Why does God take the risk of offering free will to “dirt bags”?
God works joyously for six days, forming a human from the dust of the ground as the crowning touch to His creation. He places the human in a moist and fruitful garden. There God instructs the human to eat freely from the fruit. But a certain tree has fruit that brings knowledge of good and evil. God warns the human not to eat that fruit, or else he will surely die!
Suppose we heed God’s caution. Could we remain as the animals, naked and unashamed? Would we eventually eat fruit from the Tree of Life and live with God in the Garden of Eden forever?
Such are the possibilities when God protects free will. God for His part responds to human shortcomings with increased love. The human is lonely, so God fashions a helpmeet. The humans disobey, eat the fruit, and hide their nakedness in shame.
God holds Adam directly accountable for listening to his wife’s voice, rather than following God’s command. Now Adam must sweat to cultivate food from thorny ground that is cursed!
God clothes the humans with more permanent coverings and expels them from the Garden. Adam must learn from the choice he has made.
So what do you think? Who took the risk? Who faced the consequences?
“’By the sweat of your brow will you eat food, until you return to the ground, since from it were you taken. For you are dust, and to dust will you return.’ … ADONAI Elohim sent him away from the Garden of Eden, to work the ground from which he had been taken” (Genesis 3:19, 23 TLV).
© Jeffrey Enoch Feinberg. JEF says that God takes a risk on humans, but our free will has consequences.
