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The tree of the knowledge of good/evil is literal or there is no real reason for the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not symbolic - it was a literal event or the gospel is unnecessary.
The tree of the knowledge of good/evil is literal or there is no real reason for the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not symbolic - it was a literal event or the gospel is unnecessary.
Yes, an act of disobedience of God by the parents of all humans was a literal event. A consequence of this act was to know good and evil. Evil is anything outside the will of God. Their act, itself, placed them squarely in that very arena; they were now outside His will, determining right and wrong for themselves, according to their will. All humanity would be in this separated condition, out of communion with God. They would experience life in a world where the Master is effectively gone-His hand no longer controlling man's moral world, a life He allowed them to choose. We now experience-or know- good and evil everyday: the good inherent in all of God's creation along with the evil of sin and the corruption and death it ushered in. We're asked, by His revelation and grace, to make a choice between the two, to turn back to Him, the ultimate Good, reversing Adam's decision, so to speak, or to continue along with the family tradition of sin and separation from Him.The tree of the knowledge of good/evil is literal or there is no real reason for the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not symbolic - it was a literal event or the gospel is unnecessary.
I agree that the story of the fall contains important insights for us. And your mentioning of humans always thinking they're right is an important observation IMO. Humans have, I believe, an unreasonable preference to be right-we actually can prefer to be right, hate being wrong, even if truth is compromised or overridden in the process; being right even if it means forsaking the truth.So the tree contains something in it that will make Adam/Eve "like God" and also "knowing good/evil." I think that this is a reference to being able to decide between good/evil for yourself, under your own power. Perhaps this explains why human beings always think they're good and always think they're right - they are their own god.
Regardless, we really need to study this tree of the knowledge of good/evil b/c clearly it is the reason why things are the way they are today. So this tree must hold the reason for everything.
The tree of the knowledge of good/evil is literal or there is no real reason for the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not symbolic - it was a literal event or the gospel is unnecessary.
For you does everything have to be literal in order for there to be a reason for the Gospel?
I believe the fall happened. I don't believe a fruit caused it.
The trees are rightly regarded as sacramental in a sense, and definitely not literal.
Just ol' old Jack
I agree that the story of the fall contains important insights for us. And your mentioning of humans always thinking they're right is an important observation IMO. Humans have, I believe, an unreasonable preference to be right-we actually can prefer to be right, hate being wrong, even if truth is compromised or overridden in the process; being right even if it means forsaking the truth.
Adam's sin was to forsake God's righteousness for his own- to believe he knew better. And all evil -all wrong- is done in the name of right. Humans must justify their actions, even if only in the moment of committing the act, in order to be able to carry it out. So human self-righteousness is responsible for every sin, every moral evil, committed.
The possibility of evil-of anything outside God's will- comes from the gift of free will given to man and angels. Evil arises as the gift is abused, as God is disobeyed. It's to choose a lesser good over a greater one; evil has no existence on its own since God didn't created it-it's simply the negation or decreasing of some good-it's a reduction or diminishing of the perfection of God's creation in some manner-caused by our choice. IMO the reason the tree is so dangerous is because eating of it-disobedience-is the rejection of God's authority-and therefore the rejection of God as god for man. From then on man had no god for all practical purposes, even though we can't even exist without Him. Faith is so important because it's the restoration, from man's side, of relationship/communion with God, from Whom all life flows, apart from Whom we can do nothing, including control our desires which can cause great harm to ourselves and neighbor. So eating of the tree was a great injustice, a disorder in God's universe, that, itself, constituted the very separation from God that defines evil. Man is called to recognize God's superiority; he's obliged to consciously subjugate himself to it. We just need to learn why we should do so-something Adam apparently didn't yet know. As we come to know God we come to trust in and love Him. As we come to love Him we want to obey, willingly, having come to recognize His goodness and the perfection of His wisdom over that of ourselves. Our own wisdom comes in recognizing and acknowledging His.I agree with most of what you're saying here. But the question now is why the tree of the knowledge of good/evil was so dangerous for them. It obviously destroyed the cosmos, their bodies, their union with God, everything. Now the big question is why.
As far as why the tree of the knowledge of good/evil is placed in the garden, I think the answer is clear: God is required to present all truth to Adam/Eve. So the truth is that evil exists, even if it is outside of the nature of God. The tree of the knowledge of good/evil is that truth. So basically, God has to allow Adam/Eve the choice between serving him or not. The truth is, they can not serve him if they don't want to. They decide not to.
No, I don'tThen you deny what the Bible says.
Christ said only one sin will not be forgiven- blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Let's connect the dots. This sin must involve imagining and speaking evil of what is good and holy. You can't imagine evil of what is not without some false knowledge of evil, and also of good.Embedded in this fruit was the knowledge of good/evil - for some reason this knowledge was deadly to man and the cosmos - it is our job to figure out why. This tree, then, holds the key.
No, but there certainly had to be a literal fall or else there is no need for a gospel.
Then you deny what the Bible says. Embedded in this fruit was the knowledge of good/evil - for some reason this knowledge was deadly to man and the cosmos - it is our job to figure out why. This tree, then, holds the key.
Why so?
Well, it certainly means that disobedience of God is very, very dangerous-and foolish.After further reflection on the tree of the knowledge of good/evil, I am convinced that the only way that Biblical theology can possibly make sense is if the tree destroyed absolutely everything. In other words, the tree made Adam/Eve go from a state of absolute goodness to a state of absolute evil. Side effects, obviously, affected the entire universe itself.
I am convinced that far more went on at the tree of the knowledge of good/evil than what modern Christianity thinks. Modern Christianity believes that "sin entered into the world" or something like that, but I think that's a very diluted statement. There was something far, far more dangerous that happened here and I believe that that is shown in the rest of Scripture.
This tree, then, must hold the key to answering all of our questions.
God warned man not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good/evil or else he would surely die. As a matter of fact, from Eve's statement we know that God actually told man not to even touch the tree of the knowledge of good/evil.
The tree of the knowledge of good/evil is responsible for human death, suffering, the fact that everything runs down (2nd law of thermodynamics), the fact that our bodies age, and the fact that we are evidently born with Adam/Eve's post-fall nature.
That's one dangerous tree.
God warned man not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good/evil or else he would surely die. As a matter of fact, from Eve's statement we know that God actually told man not to even touch the tree of the knowledge of good/evil.
The tree of the knowledge of good/evil is responsible for human death, suffering, the fact that everything runs down (2nd law of thermodynamics), the fact that our bodies age, and the fact that we are evidently born with Adam/Eve's post-fall nature.
That's one dangerous tree.
I am convinced that far more went on at the tree of the knowledge of good/evil than what modern Christianity thinks. Modern Christianity believes that "sin entered into the world" or something like that, but I think that's a very diluted statement. There was something far, far more dangerous that happened here and I believe that that is shown in the rest of Scripture.
This tree, then, must hold the key to answering all of our questions.
I find it strange that one would think God to be a tree when he is the life, and this not bound by any image as to any one truth of him it reflects, and as something at the same time he is revealing to be us.
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