounds like a helluva lot of work to me and, recalling my own upbringing, not very successful.

Just a thought...

Comments

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

I guess it depends on whether you see it as a capricious, arbitrary rule, or one given for self-protection. Telling a child not to touch the hot stove isn't a matter of "introducing temptation", is it?

This raises the question of why the Tree was there in the first place. I think it's a consequence of the gift of free will, not an arbitrary and independent thing placed there as an opportunity for trouble. With free will, there is necessarily a possibility to choose to reject the choices proposed by God, but to do so, one has to determine that something other than what God wants is desirable. This means claiming the right to judge for oneself what is good and what is not rather than accepting God's judgement on the matter, and thus the nature of the fruit.

As for whether free will itself made much sense... Without free will, without an alternative choice, does the choice to love mean anything?

There is a (heretical, according to the Catholic Church) doctrine called Universalism, in which it is an article of faith that everyone will (eventually, and not necessarily by means we can know in this world) return to God and be saved. If they're right, then maybe free will is a bet that pays off in the long run. Am I a Universalist? Technically not: I don't believe it as an assured, inevitable truth, since we each can, in principle, perpetually choose not to seek God... but I live in hope that it will nevertheless come to pass that we'll each come around eventually.

[waterspyder.livejournal.com]

I find that when you introduce anything and don't tell a child why they shouldn't do it, then it's a sure bet they will.

If you explain that they shouldn't touch the stove because it will burn them and it will hurt, you improve the odds that they will listen to you and they have to be taught about "hot" and "burnt" before it will have any meaning or relevance to them.

So I guess my question is, why point out the tree and forbid it, but not explain what the consequences were?

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

Gn. 2:17: "...for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."

Of course, one can ask whether we knew what it was to die, but no matter what explanation is given, we can't now be sure that it would have been understood.

By the way, this isn't a question with A Solid Answer, even within orthodox theology. At the Easter Vigil, one of the verses which brings out the complexity of this is,

O happy fault,
O necessary sin,
That won for us
So great a Redeemer!

This is true in one sense, but dangerous heresy in another; the difference, as I see it, is between love and license.