Islam - The Summit of Religious Evolution — Page 106
106 sinner. According to the Bible, God informed Adam of his plan to create Eve as a helper for him. 5 Upon God’s inquiry as to why he has eaten the fruit from the forbidden tree, Adam rightly replied: “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. ” 6 And when the woman was questioned by God, “What is this that thou has done!" she replied: “The serpent beguiled me and I did eat. ” 7 She confessed that she was only beguiled, which shows that she did not tell Adam that the fruit that she had given him was from the forbidden tree. Adam did not therefore commit a real sin. Saint Paul has expressed a similar view when he said: "And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became the sinner. 8 The Biblical reason for Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden reads: "the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever, He sent him forth from the Garden of Eden”. 9 This passage clearly indicates that the only reason for Adam's expulsion from the Garden was not his sin for eating from the forbidden tree, but God's fear that he might also eat of the tree of life. Thus the belief that Adam was expelled from the Garden for eating the fruit from the forbidden tree is contrary to Biblical teachings and is ridiculous. Can we believe that God created humans to keep them ignorant of good and evil? Did he not create them in His own image and after His likeness? 10 It is, therefore, clear that the doctrine of Redemption, based on the sin of Adam, is also untrue. In the Holy Quran God says; "We gave a commandment to Adam before, but he forget; and We did not find in him any determination to disobey. ” 11 III The assertion that all humans sin and that nobody can be justified by the law, in the sight of God without believing in the ransom paid by Jesus for the original sin is absolutely wrong. The Bible states that both Zacharias and his wife "were righteous before God; walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. ”12 Mary, the Mother of Jesus, according to the Roman Catholic belief, was sinless. IV Original sin is only an invention of the Pagan Christian, and it is not mentioned anywhere in the Old Testament. The opinion of the Christian Divines is divided on this question. "In the fifth century Pelagius declared the capacity of every man to become virtuous by his own efforts, and summoned the members of Church in Rome to enter on the way of perfection in Monasticism. His friend, Caelestius, was in 412 charged with and excommunicated for heresy, because he regarded Adam as well as all his descendants as naturally mortal, denied the racial consequences of Adam's fall, asserted the entire innocence of newborn, recognized sinless men before the coming of Christ. Pelagius insisted that sin was an act not a state, and abuse of the freedom of the will and that each man was responsible and liable to punishment for his own acts. 13