User talk:RobertC/Fall

Here is a thought question related to this discussion. Imagine that all people on the earth were just as righteous as Jesus. I believe that such a world is logically possible. If for any particular sin it were not possible to avoid it then there would be no agency. But where there is no agency, there is no sin. So since all sins are possible to avoid, you could imagine a world where everyone was as righteous as Jesus. This world would have opposition. There would be free agency and temptation to do evil, but no one would ever give in to these temptations. Everyone would always be obedient to the commandments of God. No doubt such a world would be better than our own. Since God has prepared a way for us, sinners, to have eternal life, I can't imagine that God wouldn't prepare a way for such people to have eternal life.

Think about this particularly in the case of Adam and Eve. If Jesus were in Adam's or Eve's shoes, he would have been obedient to God in a way that Adam and Eve were not. And, as noted above, it is hard to imagine that people would be worse off for obeying God. Some might dispute the claim that Jesus, in Adam or Eve's shoes would have chosen differently. Two points support that claim. 1) Jesus never sinned, nor did he do anything which required forgiveness. But Moses 6:53 tells us that Adam was forgiven for his transgression in the Garden of Eden. Surely Jesus, were he in Adam's or Eve's shoes, wouldn't have acted in such a way that he needed to be forgiven. 2) Jesus's complete submission to the will of the Father (i.e. his obedience) was a very important component to saving us from the affects of our own disobedience. I don't pretend to understand why the atonement had to work the way it did, but if Jesus's obedience is important (which it is), it is important not because Jesus has less difficult situations under which obedience is required, but because Jesus is the type of person who would be obedient regardless of the circumstances. We shouldn't think that the case of Adam and Eve is some odd exception where atonement wasn't required because of the odd circumstances inside the Garden of Eden. As the first act of disobedience it is not surprising that there is some odd stuff going on that makes their disobedience a bit different than the acts of sin we commit. However, odd or not, the scriptures use this example as a very important example which shows the need mankind has for the plan of salvation and the atonement. The need began as soon as their disobedience entered the world. Drawing then on the principle stated earlier--that Jesus's obedience was important because Jesus was someone who would always be obedient, not because Jesus was in an easier situation--for Jesus's obedience to work to save Adam and Eve from their disobedience, Jesus could not have been the type of person who, in Adam and Eve's shoes, would have chosen to be equally disobedient.

--Matthew Faulconer 17:24, 24 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Matthew, I really like your thought experiment here, and the exegesis you posted on 2 Ne 2:22, thanks. I'm still chewing on your first assumption, whether it really is possible to conceive of a world where everyone is as righteous as Jesus. Really, the question I have is whether Jesus could've been perfect if he did not have an extra-mortal father. Since I believe he was the only person who has actually lived that has not needed forgiveness for anything (I'm not sure how well I can support this belief...), and I believe he was the only person to have an extra-mortal parent, I think this is a natural question to raise (and hopefully not blasphemous or irreverent!).

The implication is that if Jesus had been in Adam and/or Eve's shoes, perhaps he would've done the same thing. In other words, perhaps the fall was an inevitable consequence of agency (and therefore not really worthy of condemnation--though I'm not sure this explains why it might have been a praiseworthy act). In the same sense that God cannot help us progress without giving us our agency, perhaps it is not possible to have agency without transgressing at least at least once [I can't help but think of all the "almost surely" convergence theorems (converges with probability measure 1) I learned in my grad school stats class...].

More precisely, perhaps it was inevitable that Adam and Eve would give in to the enticing of Satan (that is, agency alone does not imply inevitable transgression, but first-time agency plus enticing implies inevitable transgression--there should also be a clause here about having a mortal father or something to exclude Jesus, but I guess Adam didn't really have a mortal father so that clause might get really wordy...). The next natural question to my mind is whether it was then somehow inevitable that Satan would entice Adam and Eve to partake of the fruit? If so, this raises questions about Satan's agency (though perhaps his rebelling and not choosing God's plan make him a slave so-to-speak of his own selfish desires, and hence his actions inevitable) and has implications regarding the sense in which God causes evil (that is, God does not create evil per se, but knows it is truly inevitable and allows it). If not, then we are back wondering if there could've been some other way for all this to play out.

--RobertC 13:13, 25 Jan 2006 (UTC)

You say: ...I think this is a natural question to raise (and hopefully not blasphemous or irreverent!). ...

I think it is a natural question and neither blasphemous nor irrelevant.

