Simple, straight-forward question that I'm looking for an answer to. Feel free to provide scripture if you'd like, I like having reference points, I'm not one to delve too deeply into the bible.

Q: Did Adam and Eve have free will in their time -- pre-forbidden fruit eating?

I have plenty more questions, but they sort of relate to the question and possible answer(s) to this question.

Asking this because I haven't really had too many opportunities to ask people or friends of religious background this question, and I'm genuinely curious to find the answer.

I'm not a troll, just a curious poster.

Yes, they had free will, noting their inclination to good.

So following that up, I am then inclined to ask why didn't God keep that world -- in the sense of, free will and no imminent tragedy as a result of choices made.
It seems to me, that the world pre-forbidden fruit consumption, that Adam and Eve lived in a seemingly perfect world, and had free will.

Why wasn't that kept?

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So following that up, I am then inclined to ask why didn't God keep that world -- in the sense of, free will and no imminent tragedy as a result of choices made.
It seems to me, that the world pre-forbidden fruit consumption, that Adam and Eve lived in a seemingly perfect world, and had free will.

Why wasn't that kept?

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They disobeyed God, can free will exist in a consequence free environment? As in, do you really have free will if regardless of how you act, God forces the same consequence?

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Can you define "consequences" as you're using it there? It's pretty obvious that you could have free will without consequences. Choosing lunch, for instance. You choose your food, and nobody has to come punish you for you choice to have been freely made.

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Consequences in the literal since, the effect of the cause; whether good or bad. If God tells you not to eat Pizza because its bad, and you eat Pizza and he makes it to where it isnt bad, you've only had the illusion of free will, youre a robot.

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What? You still used your free will to choose pizza over your other options. What you said was nonsense. Can a parent take away a child's free will by holding back a punishment that was promised? No.

Did the person make a choice through their own agency? If yes, then they had free will. That's really the end of it, as far as I can understand.

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If I give you a choice of root beer or lemonade, and no matter what you say I give you lemonade, still free will?

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If I give you a choice of root beer or lemonade, and no matter what you say I give you lemonade, still free will?

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If you gave me root beer, told me not to drink it, and knew with 100% certainty that your act of giving me root beer would result in me drinking it, do I have free will?

If given infinite opportunities to do so (death had not yet entered the world) wouldn't it become a matter of when rather than if they would ultimately sin?

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If I give you a choice of root beer or lemonade, and no matter what you say I give you lemonade, still free will?

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If you gave me root beer, told me not to drink it, and knew with 100% certainty that your act of giving me root beer would result in me drinking it, do I have free will?

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Yes, but now we're getting into the timeless God argument.

Guys I cant do the three on one circle jerk tonight

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If you say things that have fewer things wrong with them, you may have fewer people pointing out that you're wrong.

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I dont think Im wrong, I think youre just creating your own definition. What youre saying is, as long as I think I had a choice, I had free will; thats the illusion of free will. If I fill every tap head with coors light regardless of what the head shows, and you order Shiner; did you have free will? No, I made the choice for you.

If i lock you in prison and tell you that you can stay or leave (and i never plan on unlocking the door), and you choose to stay, are you in there of your own free will?

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If I give you a choice of root beer or lemonade, and no matter what you say I give you lemonade, still free will?

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If you gave me root beer, told me not to drink it, and knew with 100% certainty that your act of giving me root beer would result in me drinking it, do I have free will?

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Yes, but now we're getting into the timeless God argument.

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The free will argument has been beaten to death perhaps . . . I'll excuse myself from the 3:1 matchup here.

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So how would you define free will? I defined it as "the ability to make a choice with independent agency", and I think if you use that definition you have to agree that all the suggested situations have involved free will. You seem to be saying that free will is dependent on the situation; that you can take away my free will with your actions. I see it more as an attribute, that you either have or don't have.

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I guess we're hung up on what constitutes making a choice. If someone is going to do something regardless of what you choose, the actual mechanism of choosing was just an illusion. Thats what makes Calvinist predestination invalidate free will, you were going to hell no matter what you did, you lost the lottery.

wrong emoticon

Well... if not, then God's pretty cruel for being so harsh about it.

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It wasn't an illusion though, you still made a choice. The mechanisms you described still took place and they were not an illusion. Every choice has consequences, whether it's a different positioning of sodium ions in your brain or whether it's getting coke instead of lemonade. There is no such thing as a choice with no effects. At the minimum, the effect will be a change in the state of your brain.

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It was an illusion, you never had any say in the matter; you were always getting Coors whether you picked Coors or Shiner or Heineken.

I think some of this is the idea of punishment versus being and nonbeing.

God is the source of life and existence. separation from him is death. Sin is separation; sin is death. This is why God said if you do this, you will surely die as opposed to I will kill you.

Christ bridged this gap of Death. The enmity is between the God of Life and death, and Christ overcame this. Which is why we sing at Pascha "Christ is risen from the dead trampling down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life."

So, they chose death over life. They had free will. We always have free will.

