Christianity and other forms of theism are full of oddities. This is the first of a series of posts pointing out the oddities and asking theists to explain how they understand, deal with, or rationalize these oddities.
Today’s question:
Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden for eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If they didn’t know good from evil until after eating the fruit, then they were punished for doing something they didn’t know was evil.
Does this make sense to you? If so, why?
William J Murray to KeithS
“Oh, and what or who is your “grounding for moral and ethical behavior”?”
I would also be interested in your answer to this question.
StephenB,
Welcome to TSZ! If I’m not mistaken, this is your first comment here.
Regarding your comment, where in the Genesis story does it say that Adam and Eve knew right from wrong, but not good from evil?
Keith
According to the relevant passages, they knew the moral law (what is right) and they knew what was prohibited (what is wrong). Accordingly, they knew what they should and should not do; they understood the moral distinctions. On the other hand, they had not yet experienced evil.
Where in Genesis does it say that they did not know right from wrong?
Keith
Thank you for the cordial greeting. Yes, this is my first time.
Welcome StephenB!
StephenB,
No, the Genesis account merely says this:
It doesn’t say that they knew “the moral law (what is right)”. They knew that God commanded them not to eat of the tree, but it does not say that they knew that disobeying God was wrong.
By the way, God’s warning was false. Adam and Eve did not die when they ate from the tree.
The King James Version makes this especially clear:
They did not die that day.
Thou shalt surely argle bargle.
Keith’s said:
Why not make the case that A & E had no way of knowing that the being ordering them around was, in fact, god? Why not make the case that A & E had no way to even conceptualize what being “god” entailed, even if that being’s claims were true? Having never seen or experienced death, how would A & E even know what god meant by the term “die”?
If one is going to assume for the premise of debating the story that God was in fact God, then one must assume that when God said something to Adam and Eve, they understood what god meant when he said it – otherwise, how nonsensical would it be for god to say something to A & E while knowing that they didn’t understand what he was saying? Why bother saying it at all?
Yet, keith would have us think that god is saying things to A & E that god knows they cannot understand, and expects them to behave in a way as if they understood him even though he must know – being god – that they did not.
Obviously, the minimum charitable interpretation (unless one is simply trying to stack the story with absurdities) is that god at the very least imparted enough understanding upon A & E so that they understood what god said to them. Otherwise, it’s a nonsensical reading of the story.
Creodont2 said:
That’s not necessarily true. Being forbidden to eat of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil doesn’t mean that one cannot have any knowledge of good and evil before they eat of the fruit. Where does the bible say that the only source of knowledge of good and evil is that fruit?
It may be that the fruit contains knowledge of good and evil that god knows would be harmful to A & E, which is why he didn’t want them to eat from it.
Ultimately, my grounding is the proposition that my conscience perceives, however fallibly, information from an objective moral landscape – similar to the proposition that my other senses perceive and interpret data from objectively existent phenomena.
Also, just to be clear, I don’t believe in the Bible.
KeithS
If they knew that they may not and should not eat of the tree, then they knew that it was wrong. The serpent could not have “tempted” them to do the wrong thing if they didn’t know it was wrong. That should be evident.
I have more than made my case to show that they knew right from wrong. What is your case for saying that they didn’t?
They died spiritually that same day. Their relationship with God was broken. Later they died a physical death. Spiritual death was the immediate cause; physical death was the ultimate effect.
William,
They knew he was their creator. Read Genesis 1-3. It only takes a few minutes.
What would be the point? They knew he was their creator. What more is needed to make the story work?
Who knows? The story doesn’t say. But the story doesn’t mention any confusion, nor does Adam ask God “What does ‘die’ mean?” And Eve repeats God’s warning to the serpent, which indicates that she understood it as well.
They did understand it. God commanded them not to eat the fruit, and they understood that he had commanded them not to eat the fruit. God (falsely) warned them that they would die on the day they ate the fruit, and they understood that he had warned them thus.
