The “Sin” of Adam

The notion that Eve’s disobedience to God’s commandment was wise is a feminist doctrine, not a Christian one. There is no evidence from Scripture that God gave conflicting commandments. There is surely much more to this story than is recorded in Scripture, but concluding that Eve was right and God was wrong, or that God gave a commandment that he wanted Adam and Eve to disobey, is to accept Lucifer’s half-truth version of the story.

Eve admits that the serpent “beguiled” her, which doesn’t support the idea that she was acting on superior wisdom.

One thing that has long bothered me is the way many people (perhaps most?) use Adam’s explanation for why he ate the fruit as that of a typical man always trying to blame a woman for his mistakes. A better assessment of the situation comes from the 2017 BYU speech “Be 100 Percent Responsible” by Lynn G. Robbins:

“At first glance it may appear that Adam was blaming Eve when he said, ‘The woman thou gavest me.’ However, when Adam subsequently added ‘and I did eat,’ we are given to understand that he accepted responsibility for his actions and was giving an explanation, not blaming Eve. Eve in turn also said, ‘And I did eat’ (Moses 4:18–19; see also verses 17–20; 5:10–11).”

I think we might resolve the wise/unwise dichotomy by remembering the order in which the laws of God are given: first obedience, then sacrifice – followed by all the rest. Eve – and subsequently Adam – were disobedient, which necessitated sacrifice. Their sacrifice of losing their Garden home and immortal innocence, and Christ’ eternal sacrifice on the behalf of every mortal. Which leads me to wonder how the other laws follow on from there? More thought needed.

I agree, Eve clearly says she was beguiled. And I hear people say that means it can’t have been wise. But I frankly disagree. It is a very feminine thing, to act on a kind of intuition. Yes, she wasn’t given all the facts correctly, yet she did what was important.

Yes, there was a conflict between the commandment to bear children, but not partake of the Tree. But breaking one was a sin, and the other a transgression, or perhaps I would say, the Tree had serious consequences. If you read the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, they sound less like rebellious souls, than like children who know they just broke Mom’s favorite vase, and are trying to fix it before she gets home – it has that kind of a vibe. In that book, they are actually very righteous.

So, Eve’s actions were important. Lehi tells us that if they hadn’t fallen, we wouldn’t be here.

So, I am glad Eve did what she did.

But that leaves the question where we started. If what Eve did was important, was Adam wrong?

This may not have a clear answer we can give, but there is more here for us to understand.

I can think of two possiblilities:
1. What God actually said was, “Don’t eat the fruit until you are ready, because when you take it you can’t go back, but eating the fruit will make it possible for you to progress.” In this scenario Eve’s decision can be viewed as wise because she wanted to progress. It still seems unwise for her to have made that decision unilaterally without consulting with Adam first. This possibility still leaves important unresolved questions.
2. God’s command not to eat the fruit was intended to be obeyed, until such time that the fruit was to be administered to Adam and Eve at the right time by someone having the right authority. This possibility seems more consistent with the record of the event and the statements of all parties involved. At the core of the matter, I struggle to believe that God gave a commandment that he actually wanted our first parents to disobey and that was necessary for them to disobey to be able to progress. Such an action seems entirely inconsistent with the character of God. Hence possibilities 1 and 2, and perhaps there are other internally consistent explanations as well.

Quiet Desperation – if you have been to the temple recently, you may recall God expressing his commands about the Tree a little differently. And that subtle difference is important.

Any attempt to explain away the contradictory commandments is a mistake because these are not so much rules God decided to come up with as they are inescapable baked-in features of reality

https://www.jrganymede.com/?s=Contradictory+commandments

This is what I discussed with my kids in home church this week about “conflicting commandments.” I talked about how the idea of that used to make me so mad. It feels unfair, like a teacher TRYING to trick you on a test. But if you think of it in terms of what do we ACTUALLY need to become like God? Well of COURSE we would need to know and grapple with complex situations! Not to mention God gives us “conflicting commandments” all the time. He seems to almost purposely maneuver us into messy immortal situations that have no good or easy solution. Paradoxes. Like “bring up your children in love and righteousness.” Do you know how hard it is to get my defiant 8-year-old to be “righteous” while still making him feel loved?? Impossible! Balancing injustice and mercy with people who have hurt us or not fully repented, figuring out when to be hardline and want to be spirit of the law…so hard! But we have to somehow figure out how to do it if we want to have any chance at godhood. It made me think that God giving conflicting Commandments (even if they weren’t truly conflicting, which I don’t know) was an important way of setting expectations about mortality. It wasn’t just going to be simple, binary choices. The work of becoming like God was going to involve complexity and confusion, but if we turned to him, he could continually deepen our understanding so that we understood paradoxical situations more and more fully, and were able to act more and more righteously within them.

That’s good insight

It makes me wonder how many of my instructions to my kids they experience as contradictory.

https://www.jrganymede.com/2021/08/11/foolish-desire/

The folly of the world is the wisdom of God