What is the source of human conscience?

[Saint Steven]

So, free-will came before the Fall. Our human conscience (the knowledge of good and evil) came with the Fall. Yet God's law of human conscience is what is written on our heart. Like I said, something good came with something bad. Additionally, the tempter was given access to our mind at the Fall. It came with the knowledge of good and evil. (our human conscience)

After that we have the Flood. But the humankind that survived still had a conscience. Then the Israelites were led out of Egypt and God established a covenant law (the TCs) with the Israelites. That carried us until the time of Christ. Then the old covenant law was abolished and we are left with our human conscience (God's law) written on our hearts and Christ's law for those who follow him. But God's law (our human conscience) appears to be the same law as in the beginning after the Fall. What became the faith of Abraham.

There must be a better way to look at this. Not sure.

 

[GTW27]

There is a lot debate about the tree of good and evil and the other tree, the tree of life. So I think what it is coming down to is that God had a plan from the foundation of earth before He created mankind and it had to do with the fall of Satan (which was before the creation of man). God is Omnipotent and therefore knows the beginning and the end of all things. When He created mankind in His image He gave them a conscious and free will and the tree was the test. So after eating they became aware of their nakedness (not physical but spiritual) and became as god.
21The LORD God made garments of skin and clothed Adam and his wife. 22Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil. And now, lest he reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever...” 23Therefore the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.…
Without the knowledge of good and evil their existence was based on the commandments God gave Adam and nothing else. I don't think Eve understood the power of that knowledge and the consequences of her actions until that moment. That is when her conscious became fully opened to know she sinned against God.

Blessings in Christ Jesus! Many people think that The Adversary has been around a very long time, even way before man. I believe this is giving him way to much credit. Gen 2 verse 1. "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them". Appears to me, he did not waste any time doing what he does, for he was a lier from the beginning.

 

[Saint Steven]

Blessings in Christ Jesus! Many people think that The Adversary has been around a very long time, even way before man. I believe this is giving him way to much credit. Gen 2 verse 1. "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them". Appears to me, he did not waste any time doing what he does, for he was a lier from the beginning.

As I understand it, he was one of the angels. How long have they been around?

 

[DamianWarS]

...until is was planted by the serpent

the fruit or the idea?

 

[Heart2Soul]

the fruit or the idea?

the idea to eat the fruit

 

[GTW27]

As I understand it, he was one of the angels. How long have they been around?

The verse tells us since the creation.

 

[Heart2Soul]

Blessings in Christ Jesus! Many people think that The Adversary has been around a very long time, even way before man. I believe this is giving him way to much credit. Gen 2 verse 1. "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them". Appears to me, he did not waste any time doing what he does, for he was a lier from the beginning.

If you don't mind, I would like to expand on that statement about the adversary...…
Even in Revelation in refers to Satan as "the serpent of old"...

So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. (Revelation 12:9)

He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. (Revelation 20:2)

And in Genesis it did say that God created the serpent...so just how long has the adversary been around.

 

[Heart2Soul]

So, free-will came before the Fall. Our human conscience (the knowledge of good and evil) came with the Fall. Yet God's law of human conscience is what is written on our heart. Like I said, something good came with something bad. Additionally, the tempter was given access to our mind at the Fall. It came with the knowledge of good and evil. (our human conscience)

After that we have the Flood. But the humankind that survived still had a conscience. Then the Israelites were led out of Egypt and God established a covenant law (the TCs) with the Israelites. That carried us until the time of Christ. Then the old covenant law was abolished and we are left with our human conscience (God's law) written on our hearts and Christ's law for those who follow him. But God's law (our human conscience) appears to be the same law as in the beginning after the Fall. What became the faith of Abraham.

There must be a better way to look at this. Not sure.

Well we are told not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the "renewing of our mind" or "our human conscience".....I guess we have just come around full circle to the beginning!

 

[GTW27]

In the beginning The Lord created the heavens and the earth. One day while reading Genesis The Lord pointed out Gen 2 v1. The important part is underlined above. " And the host of them" Who are the host of heaven that The Lord finished creating? Angels? We both know that satan was cast down to the earth but we do not know when except it be after the creation. Jesus also stated when He was here, that He saw him cast down(fall) which is in line with Revelation. Hope this helps.

 

[DamianWarS]

Did something good come from something bad?

Fundamental to the Gospel message is something good that comes from something bad. The fall of man if nothing else has created a desire in us all to be gods ourselves with ambitions to create towers to reach God yet fail. However in his grace God sends his son to die on the cross so we don't need a tower to reach him but now have direct access.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

Did something good come from something bad?

It seems that the source of human conscience, our innate ability to know right from wrong, came from the Fall of humanity in Genesis chapter three.

Was the result of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, our human conscience, that gives us the ability to know right from wrong?

Is our ability to know right from wrong the result of sinful disobedience to God?

I've been puzzling about this. Any ideas?

--- EDIT ---

Here's the scripture that makes me puzzle about this.

Romans 2:14-15
(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)

Eating the fruit did give them what the fruit's purpose was. But they ate it wrongfully. IF they had asked God to give them that knowledge, instead of taking it, they also would have learned the same but more clearly. They simply took what they ought to have asked to have. ("You have not because you ask not.") Doing wrong does teach one the impact of doing wrong, but doing right teaches it more clearly.

 

[Saint Steven]

Well we are told not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the "renewing of our mind" or "our human conscience".....I guess we have just come around full circle to the beginning!

Yes. That's where I was headed. Thanks.
Only then will we be able to discern God's will.

Romans 12:2
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

 

[Saint Steven]

The verse tells us since the creation.

