Was the driving of Adam and Eve from the garden of eden an act of of love on the part of god?

Answer 1

Answer 1

No, it was a consequence for being disobiedient.

Answer 2

Hmm this is a hard one as it is much more complex than first meets the eye.

Firstly, you have to appreciate that taken absolutely literally as a 'historical' story, Genesis does not make very good sense. It was written originally by at least two authors and in the original Hebrew is a poem rather than a historical treatise. Therefore whether or not Adam (which means, in Hebrew 'humankind' anyway and is not the name of an individual man) actually existed is immaterial; what is important are the hidden truths contained in these words in Genesis.

Some inconsistencies though to set the scene: First, we are taught that when Eve gave Adam the 'apple' sin entered the world. This is clearly untrue as the serpent who tempted Eve was already present and so evil was there prior to Adam's fall. Neither is an apple mentioned anywhere in the story. Second, we are taught that it has somehow to do with sex between Adam and Eve because sex and nudity is somehow 'dirty', yet the number of times sex is mentioned is precisely the number of times an apple is mentioned! Third, we are taught that the serpent is Satan - but again, no mention is made of this in the story, nor even implied in the original Hebrew, and the ancient Jews did not have this view of evil anyway. Fourth, if a loving God allowed the two humans to eat of any tree in the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil why put it there in the first place? Was it to tempt them? If God is all powerful he would have known the consequences. And a vindictive God out to tempt Adam and Eve into eating this fruit is not the God I worship, nor the God whom Jesus Christ described.

The clue lies in the tree's name - the "Tree of the knowledge of good and evil". This strongly implies that without 'eating' from this tree, humanity would not know or be able to discern the difference between good and evil. We would be like the animals living by instinct alone. In other words we would not have free will. We would not have free will to love our creator because we want to and rather we would have to love him because that is our instinct. Compelled love is no love at all: freely given love is true love and that is what God requires of us in return for his unconditional love of us.

Therefore an all-seeing and all-knowing God would have known beforehand what will happen between Adam and Eve and the garden. As humans we choose to disobey God because of that loving gift of freewill. Therefore driving us out of the garden was a bitter-sweet moment; a bitter moment as it was as a result of our disobedience, but also a sweet moment, for, from that time onwards, God gave us the freewill to love him (or reject him) because we wantto.

This, of course, meant that this freewill would separate us from God because of our sin. God could see that and his future rescue plan had to come in the form of Jesus Christ who would save us from that sin. Not just us but all people, past and future. If God is all seeing and all knowing he would know the outcome of the Adam and Eve story and so Jesus Christ would be part of the plan from the beginning, as John 1:1 confirms.

Therefore, to us, banishment from the garden may well be seen as some sort of 'punishment' but to God it was part of his loving plan for the whole of humanity.