I don't know whether it is doctrine of the Church that Christ has an immortal father in a different way then we have an immortal father. I do think it is doctrine of the Church that Christ was born of a virgin. But I think the question amounts to the same thing either way. I would restate the question as: is it true that the reason Christ was able to be completely obedient whereas we are not is that Christ was born of a virgin mother? I don't think that this is a good way to look at it. I think that is another way of saying that Jesus is obedient because he had an easy time of it. I think that takes away from Jesus as an example to us.

My point raises the question of what then was the point of Christ being born of a virgin mother. For me that falls in the same bucket of asking why it was important that Christ bled from every pour. I don't have any clue. I can sort of see how it fits in, but I can't explain why it was necessary. In short I have personal experience with being forgiven for my sins. And I have read about the atonement in the scriptures and from our prophets but none of these in my mind explains the mechanics of the atonement to that level.

You say: ...More precisely, perhaps it was inevitable that Adam and Eve would give in to the enticing of Satan (that is, agency alone does not imply inevitable transgression, but first-time agency plus enticing implies inevitable transgression--there should also be a clause here about having a mortal father or something to exclude Jesus, but I guess Adam didn't really have a mortal father so that clause might get really wordy...).

Well perhaps but I don't see why. And I do see reasons to think not. Two of these I outlined in my original post. Third for the reason I just noted above. It seems that this is an effort to come up with a principle that applies to everyone except Jesus. Well I don't see why we want to do that since Jesus is the first person we should look to as an example of how to act.

You say: ... The next natural question to my mind is whether it was then somehow inevitable that Satan would entice Adam and Eve to partake of the fruit? ...

I think that enticing was necessary. That is what I take 2 Ne 2:22 and the surrounding scriptures to be saying. For me that's the limit of where we have good reasons to say what was necessary. I don't think we have reason to believe that it had to be Satan per se that played this role or that anyone for sure had to play that role.

--Matthew Faulconer 17:13, 25 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Interesting point that we don't really know any more than that Christ was born of a virgin mother, I've never really thought about that. And I've always associated Christ's ability to overcome death as coming from an extra-mortal (biological/literal) father, but I don't think I can defend that belief very well either.

And good point that if Christ was able to be perfect only because he was born of a virgin mother then we can't look to him as an example in the same realistic way we could if he was subject to sin and temptation the same way we are.

Following your thought experiment, I'm now wondering what if Adam and Eve had been perfectly obedient and not partaken of the fruit when they were commanded not to? Is there any problem assuming God would've given them permission to partake of the fruit sometime later? The only one I can think of is that it might make God, not Adam and Eve, the cause of death in the world (assuming partaking of the fruit meant death, which I think God had said). This line of thinking also makes me more skeptical that their (at least Eve's) transgression was really a praiseworthy act (I'm assuming everyone but Christ would've done the same thing, so I can't really blame them, but it's still hard for me to think of Eve's action as courageous and wise like Elder Nelson says...).

--RobertC 18:52, 25 Jan 2006 (UTC)

To clarify my thinking here, I don't mean to imply anything about how Mary conceived (I know there has been speculation on this by various prominent Mormons which I'd just as soon distance myself from). Rather, I have simply always thought Heavenly Father was Jesus's father in some way that is more literal for him than for the rest of us. --RobertC 04:43, 30 Jan 2006 (UTC)

It was fun listening to Sunday School class yesterday and hearing people talk about this stuff right after I had discussed it online. The lesson I heard really concentrated on the idea that Adam and Eve were given conflicting commandments and so they had to make the best choice (and did make the best choice) given their situation. I made a short comment during the lesson related to Satan's role and other worlds. An older sister who sat next to me (who I didn't know) was very interested in this whole topic and ended up talking to me throughout the rest of the lesson. I didn't mind as she had clearly been thinking this topic over for a lot of years. She agreed with my point and made a couple of additional points. She pointed out that Adam and Eve should have waited for further instructions from Heavenly Father before choosing to eat the fruit. She also pointed out that this world is the most evil. (I'm not really sure where that idea comes from but I have heard it before.) In her mind the fact that this was the most evil world had something to do with how things played out in the Garden of Eden on our world differently than they did on other worlds.

Regarding the whole topic, I think it would be a good exercise for me to try to defend one of the positions that I don't hold. Maybe I'll try to spend a little time over the coming week trying to explain as best I can one of the other positions.--Matthew Faulconer 11:21, 30 Jan 2006 (UTC)