Agreed. It goes both ways.

Here's a passage that comes to mind:



This first sentence points out that one dies by separating oneself from God, who is the "fountain of life." I think this is true irrespective of the tree of life.

For example, later on in the passage, it says that had God left Satan and his followers to reap the full result of their sin, they would have died. Thus the full result of sin is death.

God did not permit this to happen, for it would not have been apparent to onlooking angels that this connection between sin and death existed. It would have appeared, instead, that God was arbitrarily destroying them. It took the cross to make the connection between sin and death clear.

Does this mean you think this passage is implying that entropy did exist before there was sin?

Ok.

I think all will agree that the tree helped increase man's vital force, to use EGW's phraseology. Also, we agree that God did not wish to have man's life prolonged, in mercy, to cut short man's suffering, since man had chosen to live in a world of sin.

Regarding man's living forever, consider the time of the flood. At this point in time, man didn't live very long, because of all the violence. Left alone, man could live a long time, but man wasn't often left alone, but killed. In this case, even having access the tree of life, man would still die, by being killed by others.

This is a fundamental problem of sin; it makes murderers of those who choose to live by its principles. This isn't something the tree of life can fix. It requires Jesus Christ to fix the problem of sin.

So, to sum up the thought, even if man continued to have access to the tree of life, he would still die, in the case where he was killed by another man, and this was very common by the time of the flood, which was only two generations, counting a generation in terms of how long a man could live.

No.



Once they rejected Christ, choosing Satan as their ruler, it's difficult to see how any other outcome could have been possible. Hence Christ's anguish.



They rejected God, choosing Satan instead, and were given over to the master of their choice.



Yes. No.



There are all sorts of differences. To name just one, the Japanese did not choose Truman as their master.



We've discussed these at length in the past. I don't have anything new to add right now.

I don't see how the theoretical situation your suggesting would be possible without the commission of sin.



I don't think this is a good way of looking at things. This is from the chapter "The Destruction of Jerusalem"



This way of putting things resonates much better with me. The way you put things sounds (to me) like you are envisioning that God is behind the bad things which happen, whereas the above paragraphs (to my mind) make it clear that this is not the case.



I think the same principles were at work in these cases as laid out in the paragraphs I just quoted.

I think it begs other questions.

You have only stated your “belief” without really any exegetical or Theological support, at least to counter the ones I had presented. The verb “to be” for ‘mourning, crying, tears, pain’ is also in the middle voice. So they too will not occur “of themselves.” And that is indeed because the “former things” which naturally brought about these emotions would have passed away, namely the hurt that is brought by sin.

Furthermore there very well may be ‘no mourning, nor crying, or tears’ either by the those who are faithful as they would fully understand the fairness and necessity of such a judgement. Even the one being judged may not express any such emotion recognizing also its fairness. Indeed only a extremely recalcitrant person in the face of all this GC proof will choose to go down this path of sin again, and so they themselves will not manifest these emotions. Also, since God would be “nipping this sin in the bud”, there may also not be any pain involved in this judgement.

Still the full force of this verse, in context focuses on the adverse emotions that had been brought about by the ‘former state of thing’ which God will make sure never comes to be the case again, thus not reproducing these derived emotional results.

(A) As a “prophecy” this statement is fully subject to symbolism and not mere literalism, if any. Indeed it is only fully fulfilled in the perfect divine nature that existed in Christ. Gen 3:22 is not a prophecy.

(B) To say that “The serpent's seed is that which he added to the system, the transposable elements.” is at your proving stage merely (eisogetical), hypothetical conjecture. Thus it is not “proof” to me. I have not seen a Bible or SOP statement that says that. On the other hand the SOP consistently applies a symbolic understanding to Gen 3:15. I have yet to see “proof” that ‘Satan physically injected something evil in man through the banned fruit.’ Just mere uncertain, speculative hypothesis. My argument based upon the Biblical evidence is that this physical corruption self-occurred in may when the fruit of life was removed from its system. If it was providing a supernatural element then is corresponds that its removal would result in “supernatural” damage, i.e., Man’s genetic information misfiring. As an illustration, a car that runs out of oil will result in the engine self-destroying without any external element being injected into the system.



1 SM 254-256 is the same text as your quote. So as those passages fully say, thus self-explaining themselves:



As I read/understand this in its context it, the “seed of th woman” was pointedly Christ here, and that enmity was the supernatural inclusion of a divine nature in the incarnate Christ. No mention that ‘the seed of the serpent was supernatural” or even the “enmity in man is “supernatural”. Only in Christ was this supernatural and thus perfect. Fallen man has had to naturally cultivate this enmity.



I understood “hardware adjustment” from the precisions in your statement:



For God to adjust this so-called ‘biochemical “hardware”’ so that we would hate sin is to, as any biochemical affection in the body, make us chemically dependent and “addicted” to good. That, like any “addicted” person, would take away our free will. Again it was only in Christ that this enmity was supernatural. In fallen man, it was developed naturally, and only gradually, as man would allow the nature of God to grow in them.



To me the “working of the arts” merely involve sensorily influential things and not any direct physical interference or injection. In other words Satan various places before us his ways and man, by choosing to follow them, allows them to affect him. In regards to nature, it came to be affected because of Man’s fall which cause the agent that preserved its perfection to be removed, thus allowing it to become self-corrupted.