That’s an interesting perspective. The difference between head knowledge and experiential knowledge?
But here’s a challenge…God says, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:22. Your interpretation would strongly imply that God has experiential knowledge of evil, which opens up a huge can of worms…
God certainly knew the consequences of sin, because that is why God told them not to eat of the fruit. In a sense this was a test for them that they failed. God might have given them no directive so they could not reject God’s way, just as animals have no rules to obey, but God did not. God gave us the choice to follow God’s way or to go our own way and we chose the latter.
This passage about the Tree of Life is that it seems that God was concerned that humans would receive Eternal Life without deserving Eternal Life, since they were sinful. Eternal Life is result of living in covenantal harmony with God. The Cross is the Tree of Life (as well as the Tree of death) because the Cross is the Way to Eternal Life through faith in Jesus Christ and loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and others as God has loved us.
The way to salvation is not easy. The way to sin is very easy.
I agree with all of that. But you haven’t addressed that if the “knowledge of good and evil” connotes experiential knowledge, then you’re stuck with that being the distinction between God and “pre-sin Adam”; it would mean that God has experiential knowledge of evil.
There is no distinction between head knowledge and existential knowledge with God.
God understands the full consequences of sin without ever sinning. Humans do not. Humans generally learn from experience, which is why science is so important. God created the universe and science so God knows in a different way from humans.
That is why we need to depend upon God for our knowledge about what is right and wrong, although we can learn from our experiences and the experiences of others, like Adam and Eve.
You need to look at the motive for eating the fruit also. The serpent denied God’s word that they would die, telling them that God was lying. It also said that God was lying to them so they would not become equal to God, thus denying God’s goodness and integrity.
God had done everything for Adam and Eve while the serpent had done nothing, yet they believed the half truth lies of the serpent, and not the truth of YHWH.
Yeah, I agree with all that stuff; it’s only the distinction that Adam and Eve were disobedient because the Knowledge of Good and Evil connotes “experiential knowledge.”
Roger, I really don’t understand your fixation. While I can understand your reservations about using the phrase “Survival of the Fittest” . . . you seem just as eager to EXCLUDE elements from the definition for Natural Selection.
Natural Selection includes EVERYTHING in the Environment … from self-LESSNESS to sel-FISHNESS … from aggression to generosity… from survival of the current generation … to increased fertility in FUTURE generations…
Anything that touches fertility rates is relevant. It would be lovely if you spent less time flagging items that you think should never be mentioned again.
As for your sentence “Sin and death are two very different things…” <<< I couldn’t agree more !!!
Then what was to be gained from partaking in the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?
If they knew what was wrong … the primordial couple didn’t NEED the tree …
Agreed. Further, to “gain the experiential knowledge of evil” makes wonder why that Tree existed there to begin with. Any decision (no matter how arbitrary) that was in defiance of God’s command (“don’t kick the purple toads”) would have sufficed.
Then what was to be gained from partaking in the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?
If they knew what was wrong … the primordial couple didn’t NEED the tree …
The serpent told them that if they ate of the Tree they would be like God, that is they would be equal to God, which is the goal of pagan religions like Scientism.
Natural Selection includes EVERYTHING in the Environment
@gbrooks9, when you need to make a citation you do not, and when you don’t need to quote others you do. Here you make a blanket statement, which is totally unsubstantiated. Please give me at least one source, so we can discuss it.
Natural selection is based on symbiosis, which is living together, not competing for resources. E. O. Wilson disagrees with Dawkins and so do I. If you and Bethany want to go with Dawkins’ wrongheaded views, you are free to do so, but please give me some evidence.
So…they needed the Tree to know what was wrong?
No, they did not need the tree.
God wouldn’t tell them not to eat from the Tree, if they needed it. There are many things in life that we do not need. Some things are bad for us like tobacco. Many are neutral. Most can be good or bad depending how we use them.
God gave them the ability to choose, the freedom to say Yes or No to God’s way, and they used it to say No, even though they knew it was wrong. That is the message of the story.
So why was the tree…the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”? Is that just a coincidence? A quirk of the story?
4 posts were merged into an existing topic: Invasive species and survival of the fittest spin-off
3 posts were split to a new topic: Invasive species and survival of the fittest spin-off
I am sure this is not a coincidence or quick of the story. We moderns sometimes think that the Bible is written especially for us, when it was not. The writer, whether human or divine, wrote for the people living at the time the writer was writing. They I am sure would know why the Tree of Knowledge was used in the story.
My view is that many people see religion as magic. They eat the fruit, they say a prayer, they believe a confession of faith, and they are approved by God. That is what Adam and Eve seemed to think that is what they had to do, eat of the fruit and be like God. This probably had something to do with the pagan faiths of other peoples, who believed that they received special knowledge that made them like God when they took part in a particular ritual.
It seems clear that it is not coincidence; thus, it would be premature to suppose that any arbitrary prohibition would suffice.
@Bethany.Sollereder wrote:
> Sin did not enter the world because a great capacity for moral perfection was lost, but because the possibility of moral perfection was finally offered in the divine invitation to love.
I would agree with the first part of your statement. Gen 3 is not about the loss of moral perfection. Moral perfection is not the goal of the Bible. Harmony with God is.
Gen 3 is about alienation or separation from God and others, the turning self-ward of humans away from YHWH and others. Love comes later as the way to overcome selfishness and to find harmony with God and others.
Perhaps it is easier to see the PRIMORDIAL difference between God and Adam when you reflect on Abraham’s words:
To acknowledge the vast difference between humans and the divine, Abraham used these words:
"Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord,” he said, “I who am but dust and ashes”
(Genesis 18:27).
These compositional materials did not suddenly manifest at the transgression. Adam was made of dust/ashes from the very beginning. Presumably this is why God had the Tree of Life in Eden - - to keep the flimsy fabric of human flesh alive for all time.
The transgression compelled to God to evict Adam and Eve … if for only one reason: to keep the humans from
eating from the Tree of Life and becoming as gods !
Thank would be only if Life meant only survival.
Roger… your comment seems to be irrelevant to the point of my discussion. Certainly your life is over the moment you fail to survive.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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