FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Countercult ministries/Watchman Fellowship/Section 4
| Section 3 | A FAIR Analysis of:
Watchman Fellowship |
Section 5 |
Index of Claims in "Basics of Mormonism: Falling Upward"
Claim
The authors ask, if "death is the wages of sin," and the fall of Adam and Eve "was not actually sin, then why did it introduce death into the world." .
Author's source(s)
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
Claim
How did the transgression of Adam and Eve "intorduce sin into the world?" How were mortality and a sinful world the result of a transgression rather than a sin?
Author's source(s)
Response
FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
Claim
The authors claim that if the transgression of Adam and Eve were "such a blessing," then they would have not felt "guilty and afraid" when God approached them in the Garden of Eden after they committed their transgression.
Response
- Adam and Eve were guilty and afraid because they knew they had violated a commandment of God. They had also not been taught the gospel or about the Plan of Salvation, and so did not know that the atonement of Christ could free them from the effects of their sin.
- When Adam and Eve learned of the plan of salvation and repented, they did rejoice. Upon learning of Christ,
- ...the Holy Ghost fell upon Adam, which beareth record of the Father and the Son, saying: I am the Only Begotten of the Father from the beginning, henceforth and forever, that as thou hast fallen thou mayest be redeemed, and all mankind, even as many as will. And in that day Adam blessed God and was filled, and began to prophesy concerning all the families of the earth, saying: Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God. And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient. (Moses 5꞉9-11)
Claim
If the transgression of Adam and Eve resulted in physical and spiritual death, then why are we only subject to spiritual death for eternity if we do not repent? Wouldn't our sins, since we have a knowledge of good and evil and Adam did not, be more serious than his? The authors ask why we "incur a lesser penalty in eternity than Adam's (non)-sin?"
Author's source(s)
Response
- We do not suffer eternal physical death for our sins and neither does Adam, for the same reason—the Atonement of Jesus Christ:
Adam spake unto the Lord, and said: Why is it that men must repent and be baptized in water? And the Lord said unto Adam: Behold I have forgiven thee thy transgression in the Garden of Eden. Hence came the saying abroad among the people, that the Son of God hath atoned for original guilt, wherein the sins of the parents cannot be answered upon the heads of the children, for they are whole from the foundation of the world. (Moses 6꞉53-54)
- For a detailed response, see: Original sin
Claim
Why were Adam and Eve "not counted transgressors before eating the forbidden fruit, for failing to multiply?" The authors ask why this did not cause the Fall to happen.
Response
- This question could be asked with equal cogency of a creedal Christian.
- In the LDS view, Adam and Eve would not be condemned for something they were unable to do.