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Jeffrywith1e
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 34
| Posted 6/17/2002 1:28 PM (GMT -6) |   | question about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil:
when man and woman were created, they didn't have that knowledge. They were told not to mess with it. But yadda yadda yadda, and here we are today. My question is- Do angels possess the knowledge? Where they created with that knowledge?
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Edited by - Jeffrywith1e on 06/17/2002 6:30:56 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 6/19/2002 2:39 PM (GMT -6) | | Hi Jeffry,
Just a thought, but it seems to me that the presence of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden doesn't imply that Adam and Eve did not that knowledge. I think God put the Tree in the Garden along with the prohibition not to eat it precisely to give them that knowledge. The command "Thou shalt not eat of it" communicated to Adam and Eve a clear distinction between what God has permitted (Good) and what God has not permitted (Evil). The Tree was just a visible reminder of that distinction. So I don't think that eating the fruit in itself imparted any theoretical understanding to Adam and Eve that they didn't already have. Their disobedience to God's command (not the eating in itself) gave them an experiential understanding of evil, a sense of shame and guilt before a righteous God, but they didn't need to eat it to have a theoretical understanding of good an evil.
As to your question about angels. While I cannot prove it from Scripture, I think much the same was true for them. It seems that there was a probationary period during which the angels were tested. Some passed the test and choose to obey God. Others (the demons) failed the test. God may have presented them with a situation analogous to that presented to Adam and Eve with the Tree, i.e., he gave them a clear prohibition concerning something sufficiently tempting to force the angels to make a conscious choice whether or not to serve God.
I think Greg has some reflections along these lines in Satan and the Problem of Evil. Will have to check my copy when I get home.
God Bless,
Alan
Lege, lege, lege, ora, labora, et relege. | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 6/20/2002 5:00 AM (GMT -6) | | I have no idea how sin works with angels, though I suspect it functions like it does among humans at least in the sense that it involves making ourselves a center in competition with God (pride, hubris).
As to Alan's suggestion that the tree did not impart the knowledge of good and evil, I'd like to comment along two lines.
First, the narriative itself seems to clearly suggest that the tree DID impart knowledge. Their eyes WERE opened. They SAW they were naked. And they USED their newly acquired knowledge of good and evil in defending themselves and blaming others when confronted by God. I thus see no basis for thinking they had this knowledge before their rebellion, at least in terms of this narrative.
Second, I don't see why Adam and Eve would have had this knowledge if they had remained in union with God. If they were walking in perfect obedience to God and remaining in perfect love with God, all of their decisions would have simply have been a matter of discerning what God wills and what God does not will. This would have been synonomous with discerning what loves requires and what love prohibits. The very attempt to answer questons of behavior on the basis of what is ethically right and wrong is already evidence that we are separated from God. If we were in perfect union with God, we'd only know what God wills, not what ethical principles stipulate.
Third, I'm inclined to agree that the tree is figurative. Indeed, I'm not sure how literal the story was meant to be taken. One piece of evidence of this is that a close reading of the story reveals that Adam and Eve were participating in eating from the tree before they ever actually ate of the tree. The serprent was getting them to judge God as untrustworthy, judge themselves as deficient, and judge the tree as "good," even before they ate of the tree. Its like they have to eat of the tree in order to eat of the tree.
So, I'm inclined to think that the story of the almost "magical" fruit is meant to illustrate very succinctly and poignantly the nature of human sin. We separate ourselves from God and become judges, and our judging IS our separation.
Good question Jeffrywith1e.
Doc
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