If there is natural innocence why don’t we naturally know God?
I would be interested in hearing people’s views.
can you explain that better?
As in born without origenal sin?
Hi thanks for your comments. But I think that there is a natural or animal innocence – that is innocent but is ignorant of God.
God created the animals for companions for Adam and “animal nature†sees man as supreme. Adam named the animals and they appear to be unaware of God but at the same time can be innocent - ie lamb.
In the Garden of Eden God told Adam he would die the very day if he should eat the forbidden fruit. God doesn’t lie and after Adam and Eve sinned God covered them with animal skins.
I wonder if more than just clothing was involved and maybe mankind from that point took on an animal innocence and became “naturally†innocent like animals but also like animals did not know God
Many things are natural innocence, but we have to learn them in order to transit from the status of natural innocence to the status of knowledge
for example, logical thinking is natural innocence. However, learning is still needed.
I disagree.
A child is natural innocence. That is being with the divine, and not needing knowledge. Knowledge causes arrogance, which leads away from the natural and the innocence, and thus the divine.
Why should knowledge and the divine be mutually exclusive…? Ignorance is the antithesis of knowledge, not innocence. You can acquire knowledge and still not be corrupt…and you can be ignorant and arrogant.
I disagree too. Knowledge, especially the knowledge of right and wrong, has been one of the best things that has happened to mankind. Ignorance of good and evil has never saved us from the horrible consequences of evil. Ignorance of the way the world works has never saved us from calamity in that regard. Knowledge has been one of our only defenses, and it’s weird that Genesis treats it like something contemptable.
Why is knowledge, rather than evil, treated as a loss of innocence? As if we were committing wrong by knowing how something works, what something is? Is it arrogant to look at the world and understand it (to the extent that we do)?
Amazing how one can say “I disagree”, and that isn’t enough, it then has to turn into a discertation.
Take ILP for an example. Here, everyone, inclusive, greatly enjoys touting “knowledge”. Perhaps others have seen something different, but I have, in my admittedly short time here, seen more dissention, irritation, frustration, and outright mittigated anger, simply due to an inability to understand differing perspectives of knowledge. This to me says arrogance, which says perspective is destroyed, which says common ground is no longer possible, which separates mankind based upon the ludicrous “pissing lines” in the sand, which drives nations apart, which further negates mankinds ability to show empathy for their brothers and sisters, which furthers the demise of hope, which shuns promise, which impedes justice, which furthers ill will, dissention, likelihood of warfare, famine, pestilence, and increases the possibility of extinction of the species.
Feel free to correct me if I am wrong on this supposition, but I do not find that to be the intent of the divine, I may be wrong though. Haven’t received a return call from the Divine One on this, or at least my caller ID isn’t showing the number.
Knowledge of anything, has in the greater sense, cost more lives than it has saved. Good and evil are not in any manner bound by knowledge, if they be bound at all.
I have four children, who have taught me more about life than any book, lecture, scientist, theologist, ontologist, neurologist, geneticist, etc, etc, ad nauseum.
I simply stated, “I disagree”, showing that there is an alternative perspective based upon my intrinsic and extrinsic value systems, which make it correct for me, not necessarily anyone else.
Well, I never said you couldn’t believe as you do, or that disagreement could be a perfectly fine state of affairs. If I say I disagree in a discussion forum, is it not then appropriate to discuss my difference of opinion?
And yet, they taught you something, right? You gained knowledge that you didn’t have before being a parent. Wisdom? Experience? Knowledge about how a family works. Did this destroy your “innocence”? And is “innocence”, the word misused in such a way, even valuable?