The Mystery of Iniquity

Daniel, why do you see the Serpent in opposition to God? Are you suggesting that the Serpent had an independent will working against God? You say that believing the Serpent means making God out to be a liar? But how is it that the Serpent, a creation of God, can be working against God, for purposes other than God's? Is your presupposition that the Serpent is evil and God is good? The text never tells us the moral nature of the Serpent, we only know that he is cunning and later punished by God for his actions. The problem is that the Serpent is a creation of God, and unless you argue that the Serpent had a free will, the logical conclusion would be that God made the Serpent evil, thus making God the author of evil and complicit in the actions of the Serpent and the fall of man. This seems to be the logical conclusion of the Sovereignty of God as defined by Calvin: that God is, in fact, the author of evil. Tillich writes that Calvin, like Augustine, believed that God created light and darkness, that He formed good and evil, and that no evil occurs which He has not performed. Calvin believed that God shows His glory in the scene we call the world. In order to do this, He (God) causes evil, even moral evil.

If the Serpent is an agent of God, causing mankind to sin, then God's punishment is absurd. But if the Serpent and Mankind are operating as free agents, then there is no Catch 22, because they are ultimately free to obey God, but they choose otherwise and are subsequently held responsible.

raj