Even though the discussion has moved past this post, I wanted to go back and respond to it.
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that Adam and Eve understood right and wrong, but not good and evil. What do you see as the difference between the two?
One could argue that there is no difference, although everything I understand about the concepts tells me that there are important differences. Granted, no matter how subtle those differences may or may not be, I agree that the terms are often interchangeable.
But if you recall the experience with my son that I shared (the one about the chocolates)... it was commented after I shared it the second time that the context of this current sub-discussion was not the same context in which it was first shared. That is true, but all these principles are interconnected and overlap with one another. The reason I shared it again is precisely because I believe it shows that a little child can both understand and discern right and wrong
without knowing good and evil, and that the light of Christ (as conscience) is active on his behalf without and prior to his comprehending good and evil.
In the story, when my son first ate the chocolate he neither had knowledge that his actions were right or wrong, or what good or evil were. He was simply taking something that he wanted. But once I had taught him... once I had given him a commandment concerning the chocolates... once I had drawn clear boundaries in relation to them... his behavior after that clearly showed that he understood that his choosing to get into the chocolates without asking was wrong—that it was contrary to what I had commanded. His understanding of right and wrong had been enlarged by
instruction, and his conscience was already active when he
contemplated taking the chocolates without asking (as indicated by his closing the door each time, so that I could not see what he was doing). But did this understanding of right and wrong (a specific, situational comprehension) also indicate that his comprehension of
good and evil had been enlarged? I wouldn't say so at all. If I had asked him if it was
wrong to have taken the chocolates without asking, there is a good chance he'd have answered in the affirmative—for he clearly understood the bounds. If I'd have asked him if it was
evil for him to have taken the chocolates, I'm pretty certain he'd have had no idea what I was talking about.
So how does this relate to Adam and Eve? I think they were in a similar situation in some respects, and a different one in others. Similar elements were that they were innocent like my son—they had no comprehension of good and evil. But, like my son, they were also instructed... commanded... given bounds and consequences, which bounds they clearly understood. (Moses 4:8-9)
They were different in that, while innocent like children, they had greater capacity to reason and understand than does a small child like my son. When Eve was tempted, she understood what Satan suggested, and she desired the result he promised. (Moses 4:12)
So when Eve ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, it was not like my son taking the chocolates for the first time (prior to gaining a situational comprehension of right and wrong), for she had already been given bounds, and she understood them. In that situation, she did know that she should not have eaten the fruit—she knew that to do so was to act against what God had commanded. But like my son, did she have any idea at that point what good and evil were? I wouldn't say so at all.
Does that clarify why I say that there is a difference between the two?
Elsewhere you had previously posted the following quote by Charles W. Penrose:
For man in spirit form, in his spirit nature, is an independent entity. It is an organized being a son of God or a daughter of God, as the case may be, and
in the spirit birth he obtained not only an eternal organization, but power and intelligence by which he can determine and understand light from darkness, truth from error, and choose between that which is right and that which is wrong. In the Pearl of Great Price we read that God gave him that power. The Lord revealed to Moses in the beginning, when He made manifest to him how this earth came into being and how the various orders of earthly creations were formed in their time and season, each of the animal creation and of the vegetable, bearing seed within themselves to he reproduced of the same kind always, that before this took place there was a council in the heavens and the Lord says that He gave to His only begotten Son the right to come here and perform the work of redemption, a power that was coveted by the Evil One:
But, behold, My Beloved Son, which was My beloved and chosen from the beginning, said unto Me—Father, Thy will be done, and the glory be Thine forever. Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against Me and sought to destroy the agency of man which I, the Lord God had given him, and also, that I should give unto him Mine own power; by the power of Mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down. (Book of Moses, Chap. 4.)
Here we read that that power of choice, the gift,
the ability to understand right from wrong, to understand light from darkness, was given to the spirit of man by, the Lord and He gave to him that agency, power in himself to choose the good and refuse the evil, to choose the light or the darkness as he willed. So because of that, man can be brought to judgment for the deeds that he performs, for he is not forced to do evil, neither is he forced to do right. The power of volition is in the spirit man and he brings it with him when he is born into the earthly sphere, and so we can do good or do evil as we elect, and therefore we will be brought to judgment and every man will be judged according to the deeds done while in the body: according to his works, so will his future be determined. (Conference Report, Oct. 1914, p. 40)
http://www.christianforums.com/t7532128-2/#post56699587
Here, Charles Penrose wrote that in the spirit birth man was given power and intelligence by which he could determine and understand light from darkness, and truth from error, and right from wrong. I don't see that he thought that in the spirit birth men were capable of knowing right from wrong, but not of understanding good from evil. I think that to say one can understand light from darkness is another way of saying that one can understand good and evil.
I think I'll wait to respond to this until you've had a chance to read my first comments. If we are unable to agree that there is a pertinent distinction between the two, no matter how small, and that this distinction bears on the situation of Adam and Eve—if we can't get there, then I believe it will be impossible to continue discussing whether or not the light of Christ was operating with Adam and Eve prior to the fall. For man's agency is inextricably tied to the operation of the light of Christ (God the Father's sustaining and life-giving power), as agency is itself an eternal expression and extension of it. That was the entire point of this post:
http://www.christianforums.com/t7525884-27/#post57647357
And from that post:
These Nephites and Jaredites could not choose God once they had arrived at the dire point of Christ's spirit (the light of Christ) ceasing to strive with them. They were "without Christ and God in the world." Depraved. They had lost the ability to choose good. They were at that point what all men would be like without the light of Christ—wholly under the influence and power of Satan. Their agency in relation to spiritual things was worthless. And that is because agency istelf is an extension of God's grace, and it has been so from our spirit birth, and it always will be so.
It has been my point here for a long time now that in LDS teachings we are all under grace at all times. Our agency only works in our favor because of Christ's grace. Remove it, and our agency is not sufficient to choose good. And that is exactly what we see with these Nephites and Jaredites.
It is erroenous to believe that (in LDS theology) man's bestowal of agency by God was a one-time event, and that man now uses his agency
independent from God unless he chooses God. Man's agency is his own because God continually allows him to exercise it. That is what King Benjamin was teaching here:
I say unto you that if ye should aserve him who has created you from the beginning, and is bpreserving [(a continual process)] you from day to day, by lending [(a continual process)] you cbreath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will [(a continual gifting of agency)], and even supporting [(a continual process)] you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your ewhole souls yet ye would be funprofitable servants. (Mosiah 2:21)
This being the case, by what mechanism does God continually allow man to exercise his agency? God does so by an act of His
own will and power—by His grace—through the light of Christ. They are one and the same.
http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?v...ceId=46519daac5d98010VgnVCM1000004d82620a________ Our agency is not a merited reward. It is a continual expression of God's grace toward man.
I'm interested in your thoughts of how this ties in with what you wrote earlier.
Hopefully that clarifies my thoughts some.
