The Knowledge of Good and Evil

So somehow this weekend I started thinking about Genesis 3 and the fall. Adam and Eve brought devastating consequences to this planet by their act of disobedience in Eden, which is clear. But what really happened in those moments when our first parents unwittingly plotted the course of the history of this world?

First we have to understand something about what life was like in Eden prior to the fall. Genesis 2:25 says, “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” It is important to understand the depth that these words convey. There was no shame in the Garden of Eden. They were unashamed before one another, but more importantly, they were unashamed before their God. Keep in mind that they walked in the garden in the cool of the day with God completely naked, and felt no shame at all. And I don’t think that this lack of shame was limited to physical nakedness, but extended to emotional and spiritual nakedness as well. We have here the picture of innocence as with children who know no shame until they are taught it. The walked in the light as God is in the light; free creatures in a world free of guilt and free of shame.

Part of this picture can be drawn from the conversation between Eve and the serpent in Genesis 3. “… God knows that when you eat of [the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The innocence of Eden was possible because there was no knowledge of good and evil. Did ‘evil’ then exist within Eden? The Bible does not say so, but even if it did it was not recognized as such. In the same way ‘good’ was not recognized either. Without a reference as to what is good and what is evil all that happens merely happens and is not valued as either. This is very definition of innocence – we might think of innocence as being goodness, but innocence is in essence neutrality. Like children, Adam and Eve had no capacity to know that which is good from that which is evil, so they looked to God in the role of a parent who taught them, guided them and directed them. They were completely reliant upon God. Unfortunately, this also made them vulnerable to the serpent’s deception.

While we often think about the fall as being the introduction of sin and death into the world, we forget the other thing that was introduced – the knowledge of good and evil. Up to this point, our first parents had no need of such knowledge because they trusted in God to lead them day by day. Original sin is just this; the knowledge of good and evil (being ‘like’ God) that pits us against God’s leading. It had drastic consequences. Where Adam and Eve had always before been fed and sheltered by the abundance that God provided, now they would have to gain their living by toil and anguish. Now life was no longer a simple day to day process, but they had to begin projecting the future so that they could plan and manipulate circumstances to try and produce a ‘good’ outcome, where before no outcome was valued as ‘good’. Now they had to fight ‘evil’ impulses constantly, where before no impulse was valued as ‘evil’. By their act of rebellion, having been deceived by the serpent, they introduced into the world the horrible heavy burden of law – the knowledge of good and evil that supplanted the innocent trust of God.

The fact is that sin and death entered the world not coincident to but because of the entrance of the knowledge of good and evil. Mercifully, Adam could not be allowed to eat from the tree of life and live eternally in this new state. And under the law, even this law, sin flourishes. The thousand judgments of good and evil that we make day to day are an extension of our first parent’s sin. When we take offense at Jesus statements in Luke 1 (Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you) we are participating in the sin of Adam.

This is the lesson that I brought from this consideration of the event; that we cannot be led of God if we insist on holding onto the knowledge of good and evil. Christ fulfilled the law of Sinai on our behalf at Calvary, and when we realize that it is so freeing. But there is this deeper law – the knowledge of good and evil – that still haunts every of son of Adam and daughter of Eve. Until we can let go of that we cannot be led of God. We cannot live in the innocence that Christ spoke of and died to secure. That is the gospel truth.

God Bless