Poll Results and Analysis: What Caused Eve to Transgress Against God?

Like = wrong heart

Sad face = wrong knowledge

Angry face = both

Poll Results

Eighteen friends participated in the poll. I am surprised by the results:

Wrong heart – 10

Wrong knowledge – 4

Both a wrong heart and wrong knowledge – 4

Analysis

Given the choices in this poll, it is noteworthy that 10 out of 18 respondents chose a wrong heart over the two other choices, which addressed wrong knowledge as the cause or a contributing cause for Eve’s transgression.

The NT authoritatively interprets the OT account of Eve’s transgression in two passages:

2 Corinthians 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

1 Timothy 2:14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

Both passages explicitly speak of Eve’s being deceived, which highlights that she was presented with false information from an external source. Additionally, in the first passage, by how Paul applies to believers what happened to Eve, we learn that he stresses that her mind was corrupted.

I believe, therefore, that it is untenable to say that Eve transgressed because of a wrong heart in distinction from saying that she transgressed because of wrong knowledge.

Conclusion

Given the choices that were in this poll, the right choice for explaining her transgression was that both a wrong heart and wrong knowledge caused her to transgress against God.