Why did God create the forbidden apple?
From: Mahesh
Sometimes christians say that god created adam and eve and asked them not to eat the poisoned apple , then why did he create the poisoned apple in the first place?
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question by Mahesh. Sometimes Christians say that God created Adam and Eve and asked them not to eat the poisoned apple.
Then why did God create the poisoned apple in the first place? Answer. This story of Adam and Eve is essentially metaphorical. Metaphorical means that it is symbolic story that indicates a deeper truth.
Jesus on many occasions used the allegorical method to teach people. He would tell stories and people would be interested and people would be attracted and then he would tell the lessons of further inquiry and to those who could understand it deeper. So, of course, the Adam and Eve story comes not in the New Testament spoken by Jesus, it comes in the Old Testament.
But the principle of allegorical instruction is used not only by Jesus but by other prophets also before him. So, we have to understand this story is symbolic because many deep thinking Christians also recognize the serious implications of this theory that if just because Adam and Eve rebelled against God, so because of that, do all living beings become sinful? So, do all the earthquakes and the tsunamis and the violent storms that kill thousands of people, all the destruction happen just because somebody ate apple sometime? This is not only illogical and disproportionate but it also flies in the face of idea of intelligent and compassionate God. So, therefore, though there are a few Christians who take the story literalistically, but there are many way of forward thinking Christians who recognize that the story indicates a deeper truth.
So, the deeper truth is that basically the story illustrates how disobedience and disregard to the will of God is the cause of our fall down. So, basically the story illustrates how God offered us varieties of enjoyments in the spiritual world. In the spiritual world when we are there with Krishna, we can serve him, we can sing with him, we can dance with him, we can play with him, we can enjoy with him in so many ways.
It’s just like it said in the story that all the fruits that were there in the forest could be eaten, but Adam and Eve have told, don’t eat this one particular fruit. So, that refers to, yes, we can enjoy in all possible ways, but one way which you should not try to enjoy is by imitating Krishna, by trying to place ourselves in the position of Krishna and by trying to assert Krishna’s position. So, the forbidden apple is not some literal apple that existed thousands of years ago.
The forbidden apple, it is not a poisoned apple, it is a forbidden apple. The forbidden apple is, or the forbidden fruit in general, is the one way that is forbidden for us to enjoy. So, when we give up all the varieties of ways of enjoying that Krishna has provided for us in the spiritual world and try to enjoy in a way that is incompatible to the mood of the spiritual world, that is, everybody is attracted to Krishna and everybody loves Krishna and in serving and pleasing Krishna, everybody is happy there.
If we want to ourselves become the center of attraction and the object of service, then we become incompatible for the spiritual world and that’s why we have to come to the material world. So, it is not that God has specifically created a poisoned apple to allure us, it is that love requires free will and free will entails, necessitates the possibility that free will may be misused. Krishna, by providing us a profusion of many many ways of spiritual enjoyment in the spiritual world and ensures that most of the souls never misuse their free will.
But for the few who do, Krishna doesn’t just kick them out of the spiritual world, He personally comes with them in the spiritual world, to this world and accompanies us in our journey as a super soul and guides us to return back to Him. Thank you.