Where did you get that idea? The story makes it clear that they understood.
Here’s what I think you’re missing: They understood what God said, but God didn’t say that it was evil to doubt him, nor did he say that it was evil to disobey. This is all he told them:
Read that carefully, William. And as I said, it only takes a few minutes to read all three chapters.
If that’s the case, why create them in the first place knowing they *would* eat it?
This god of yours, schizophrenic right?
Also William you say:
It *may* be? Can you think of a way to determine that one way or the other?
No? What’s the point then? Just pure navel-gazing.
Keiths,
If you’re going to assume god is what god is claimed to be in the bible, then god cannot have lied to A & E because that god (as described) doesn’t lie. Therefore, to “die” must mean something other than what you are taking the term to mean. If you are going to accept the premise of the christian god of the bible arguendo, then everything must be interpreted according to that premise.
Also, as I have said, you have not made a case about A & E being ignorant of good and evil before eating the fruit of the tree; what does the phrase “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” mean? That no one can have any knowledge of good and evil before they eat from the tree? Or that one cannot have particular, forbidden knowledge of good and evil? You are just making assumptions about what A & E knew and didn’t know convenient to your argument.
Thus, they might indeed have known that it was evil to disobey god; they just didn’t have particular knowledge of good and evil that god wanted to keep from them.
However, taken literally, the story doesn’t make any sense because if god really wanted to keep that knowledge from them it wouldn’t have been accessible. So, to rationalize the story, god (not being stupid) must have made it available to them for some necessary reason. IOW, the ability to actually make choices that defied god was a necessary component of the existence of A & E.
Once again, I’m not making a case that the story is true, I’m participating in the discussion as keiths invited in the o.p. To make arguments about the story, one must give it a “best interpretation” and interpret it according to certain necessary, arguendo assumptions that are fundamental aspects of the bible such as the truthfulness and knowledge of god.
The real question would be: why would it be necessary for A & E to have the actual capacity to defy god or commit an evil act, whether they knew it was evil or not?
LOL at above ^ mental gymnastics. Or, the bible could be wrong rather than having to contort reality.
OMagain said:
I’m not the one that started the thread. I’m just participating in the “navel-gazing” thread keiths outlined with:
I agree that theism is chock full of what could reasonably be called “oddities” of belief; I actually enjoy sorting them out and examining them, attempting to rationalize them – not that I believe most of them, I just find them fascinating.
My wife and I have actually been discussing some such “oddities” lately – why, for the most part, departed souls don’t seem to often make much of an attempt to interact (at least not overtly) with loved ones still here, and why souls would continue to incarnate here if they had the option not to.
Looks like a job for non-materialist science! To the MindMobile!
Ah, so it is possible to prod you into responding. Odd how you never seem to respond to significant questions but trivia like this you jump all over.
I guess as you respond only when you can make me appear to be wrong about something all those times when you fail to respond I must be right!
Thanks for demonstrating that so clearly.
They are too busy trying to find that teapot and catch unicorns!
And that’s as legitimate and supported as anything else anyone has ever suggested with regard to that. *Nothing* you can say can dispute that.
I don’t often think about theology, but when I do, I tend to think of our reality as Version 1.0, with all that implies.
Consider this: once the almighty omniscience thinks a thought, it cannot be unthought. But there is always the hope of Thought 2.0, in which all the bugs are fixed.
ETA:
Or, to use Dembski’s construct, Word 2.0.
It might make sense of reality to think of it as having been subcontracted out to Microsoft.
I was hoping William might treat us to his thoughts on this: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=25956&cpage=5#comment-59673
Richard Hughes
Thank you, Richard, for the cordial greeting.
Of course, cup of tea? I hope some of the other threads catch your interest, an ID perspective / counterpoint is always welcome.
