Hello Steve, thanks for taking the time to respond.
You said: “Boy, talk about spin. BTW, there were two forbidden trees and when A&E were ejected, a guard was placed at the entrance so they could not sneak back in, so why weren't guards placed on those trees if they were so damned important?”
The Tree of Life wasn’t forbidden until after they sinned. Before that, they had full access to it.
God denied access to it for a specific reason: so that they would not live forever IN THEIR CURRENT STATE.
God created them to live forever — perpetual life with no death. That was God’s original design. It’s also the design creation returns to at the end of Revelation.
But Adam and Eve had become full of sin. God didn’t want them to perpetuate that condition — being sinful, rebellious, separate from Him. Being spiritually dead.
God told them that in the day they ate from the forbidden tree, they would die. They did. Spiritual death was indicated immediately: guilt, shame, fear, blame, regret, division, separation.
God would restore them to spiritual life, as He hinted in Genesis 3 — He would crush the serpent’s head, destroying his work. But that would come in the future.
God didn’t want them to extend their spiritual deadness forever. That’s what we call hell. It’s what Isaiah experienced in Isaiah 6 — he was taken into God’s presence while full of sin (while spiritually dead) and it caused untold agony. God didn’t torture him; Isaiah’s own sin caused his agony.
God didn’t want Adam and Eve tortured by their sin in their spiritually dead state.
So He blocked them from the Tree of Life.
The Tree of Life appears again in Revelation, for those who have been spiritually born again.
You said: “And why did God create the serpent and allow it to roam freely in the Garden? And don't give me the BS answer that the serpent was Satan as you would then be claiming that God couldn't see through the disguise (and God ends up punishing all serpents later which is unfair to serpents if that serpent was really Satan in disguise).”
It wasn’t a disguise. It was obviously Satan from the start, without guile. Satan possessed the serpent and spoke through it, but no one thought this was a random snake.
God allowed Satan to be present in the Garden for the reason God gave in Genesis 1. God told Adam and Eve that they would have to steward Creation, and God used two words: radah and kabash.
Radah indicates willful rulership, when people willingly submit to the authorities.
Kabash is when you have to force someone to submit, when you encounter someone rebellious and have to use force to get them in line.
God told Adam and Eve they would have to use both kinds of dominion.
Satan was there for them to kabash. They could practice radah-style dominion on everything else in creation, but they needed something rebellious to learn how to kabash, how to exert this kind of authority.
And again, God gave them everything they needed to kabash the serpent. God gave them clear guidance, God proved Himself trustworthy by being the source of all their good, God gave them clear warnings, and so on. They had everything they needed to identify the serpent as rebellious and to kabash it.
You said: “Really, why not then giving them the knowledge of the difference between good and evil, so they could make their own moral judgements? Why not let them taste the fruit of the Tree of Life so they could live forever? How is this "holding nothing back?"
They ate from the Tree of Life before they sinned. Biblically, this is the reason why they lived so long. As the generations progressed, lifespans shrank the further they got from those who had eaten from the Tree of Life.
Adam and Eve had everything they needed to distinguish good and evil. God was every thing good to them. God had given them everything good they would ever need. God warned them of the danger. They had all they needed to identify the serpent as evil and kabash it.
You don’t need to do evil yourself to recognize evil. All you need to do is know what is good, and see that something else is not that.
You said: “Why do you insist upon making up things not there in the story?”
I’m using the entire Bible, bringing in all the biblical context. I’m also paying attention to the details in the story that you may have missed.
You said: “And the real reason that Satan is not done away with is because Satan is the fall guy for all of the evil happening in the world, even though Yahweh has already taken credit for it (I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things. Isaiah 45:7)”
The word for “evil” in Isaiah 45:7 is more accurately rendered “calamity.” It’s the word used when God creates trouble for people, such as when an army is intent on destruction, and God stops them. God creates calamity for the invading army.
It’s not a statement that God creates evil. It’s a statement that God can create calamity for those who are committing evil, as He does throughout the Bible.
You said: “so is Satan really necessary?”
Yes. You can’t kabash God. If you are going to learn kabash-style dominion, you can’t do it against God. You need a much smaller enemy to kabash.
You said: “And why kill? Yahweh is omnipotent, He could just uncreate Satan and even remove memories of his existence from us with a thought. Why all the unnecessary killing? Why are Chrsitians so bloodthirsty?”
Christians shouldn’t be bloodthirsty. Jesus wasn’t. He specifically stopped His disciples from using bloodshed.
God doesn’t want to remove Satan, because He still wants His children to learn how to kabash the enemy. God wants us to orient ourselves around the real struggle — saving people who are unintentionally dooming themselves to hell — rather than being obsessed with all the petty power struggles in the world around us. Satan helps to draw us back to what matters — the battle for souls, rather than a battle for votes or for oil or for land or whatever else.
