Why would a perfect garden need anyone to look after it?

[walterpthefirst]

Sometimes the blindingly obvious hides in plain sight.  

 

 

Genesis 2 : 15

 

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

 

 

Uhhh... why?  

 

If, as Christian apologists assert, everything in Eden was perfect and pure and holy, why would there be any need for the garden to be looked after?  Or worked, dressed, taken care of, served, depending on which Bible translation you read?

 

According to scripture sin, decay and death didn't enter the world until after Adam and Eve sinned.  Applying that logic, before that event there were no such things as decay and death in Eden, or anywhere else in the world.   So, if nothing, no plants or shrubs, trees or flowers, were ever going to decay or die, why was there any need for a gardener?  

 

Perfect and undying plants, flowers and trees require no pruning and no deadheading.  A perfect garden requires no weeding.  If all of the trees there were pleasing to the eye and good for food, just as scripture says, then, because nothing dies or decays, they stay that way.  Flowers bloom perfectly, without any need for human assistance.  Fruit ripens perfectly, without any need for a human being to watch out for blight or bugs.  The leaves on the bushes and the trees never show signs of mildew, rot or canker.  Everything growing is maintenance free.

 

What about the soil and the need for watering?  According to Genesis 2 : 10 there was a river flowing through Eden and it would also have been a logical impossibility for there to be any undue dryness or wetness of the soil in that garden.  Why?  Because the whole place was blessed by god as being 'very good' and because Christians assert that the place was created perfectly by god.  Perfect soil is neither too dry or too wet.  So there would have been no need for a human gardener to add or remove moisture from any of the soil in Eden.  

 

What about feeding the plants with a rich mixture of compost to encourage their growth and health?  Nope.  Same again.  To make something to feed plants something else first needs to die.  The natural processes of decomposition cannot happen if there is no such thing as death.  Death did not come into the world and into Eden until after Adam and Eve sinned.  Before that event death and decay did not exist.  Without decay and death fallen leaves (another impossibility in Eden) or fallen petals (impossible!) cannot become compost.  If Adam had deliberately cut some grass (with what?) or trimmed some soft, green foliage (with what?) to make some compost, then he would have been guilty of spoiling the perfection of god's garden.  

 

If you'll pardon the pun, any way you cut this, the need for a gardener in a perfect and undying garden looks like a nonsense.  The more I read in the bible about Eden, the more the whole thing looks like an elaborate kind of entrapment on god's part.  He was determined, not just to screw Adam and Eve over, but also to blame them when, according to scripture itself, he wanted them to be guilty of disobeying him.  

 

 

Thank you,

 

 

Walter.

 

 

 

 

 

[TheBluegrassSkeptic]

2 hours ago, walterpthefirst said:

 

What about feeding the plants with a rich mixture of compost to encourage their growth and health?  Nope.  Same again.  To make something to feed plants something else first needs to die.  The natural processes of decomposition cannot happen if there is no such thing as death.  Death did not come into the world and into Eden until after Adam and Eve sinned.  Before that event death and decay did not exist.  Without decay and death fallen leaves (another impossibility in Eden) or fallen petals (impossible!) cannot become compost.  If Adam had deliberately cut some grass (with what?) or trimmed some soft, green foliage (with what?) to make some compost, then he would have been guilty of spoiling the perfection of god's garden.  

 

A pastor once told me that what we humans consider to be take, tend, and care for plants probably wasn't the same thing to God. For all we know (he claimed to me), Adam was just put there to appreciate and enjoy the garden. Would plants need feeding in an eternal garden? Would there be a need for the normal life cycle? Plants could have developed survival skills, much like humans, out of survival after the Fall, but not before. We will never know. 

This is the nonsense I was told as a kid when I asked about this thread's topic. 

