Discussion between brilliant and rhetorician

@rhetorician “In a sentence, I'd say your assumption is that there has to be an answer to your question, and that the answer will be to your satisfaction. Maybe there is not an answer; even if there is, however, isn't it moot? What's done was done. God's Plan A is going as planned. Christ came to be the Savior of the world. The purchase price…”

– I fully realize that I may not get an answer to my main question (the question of whether or not Adam was immortal before partaking of any tree in Eden), and I fully realize that my question may be moot.

Moreover, I fully agree that the main thing (or, better, one of the main things) about the book of Genesis is to give us the account of humanity's fall from grace, and I know that the consequence of sin is death, that “the soul that sinneth shall die”, that God doeth all things well, that God's providing a way whereby our death sentence can be commuted,

that Christ came to be the Savior of the world, that the purchase price of our salvation was His shed blood on the cross, that as the Lamb of God He bore away the sins of the world, that in Christ we will never die, and that only God has the big picture, from eternity to eternity – I know all of that, so you don’t really need to spend your time preaching all of that to me.

And did I ever even try questioning any of those things?! Where have I become that clay that remonstrates with the potter? In fact, what I am questioning here is not the validity of God’s plan, and not even of anything written the Bible, but… your own assumption and your logic behind that assumption!

You have assumed the possibility that A&E partook of the tree of life before they partook of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Well, let’s admit one thing once again: there is not a slightest indication in the Bible that that really took place – you yourself were recognizing that at one point. So this was merely your assumption.

I was quite surprised by that assumption and told you that to me it looked rather unlikely. Mainly, there were two points “bothering” me:

1) From God’s voiced concern about Adam's future right after his fall we can see that the effects of partaking from these two trees are not mutually-excluding, that is, it is possible to have the effect of partaking of the bad tree (being separated from God and being aware of good and evil) and at the same time to have the effect of partaking of the good tree (living forever).

In other words, if you have already partaken of the TOKOGAE, the following partaking of the TOL won’t save you from being aware of the good and evil; as well as, if you have already partaken of the TOL, the following partaking of TOKOGAE won’t stop you from living forever.

2) Thus, if those effects are not mutually-excluding and A&E had already partaken of the TOL before the TOKOGAE, then it would’ve been too late for God to prevent them from the TOL – they would’ve already gained their immortality by that time and nothing already could’ve stopped that immortality.

So, I presented these two points to you and you answered that the TOL’s main function might’ve been not only in conveying immortality, but in realizing some of its other “special attributes”, for example, in conferring blessings on those who are already immortal.

To that I said that whatever other attributes the TOL may possess (a fact, with which, I, in fact, agree), that doesn’t nullify the fact that it still possesses the function of conveying immortality, otherwise there would’ve been no need for God to block Adam’s way to the TOL saying “lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.”

To this you said, “But when did God prevent our first parents from partaking of the tree of life? Yes, AFTER they had sinned, not before.” This argument puzzled me greatly as, honestly, I didn’t get its logic. Having considered it carefully, I suggested that what you meant in it was that the TOL, in fact, DID NOT originally possess the ability of conveying immortality to humans and only somehow generated that ability in itself right after Adam’s fall.

Having asked you if that was really what you meant, I received your absolute confirmation – “exactamundo!” Thus, for the sake of rationalizing your assumption – which is, once again, merely an assumption about something that Bible doesn’t disclose to us – we have come up with quite an “ugly” model, really:

God’s creating a TOL that doesn’t originally have the function of imparting immortality into humans, but is sensitive to what may happen between humans and the tree of knowledge, and then generates that ability (of imparting immortality) – only as soon as Adam falls; and, as soon as the TOL does so, God’s being anxious to prevent that newly-generated function from being realized in humans.

The very complexity of this model already brings down its level of probability to me greatly. However, I was still willing to consider it as you might provide some further explanations, which might, in fact, harmonize the whole model. The most illogical point for me in that theory was why God would need to create such an “in-case-Adam-partakes-of-wrong-tree”-sensitive tree of life in the first place.