Okay, sorry I was away for so long to come back to the introduction of food scenarios and such.
Speaking of... pizza does sound appetizing right now.

Anyways, how about I attempt to reword my question, and give some background on what I've been told, so that way you all have some insight on what is confusing to me.

Background:
In summary, I have been told across the years and from varying people*:

*people who I can definitely say are not as intelligent as those who have already commented on this thread, because the insight and deep thinking already shown blow away that of which the people I am referring to.

~Paraphrasing for the sole purpose of length~

1) God didn't want to make robots, so he introduced free will.
2) There are consequences, (as well as rewards) that correlate with certain decisions/actions deemed good or bad in the eyes of God.
3) A world of perfection without consequences wasn't possible due to the fact that his creation had free will, and correspondingly so, had the ability to make the wrong choices, which catered in the sin and the like.

~So based off of this, now that you have a bit of perspective on how I'm perceiving some of the things from the bible..

My question is: If Adam and Eve had free will prior the the forbidden fruit consumption, was that not an instance in time where the world was rather perfect, consequence free, and free will was in play?

--If yes, then a world of perfection, no consequences, and free will was feasible, so why wasn't it kept as such? What is the logic/reasoning behind God allowing the snake to tempt Adam? Which I also find increasingly curious since, (from what I've been told), God is all knowing, so God knew the outcome of that situation, why would he allow that to happen?

My apologies if the wording of any of that throws you off, I'm rather tired, but if it makes sense, please do inform me, I love hearing others interpretations and insight. I'm genuinely curious, and again, I respect everyone's beliefs, I'm just looking for some answers to some questions I've had forever.

Thanks in advance!

God created men in his likeness and image. This meaning is deep and profound and has been debated, explained, etc. for a long time by many people. One aspect of this, though, is our free will. Another is our ability to create (which perhaps are the same thing expressed in a different way).

I wouldn't consider it as consequence vs reward for good or bad. This opens you to the fallacy of God creating evil. There is no such thing as evil, in that there is no opposite to God. There is only life and death, being and nonbeing.

A world of perfection is just a world of union with God. It's not impossible, it just didn't / hasn't happen(ed).

Much of this depends on whether you view the garden as an allegory or factual story.

Also, consider many of the fathers viewed Adam and Eve as not created in perfection but created as spiritual children, immature, to grow into their relationship with God.

It's always funny to me the insistence that free will dictates the existence of sin forces a perfect heaven to be absent of free will. Any reasoning that man needs these trips around the sun to mature enough to exist alongside god without mucking it up seem rather wanting considering our imperfect nature from birth and the existence of angels. There is little way around arguing that god provided us no choice but to muck it up, and can hardly act exasperated at us doing so.

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It's always funny to me the insistence that free will dictates the existence of sin forces a perfect heaven to be absent of free will. Any reasoning that man needs these trips around the sun to mature enough to exist alongside god without mucking it up seem rather wanting considering our imperfect nature from birth and the existence of angels. There is little way around arguing that god provided us no choice but to muck it up, and can hardly act exasperated at us doing so.

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Perfect heaven isn't absent of free will. I'd go type up St Maximos explanation of souls coming to rest only in their source but you can google it. Free will never ends, but our will conforms to the divine will perfectly as hot wax to a stamp until they are one.

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Perfect heaven isn't absent of free will. I'd go type up St Maximos explanation of souls coming to rest only in their source but you can google it. Free will never ends, but our will conforms to the divine will perfectly as hot wax to a stamp until they are one

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Which makes existence on earth nothing but a divine mistake. Something wholly unnecessary seeing as he could of created us with wills ready to conform.

Thank you for your insight on the matter!

This entire conversation gets very speculative, in that you have to analyze not what God did, but why he did it.

First off, many believe that the story of Adam and Eve is not factual, and that these two people represent human beings in general. The fruit in the garden was the knowledge of good versus evil. Good and evil are concepts that are not considered by creatures without a conscious agent. Without a conscious agent, we would be subject only to our own carnal instincts.

Once man became aware of good and evil, they had the choice to do good or not.

So, was there a time in the history of man where we possessed an conscious agent, but really didn't understand good and evil? Maybe. I would think that giving man the ability to choose not to follow his carnal instincts and be unselfish for the benefit of others and the knowledge of good and evil as pretty synonymous.

As to why he gave man the opportunity to be evil? That is tough. My speculation is that the only way to create a situation where a person loves for love's sake is to create a situation where it is easy to choose not to love. Love's victories over selfishness are underappreciated, and beautiful, and incompatible with a world in which free will or selfishness are not present.

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So following that up, I am then inclined to ask why didn't God keep that world -- in the sense of, free will and no imminent tragedy as a result of choices made.
It seems to me, that the world pre-forbidden fruit consumption, that Adam and Eve lived in a seemingly perfect world, and had free will.

Why wasn't that kept?

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They were in a state of probation with no divine promise of grace. As to your question as to why the fall was permitted, it was for his own glory, to show mercy and justice.

Seemingly intelligent people talking about life questions based on conversations with a talking snake. What is wrong with this picture?