Personally, I think the perfect nature of the garden wasn't that everything was perfect in the godly sense, but that it was an ideal environment for man to thrive. When they talk about the fall, I think this means they didn't want to desegregate and allow in encroaching tribes who didn't share similar practices, probably leading to their own traditions and values being supplanted or aging out, meaning as generations began to absorb these outside cultures, they became aware of things they weren't exposed to before, even clothing. Just look at the impact of modern humanity on seclusive tribes in jungles today. Many didn't give a shit about clothing or had any form of modesty till we showed up in shirts, shorts, and tee shirts.

Just my take on this.

[pantheory]

Of course the story of the Garden of Eden is a fable. But if such an imaginary God created it, he also could have kept it a garden and it would not have overgrown like a jungle. But the fable of original sin would have allowed imaginary God to leave his and imaginary Adam and Eve's gardening tasks and let the garden grow into a jungle of overgrowth upon banning fictional Adam and Eve from the garden, to the fictional land of Nod, east of Eden.

[walterpthefirst]

Thanks for the input, guys.

 

Just so that you know (and sorry for not declaring my hand) what I'm doing in this thread is playing Devil's Advocate.  I'm stepping into the shoes of a Christian apologist who believes that the bible is inerrant and all completely true.  So, if Genesis 2 : 15 says that god took Adam and put him in the garden to work it and care for it, then that's the position I'm holding to here.  And if the bible also says that decay and death did not enter into the world and into Eden until after Adam sinned, then I'm holding to that as true, too.

 

However, when I take these two scriptural things as true - that Adam was there to work the garden and that decay and death were not present in Eden - I get a contradiction.  A logical impossibility.  A perfect garden doesn't need a gardener.  There's no work for a gardener to do in a perfect garden.  Can you see how my argument works?

 

 

Thank you,

 

 

Walter.

 

 

[Edgarcito]

I expect humanity was a part of the created perfection.... not in a pantheistic type of way but maybe to work in the same way...

[TheRedneckProfessor]

Yes.  Humanity was perfect... vulnerable to temptation and the expression of prideful desires.  god must be a real dumbass if that's his idea of perfection. 

[Edgarcito]

3 hours ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

Yes.  Humanity was perfect... vulnerable to temptation and the expression of prideful desires.  god must be a real dumbass if that's his idea of perfection. 

 Lack of vulnerability and without pride or desire is perfect?

[TheRedneckProfessor]

1 hour ago, Edgarcito said:

 Lack of vulnerability and without pride or desire is perfect?

Obviously not; but that isn't the point, as you well know.  The presence of those qualities within humanity in the Garden makes it pretty clear that they were already imperfect, which refutes your point that they were "part of the created perfection."  If god created them as they were, then obviously god created them imperfect, since they had those qualities.  And if god created them "in his image," then we can further conclude that god is himself imperfect, and has those same qualities as well. 

[pantheory]

1 hour ago, Edgarcito said:

 Lack of vulnerability and without pride or desire is perfect?

 

Yeah Edgarcito, the meaning of this is a kind of sarcasm:  Since God'a creation of man was supposedly a kind of perfection (in his won image) including free will, still God wanted them to be obedient so told them not to eat from a particular tree, since accordingly that fruit brought the knowledge of good and evil. 

 

But man was "vulnerable to temptation and the expression of prideful desires." So accordingly God should have known that man would eventually eat from the tree of knowledge, possibly without Satan since it was within his nature to be curious about the unknown and would eventually fall to temptation and pride.

 

https://cerebralfaith.net/why-was-god-so-upset-about-adam-and-eve/

[Edgarcito]

Well we would have to ask whether it was the creation or the choice that was imperfect. 

[pantheory]

1 minute ago, Edgarcito said:

Well we would have to ask whether it was the creation or the choice that was imperfect. 

 

Of course it could have been both, but not if there is a God and our perfection is only in his eyes.

[Edgarcito]

Says it was good…. We are assuming humanity is good but not perfect, not equal to God, yet in its initial form, able to reside w God.  The Prof is saying imo that that initial form, bc is naive that we speculate, that this makes God evil for creating humanity absent of immediate maturity.  