I think the word "hosts" is in reference to the physical cosmos.

 

[Saint Steven]

Eating the fruit did give them what the fruit's purpose was. But they ate it wrongfully. IF they had asked God to give them that knowledge, instead of taking it, they also would have learned the same but more clearly. They simply took what they ought to have asked to have. ("You have not because you ask not.") Doing wrong does teach one the impact of doing wrong, but doing right teaches it more clearly.

That's an interesting take on this. You are thinking it through. This raises several questions.

Adam was in the perfect position to ask God about these things.
- Why is the forbidden tree in the center of the garden?
- What is its purpose if we are only allowed to care for it but not partake?
- Why isn't the tree of life in the center of the garden?

 

[fhansen]

Did something good come from something bad?

It seems that the source of human conscience, our innate ability to know right from wrong, came from the Fall of humanity in Genesis chapter three.

Was the result of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, our human conscience, that gives us the ability to know right from wrong?

Is our ability to know right from wrong the result of sinful disobedience to God?

I've been puzzling about this. Any ideas?

--- EDIT ---

Here's the scripture that makes me puzzle about this.

Romans 2:14-15
(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)

The conscience was already in place, as part of man's created nature. The Fall, the first sin, was actually the first instance of denying and overriding the conscience.

The knowledge gained by eating of the fruit was not the ability to discern right from wrong, good from evil, but rather was the direct experience of evil. In fact, the Hebrew word used for "knowledge" here is most often used to convey knowledge gained by experience, as to know something directly. The bible uses it for carnal knowledge for example, for spouses to know each other intimately IOW. From then on they, and their descendants, would know, by experience, evil, and by contrast, good, which had previously been unidentifiable as a separate reality since everything in their experience had been good.

Their first experience of evil was their very own sin; all evil is essentially opposition to the will of God. This act, itself, placed them into a "brave new world", apart and autonomous from God's godly authority, outside of His providential love and grace, as they preferred apparently, and as we may all continue to prefer in our own lives. All subsequent sin followed from that first breach with God, that first act against their own consciences. And the shame and guilt that they immediately experienced proved that they had just compromised and violated those consciences.

 

[Saint Steven]

The conscience was already in place, as part of man's created nature. The Fall, the first sin, was actually the first instance of denying and overriding the conscience.

Thanks.
Consider what is said in Genesis chapter three verse 22. It says to me that they didn't know good and evil (have a conscience) prior to eating the forbidden fruit.

Genesis 3:22
Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil. …

 

[fhansen]

Thanks.
Consider what is said in Genesis chapter three verse 22. It says to me that they didn't know good and evil (have a conscience) prior to eating the forbidden fruit.

Genesis 3:22
Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil. …

Sorry, I had anticipated your thought here and edited my post to address it before I saw this response. So please take a look at post #36 again.

 

[Saint Steven]

Sorry, I had anticipated your thought here and edited my post to address it before I saw this response. So please take a look at post #36 again.

Thanks.
Also bear in mind that the first temptation came from an outside source. The serpent was the tempter. Adam and Eve had no prior experience with, or knowledge of evil. Which is basically what you were saying.

My point, or question, is that the human conscience came to us as a result of the Fall. We in essence "lost our mind" in that moment. And have been inflicted and conflicted ever since.

See earlier posts where I work some of this out in detail. Any additional comments are welcome as we try to work this out further.

 

[fhansen]

Thanks.
Also bear in mind that the first temptation came from an outside source. The serpent was the tempter. Adam and Eve had no prior experience with, or knowledge of evil. Which is basically what you were saying.

My point, or question, is that the human conscience came to us as a result of the Fall. We in essence "lost our mind" in that moment. And have been inflicted and conflicted ever since.

See earlier posts where I work some of this out in detail. Any additional comments are welcome as we try to work this out further.

Here's another thought. In my first post I submitted that the "knowledge of good and evil" was just that, the literal knowledge or experience of good and evil that was unnecessary and nonexistent in their original state of innocence in Eden.

An alternative, and not contradictory, approach would be to understand that knowledge and the act of obtaining it to be man's desire to create and control his own conscience, to ignore his internal God-given constraints and laws, to play God himself IOW. Either way man begins with a conscience already in place but fails to heed it. This is where his guilt and culpability come from.

This act, this sin, was really to deny God, as God. Their job afterwards, and our job, is to find out, with His help, that God really does exist (to regain the "knowledge of God") and come to realize that He and the consciences He gave us were right all along. A teaching I'm familiar with says that, with the original sin, man divorced himself in some manner from God, from himself, from his fellow man, and from the creation around him; the original harmony was lost.

 

[AlexDTX]

Did something good come from something bad?

It seems that the source of human conscience, our innate ability to know right from wrong, came from the Fall of humanity in Genesis chapter three.

Was the result of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, our human conscience, that gives us the ability to know right from wrong?

Is our ability to know right from wrong the result of sinful disobedience to God?

I've been puzzling about this. Any ideas?

--- EDIT ---

Here's the scripture that makes me puzzle about this.

Romans 2:14-15
(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)

The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" is not the same as the "tree of the knowledge of right and wrong". Our conscience is part of the original creation of Adam. Eating the forbidden fruit gave them experience of evil when their nature changed from spiritual to carnal.

It is my belief that God intended to let them eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil after they ate from the tree of life. There was no restriction on the tree of life. They could have eaten from that tree at any time. If they had eaten that first they would have been sealed in perfect goodness. Then, when the Lord gave permission, the tree of knowledge of good and evil would have given them the depth of understanding that God already has without changing their nature. But, this is only my opinion. Only God knows for sure.