Why create troubles for Himself (the troubles of having later to bother to shut Adam’s access to that tree)?! Why create that sensibility in the tree of life at all?

So, I asked you this question and … what kind of answer did I get? The answer I got is basically “you are not to remonstrate with the potter regarding the kind of vessel he's making”, “what's done was done”, “God may not give you an answer at this moment”, “the answer may not be to your satisfaction”, “pray for wisdom”, and, in addition to that, a whole lot of preaching of fundamentals of Christian faith, which I knew all too well before and, in fact, was never questioning here.

Not only does your last reply shift the focus of my question and avoids even looking at its points, but even makes it sound now that what was originally just an assumption is now a part of the reality – except I can’t question it anymore. It really sounds now that it is just the fact – A&E did partake of the TOL before falling – and I just need to pray to God now asking Him to explain to me why that fact transpired.

Well, thank you, of course, for admonishing me to pray to God for wisdom (and I’ll be sure to do that – make no mistake about it), however, it is not God whom I am trying to understand here, not His great deeds, and not His motives behind those deeds, but you, your own assumption, and your logic behind that assumption.

And, besides asking God to explain to me what rhetorician’s logic here is, why not also ask rhetorician himself? So, do you have any explanation or at least suggestion on why God would need to create such a “cumbersome” tree of life? Do you have any explanation or at least suggestion on why the TOL’s functioning would need to be dependent on what happens between Adam and the TOKOGAE?

“If I sincerely thought your question and its answer were worth fighting for, tooth and nail, I would. At this point, I think not”

– Fight?! Why even mention it?! I am a far cry from fighting here. And what’s the point of fighting? Anyone has the right to hold his own views. Just present to me further explanations that would support your theory (assumption) if you have such. If what you have already presented is all you have and you don’t have any more supporting explanations, then just tell me and we’ll “close this case”.

And I’ll proceed to study other known views on this subject. Just don’t get caught presenting what is assumed as what is in fact. I am not going to condemn or deride you for “having a weak theory”.

Every theory has the right to exist and everyone has the right to decide, which theory he would stick to or which view he would hold – regardless of how implausible that theory or that view may sound to others. Nor am I trying to argue you out of your opinion. All I want to do here is to get your understanding of your own view.

@Rick “… the Tree of Life is for immortality you seem to believe this is to sustain ones physical life only?”

– I’ve already answered that, so I’ll just repeat here: I don’t know that for sure. However, I don’t see any reason why that would not be possible. If I am presented with such a reason, I’ll be more than happy to discard that possibility. But so far I haven’t been given such a reason yet; therefore, I still should consider that possibility.

(Just a small correction: I’d better say “to sustain human physical life” instead of just “physical life”. Physical body is only one part of a human being, without which, however, a human cannot be considered as living. Some parts of human body can be sustained alive, for example, a human heart: youtube.com/watch?v=4wu-awJxnv0

, so in that case we can say that physical life is still going on in that part of a human body, however, we can’t say that the original owner of that heart is still alive).

The main point about this possibility is the difference between the eternal life of God that humans receive when they are born of the Spirit through receiving Christ and merely immortality of human life. According to this theory-possibility, these two are two different things and the tree of life can give only the latter one.

“The Greek word translated as immortality is equally incorruptible”

– Which, actually, looks to be more on the side of this possibility – while the word “immortality” can be used in reference not only to a human life, but also, say, to angelic life and even to the divine life of God, the word “incorruptibility” is more related to the human life, especially to the physical part of a human being.

By the way, which word do you mean here, ἀφθαρσία or ἀθανασία?

“My last question is how do you know the Tree of Life is only physical immortality?”

– I don’t know that for sure. I am only holding that option as possible until someone proves to me that that is impossible.

Transcript for

Discussion between brilliant and rhet…