[Edgarcito]

An asteroid hits the Earth and wipes out a third of all life.  The universe is imperfect and evil.  Speaking of, how could the universe be anything but perfect.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

10 hours ago, Edgarcito said:

I expect humanity was a part of the created perfection.... 

 

10 minutes ago, Edgarcito said:

We are assuming humanity is good but not perfect,

No.  We are not assuming anything.  We are looking at the positive claim you made that humanity was part of created perfection.  I have demonstrated why your claim is wrong.  If they were, themselves, not created perfect, then by extension, "creation" was also not perfect, because of their imperfect presence in it.

 

Everything else in your post is irrelevant, as it is based on assumptions that we are not making (though, clearly, you have made a few).

[Edgarcito]

Just now, TheRedneckProfessor said:

 

No.  We are not assuming anything.  We are looking at the positive claim you made that humanity was part of created perfection.  I have demonstrated why your claim is wrong.  If they were, themselves, not created perfect, then by extension, "creation" was also not perfect, because of their imperfect presence in it.

 

Everything else in your post is irrelevant, as it is based on assumptions that we are not making (though, clearly, you have made a few).

I didn’t make that claim…. It says good

[TheRedneckProfessor]

1 minute ago, Edgarcito said:

An asteroid hits the Earth and wipes out a third of all life.  The universe is imperfect and evil.  Speaking of, how could the universe be anything but perfect.

We are not discussing asteroids or the universe.  Good attempt at distraction, though.  Stick to the story, Ed.  Thank you. 

[Edgarcito]

Just cut the logic bs… your argument is that God is evil in that A&E were naive and it wasn’t fair.  …. That you would have created people differently…without naive vulnerability and enough knowledge.

[Edgarcito]

3 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

We are not discussing asteroids or the universe.  Good attempt at distraction, though.  Stick to the story, Ed.  Thank you. 

Same difference… answer the question 

[TheRedneckProfessor]

10 hours ago, Edgarcito said:

I expect humanity was a part of the created perfection.... 

 

3 minutes ago, Edgarcito said:

I didn’t make that claim…. It says good

I literally quoted you making that claim.  Here's a screenshot.  You did make that claim.

 

 

[Edgarcito]

3 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

 

I literally quoted you making that claim.  Here's a screenshot.  You did make that claim.

 

 

I see your point.  I was responding to Walter’s op… “a perfect garden”.  Might ask him.  I agree in the sense that oneness with God is essentially perfect but not that humanity is equal to.  

[TheRedneckProfessor]

16 minutes ago, Edgarcito said:

Just cut the logic bs… your argument is that God is evil in that A&E were naive and it wasn’t fair.  …. That you would have created people differently…without naive vulnerability and enough knowledge.

No.  That is your strawman, which you have also failed to adequately refute.  I have only pointed out that humanity was not perfect in creation. 

[TheRedneckProfessor]

17 minutes ago, Edgarcito said:

Same difference… answer the question 

No.  I am under no obligation to (re)address a claim already refuted.  

[pantheory]

Howdy again Egarcito,

 

Again some sarcasm, I don't believe he thinks that God is evil, but like me, we think that the belief is such a God  is not logical in the slightest with the knowledge of the great mountains of science evidence that completely, totally, and absolutely disprove the story-book-tales of Genesis.

[walterpthefirst]

11 hours ago, Edgarcito said:

I expect humanity was a part of the created perfection.... not in a pantheistic type of way but maybe to work in the same way...

 

Perhaps you could explain what Genesis 2 : 15 means, Ed?

 

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

 

 

[Edgarcito]

3 minutes ago, walterpthefirst said:

 

Perhaps you could explain what Genesis 2 : 15 means, Ed?

 

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

 

 

We are currently stuck on your claim of a perfect garden.  Could you please defend your words given you are devil’s advocating… thx