Q: Why did God tempt Adam and Eve, if he wanted the world to be perfect?

A: The story of Adam and Eve presented in the Old Testament depicts a contest for newly created mankind’s loyalty between God and and an equally powerful Satan. This is an ancient story emerging through a human understanding still tinged with fear and superstition, not too far removed from where many find themselves even today.

The Urantia Book brings God and many of these legends into an understanding more fitting our present level of spiritual and logical comprehension.

> Our heavenly Father is a loving God, not jealous and vindictive. God does not tempt his children to test their loyalty. And while evil is real, the devil is not on equal footing with divinity.

The divine plan is for Earth to eventually become perfect, but that comes through human evolution and our consistent striving toward perfection. God could have made the world perfect but then there would have been no platform for exerecising free will, which, along with God’s gift to us of personality, is God’s greatest gift.

The compelling story of Adam and Eve told in The Urantia Book explains their temptation and eventual default, not as God testing their loyalty, but as well-intentioned decisions that deviated from the plans they had established before coming to the world as uplifters of human biology, culture, and knowledge. We are still reaping the effects of those erroneous decisions today but God is still available to comfort and support us throughout our daily lives and we are on the path toward a more perfect world.

See:

The Garden of Eden

Adam and Eve

The Default of Adam and Eve

Date published:
Author: Staff