Temptation and the fall

[Marty Zyph]

Is it possible that the fall of man could have occurred without the suggestions of the devil?

Was Satan particularly or specially equipped so as to be able to temp himself, himself not having another devil to blame?

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Marty,

These are interesting questions. It's always a risk to deal in hypotheticals -- could man have not sinned? would he not have sinned were the serpent not present to tempt? would there have been an incarnation of the Son without sin? -- for the Church paramountly deals with the economy as it has come to pass and been revealed.

Nonetheless, you're not the only one to ask these things! Speculation on the nature of humanity, vis-a-vis sin and the role of the serpent in Eden, have been rife for nearly two millennia. Others may have other thoughts or references, but my own response is that, at least in the patristic corpus, there is not a clear answer to the question, precisely because it is speculative -- a 'what if?' rather than a 'what happened?' There are some fathers who seem to say that without the temptation, humanity would have remained obedient; others who say that humanity would have developed its own serpents, had not the real one appeared.

INXC, Matthew

[katya the nurse-aid]

If GOD is Alfa and Omega….If HE is total Perfection…And if from that perfection HE created us as HIS image…then we can only guess what it will cost us…Total freedom, choices and own brain….With knowing bad and good, having that clue inside us, His ‘seed’….and yet millions or endless possibilities to do what ever we want with it…Like never were in His creations/us the clones of one another….maybe close, but not clone and this is mystery of His Might! We cannot grasp it, so do we have endless possibilities to do with our Fee Will, what ever every single person desires…So if HE is Whole and Perfect, and we are His images, so Wholeness of something consist of something…He is perfect, it doesn’t’ t mean HE is empty, or sterile…it is like our body consist of molecular, bad and good cholesterol, bad and good sugar, red and white cells. YET! If it is all working perfect, we are not sick…If something goes wrong…we become affected by it…But I’m not talking about force from outside, like being stubbed in back….even then our organism have resistance to produce new blood, to heal skin layers and on…I’m talking about inside changes of what was perfect…HE is Stable or Still, or Unchangeable in HIS Nature….PERFECTION ….without molecular start fighting inside Him one day! HE IS GOD! We cannot know more, only that this is Constant Condition of His! And this is Sustained everything, without this, everything fall apart, like structure of the Huge house. We are not perfect, because we are not GOD…So for us having Free Will and whole necessary equipment inside, to keep organism healthy, gave us chance to be His image…but we must work all the time…at list here, now…After death we will be new…ones dead and proof before that of our desire to keep that healthy level, without causing own organism become sick, by changing own molecular structure by sin…So HE made it possible for us, by showing example and by OWN sacrifices…so is this enough for us? Enough help?

So because Only HE is who changeless and sinless also, we are will always here, or lets say before His Resurrection for us…after our physical death, when He can see IF we are able to be saved by Him…because those inside molecular system must be adapted to HIS healing here, before our death, because after that, it will be force and will destroy us and not saved, if we are not adapted it here wile alive….So the more here now we try to keep healthy level of our organism, the more close to His Constant Nature we become similar too, because it is easy for Him, His ‘seed’ to live in us and grow in the willing soil of our soul…doesn’t meant perfect or always sunshine or rich soiled, yet desire is what count, because he added everything ealse…

[katya the nurse-aid]

Perfection is not single element which is perfect…every single thing consist of many…it is not one element…and sometimes as we see not pretty face, yet when that person start talk or laugh it become totally new and different picture…The wholeness is solved puzzle, which is also consist of many pieces…yet if it solved right it is Whole…If organism have bad and good cholesterol and working normal it this the same organism which simply change own inside amount of own elements and become sick…that how we are and HOW HE IS NOT! HE consist of WHOLE elements, yet never unbalanced, so never become sick or change ITS Nature…we are only image, so do we have to have HIS help all the time, to keep our ‘cholesterol’ under control…

[Klod]

If sin comes from desire, as it says in Jacob's book, man wouldnt be able to fall without a tempter from outside, since his nature was good, without sinfull inclinations, although it wasnt free from erring.

That is with regard to human. The devil's case we cannot know in fullnes, because we dont belong to angelic nature. However, since we know from Scripute that devil so to say was self-tempted, that means that his position, therefore his responsibility, was a higher one than man's. Therefore he cannot repent!

On the other hand we have to understand that man's creation is after the angelic fall and is related to it!

Sorry for my speculations.

[katya the nurse-aid]

do i want be clothed in color of His clean...
do i want to fly to Him on wings He able give...
do i want to touch and being healed, by wind...
do i want to want those things, or just to leave...
do i want to try... to ask... to cry...
do i want to able crawl and crawl for those things being mine...
do i want to breath and live in presents of His Will...
do i want those things in order not being ill?
or it is sin, or fall or evil force...
or this is a something sacred not for me, my nose...
or this is beyong at all to reach....
or to able ever meet Him and become so rich?
balance is...is in the middle of that thing...
My job is to want Him and to clink and clink!

[Michael Howard Lake]

Dear Brothers & Sisters,

I have been reading another thread on Chalcedonian and Non-Chalcedonian Christologies. I think your discussion is directly related to the Christological questions I have been reading.

Aside from terminological considerations, the controversy between the Eastern and Oriental Churches' Christological teachings revolves about what I once saw termed "Theanthropology." If our Lord were not fully human, with all that nature portends, then there would have been no sanctification of the human will, since it was in the will that our foreparents sinned. In other words, Christ would have had to have had the same existential freedom to say "yea" or "nay" to the Father's will as Adam and Eve had, or we would not be forgiven or, more importantly, healed by Christ's complete sacrifice.

Given this, then, it follows that even if no tempter had come to seduce them, Adam and Eve could still have rejected the Father's will by an existentially free act of choice. This act of choice would not have had to have been driven by the passions, furthermore. The "mystery of iniquity" may indeed flow not from the passions at all but from the nous where the image of God makes us who we are: creatures who share in God-like freedom. The difference between us and God, however, is that God cannot sin against Himself, but we sin against ourselves whenever we sin against God.

Of course, now that I have set all this down and taken a critical look at it, I'm not so sure that I am correct in what I have said. Perhaps someone with greater learning or understanding than I can set me straight.

Thank you for your continuing prayers,

Your brother in Christ,
Michael Howard Lake