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Dear Anonymous,
You have begun with four questions, all of which deserve good lengthy conversations. However, since we're only a Question and Answer forum I'll try to respond with bite-sized intelligible responses.
Feel free to follow up.
You said:
- Using basic logic I can't see how God could be both loving and omniscient.
Knowledge and love do not contradict each other. Since God created the universe out of nothing, which includes all of space, time, and matter, He is above it in Being and authority. Hence He knows all and loves all that He created, for we could say it came forth from His Eternal Creative Mind and Heart.
You said:
- If He knew Adam and Eve were going to take the apple, than why did he tell them not to, just to mess with them?
Three quick thoughts on this.
- First, knowledge of something doesn't necessarily mean determination of it. In a mysterious way, the first two parent had their freedom intact and had the power to say Yes to God. That is important for them to know, enabling them to realize that it is through their own fault, and not God's, that paradise was lost to them.
- Secondly, God can not stop them from doing evil without contradicting Himself. He gave man free will because without it one can not love. Love must be freely chosen in the individual for it to be love. Instinctual affection is not love, regardless of how a dog makes us feel when we get home. Only persons can love; and since God is three Persons He created us in His image as Persons. If He were to stop us from doing evil He would have to rescind our free will and personhood, and re-make us akin to either animals or robots. Then, of course, there could be no personal relationship with God in this life or eternally in the next.
- Thirdly, if a parent knows a child is going to hurt himself by disobedience, and knows it is the best way under the circumstances for the child to learn how to become a better person, then a good parent would often allow the evil to occur for a greater good. Again, God does not will that Adam sin, but He does permit the evil He knows will happen in order for the story to unfold and for good to triumph in the end.
You said:
- If the Garden of Eden is supposed to be free of all evil, why would he put the devil in it?
Just like in the story of Job in the Old Testament, God tests the love of persons through the work of the one(s) who have already rejected Him. The Garden would have remained a paradise with one simple No from Adam to the serpent. With limited creatures such as ourselves, evil is a possibility, and it must be rejected in order for us to flourish. Just like Adam, our ultimate choice is God or evil, life or death. When we choose evil, we reject God and alter the environment around us in a negative way, affecting others. Being the first parent of humanity, when Adam chose evil he rejected God and altered, in a negative way, the entire human race that would come forth from him. Since God is a God of Mercy, He continuously gave Adam, and gives us, a chance to repent and seek forgiveness and reconciliation.
You said:
- If burning for all eternity is really a sinners fate, why did the devil get to chill in the Garden of Eden?
I don't think the devil was chilling. Just because the story depicts him in serpent-form in the garden, doesn't mean he was not burning with the suffering flames of Hell. Perhaps you need to loosen up your literal interpretation of things to be open to possibilities that are not immediately apparent to the eye. We tend to draw an exact picture in our own limited imagination of what we read, which can sometimes be of help but at other times be a limiting hindrance.
Peace,
Paul
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