c.

God knew it would appear good to Eve’s eyes - that is why he prepared her with the command. Her choice was therefore not as abstract as it might at first seem, thinking about her as a blank slate. She decided to define good as what “looked right in her own eyes,” rather than believe God’s word to her.

I would argue that Adam and Eve were not in a unique position - they had the same opportunity we have. They did “know” (though they had not yet experienced) good from evil. Another way to label those concepts is life and death. God told them that eating from just that one tree would lead to their death. Thus, he set up the easiest to understand world with true choice imaginable, giving them his Word that (A) was good (From any tree of the garden you may eat freely) and (B) was evil (from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die).

As you have so well pointed out, Adam and Eve did know the difference between good and evil–they had been forwarned. What they did not have was the experience–again, a point very well taken. You and Sarah need to put your heads together more often.

We can see then, that there was a total shift in the psyche of Adam and Eve: one that is hereditary. There was something within that was broken and fragmented. While reading Milton, questions arose in Dr. Smith’s class about what this might mean. Remember that we are talking about a secular state university (though admittedly one in the middle of the so-called Bible Belt), so Milton’s words were treated on their own merit and not necessarily as historical truth. Undoubtedly there were those in the class who saw his poem and its corresponding Biblical account as mythical truth that nonetheless provided insight into human nature. So then, if Adam and Eve were truly innocent before they sinned, not knowing good from evil, how did they know that they would be doing wrong? If no evil had entered their hearts—no perversion of the good—how then can they be blamed for their choice? There is, of course, no easy answer to be given to such questions, but it seems to me that their breach was one of trust. Very often we do not know how a situation will turn out whether we be innocent or not. Yet we too are presented with a choice: will we trust God who sees all outcomes or will we instead rely solely on ourselves who see in a glass but darkly? God had clearly told them that if they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that they would die. Did they know what death was? How could they? But they did know the goodness of God and their disobedience was a breach of this trust: it is on that merit alone that they were judged.

Considering that we often learn best by contrasts—like our earlier example of the wicked man ashamed to look in the face of an innocent child, for the child contrasts so vividly with his usual conniving ways—another question presented in class was whether it was even possible to have good without evil, love without hate, and so forth. The inescapable conclusion was that it is indeed possible to have good without evil, love without hate, and so forth. However, the question then becomes: is it possible to truly have knowledge of the nature of good without evil, to truly know and understand the nature of love without hate? If we often learn best by the interplay of polar opposites—or more precisely virtues and their negations—then it would seem that the naming of the tree in the center of the garden is not without merit. Do you notice that it is not “the tree of the fruit of good and evil,” but rather “the tree of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil”? Evil (the negation of goodness) was already in the world in the form of the serpent, though Adam and Eve were not aware of such matters. Goodness was also obviously present, for not only is evil wholly dependent on goodness, Adam and Eve walked and talked with God Himself, the epitome of goodness. Yet the knowledge of the two—goodness and its negation—was brought about by a loss of innocence. Is knowledge possible any other way? I would like to believe that in God’s infinite wisdom and goodness there could have been an ever more superior way to learn without all the pain and fragmentation caused by disobedience. Such things are only speculations, however: we are where we are and there is no going back—the only true direction in life is forward: the alternative is stagnation and death.

Check out Eric’s site: Mr. Renaissance … it’s FULL of good writing. I’m bookmarking it

Just thought I’d drop by and let you know.

God bless,
Eric