What the heck … I’ll briefly jump in here.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad was not magic. Nor was the Tree of Life. In the Genesis account, Adam and Eve did not fail to understand the difference between right and wrong, or what they should and shouldn’t do. Rather, when they chose to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad they acted in a way that said they knew what was good and bad for themselves, making a claim to a right of moral self-determination apart from the instruction of God, which had previously been the standard.
Their eating of the fruit did not bring about any magic changes. YEC’s typically believe that there was no animal death prior to ‘the fall’, but that is not actually a requirement of even a non-YEC literal reading of Genesis. There is no indication that animals were intended to live forever and animal predation would not have been a moral evil. Creation was “good” because it functioned as it was intended to, which would include natural ecosystems, and methods of preventing runaway animal over-population.
The choice to rebel against God and his moral guidelines resulted in God choosing not to perpetually sustain the integrity of his human design. In other words, the human body was left to gradually degrade and lose system integrity as was natural for it absent God’s sustaining power, ultimately making it susceptible to all manner of illness. Conversely, had the human pair remained faithful they would have been permitted to eat from the Tree of Life and live forever. This would not have been as a result of any kind of magic in the fruit of the tree, but would have represented the sealing of a contract with God that God would sustain them indefinitely.
Even if one does not believe this story and chooses to view it as a fable with some kind of moral message, it makes little sense (and is highly uncharitable) to think that the author simply didn’t notice any conflict between the humans not knowing what was right or wrong and yet being punished for their actions and therefore made a silly mistake. It clearly makes far more sense to read the account as saying that once they disobeyed God by eating from the tree that they subsequently knew good and bad in a different sense than they had before.
Just curious HeKS, when you say “author” – to whom are you referring?
HeKS,
Sure they were. Haven’t you read Genesis?
And:
Read Genesis, HeKS. It’s really interesting!
StephenB:
They didn’t know that. They knew that God had commanded them not to eat of the tree, and they knew that God had warned them (falsely, it turns out) that if they did eat of it, they would die the same day. They didn’t know good from evil, so they didn’t know it was evil to doubt God or to disobey him.
That’s silly. You can tempt someone to do something even if they don’t know it’s wrong. That just makes it easier to tempt them!
That’s easy. Nothing in the story says that they knew right from wrong until after they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The name of that tree should be a clue.
keiths:
StephenB:
Says who? Not the author of Genesis, who says nothing about anyone dying, spiritually or otherwise, on that day.
Stephen, you’re taking your modern Catholic beliefs and trying to force-fit them into an ancient story where they don’t belong. Let the story speak for itself.
Ah, so all eye-opening experiences and realizations are magic. Good to know. And, of course, it’s absolutely necessary that any changes that came about as a result of eating the fruit were derived from some special property of the fruit itself. There’s simply no other possible explanation.
I wonder, Keith … Do you ever read anything with the intention of actually trying to understand it?
William,
Are you kidding? See this:
The Biblical Lies of God and Jesus
HeKS,
Read this passage:
A tree whose fruit will make you live forever? Not a magic tree, according to HeKS.
The Tree of Life is so important to God that he stations cherubim with flaming swords — flaming swords, fercrissakes — to prevent Adam and Eve from getting their hands on its fruit and living forever. Not a magic tree, though, because HeKS tells us it isn’t. It’s just another run-of-the-mill Tree of Life like all the others. Nothing special.
It’s a shame God didn’t have you available as an adviser, HeKS. You could have told him that the Tree of Life wasn’t magical and saved him the trouble of all this flaming sword business.
You’re a hoot, HeKS. Please, please keep commenting here at TSZ.
Keith,
Good job on completely ignoring what I said on those points in my first post. There’s not even any point in elaborating on anything because you simply pretended that I didn’t say anything about any of this stuff in my first post.
Clearly I don’t need to wonder any longer. The answer is no, you never read with the intention of actually understanding.
HeKS,
Slow down and think about this. It’s not rocket science.
What you wrote in that comment doesn’t make sense:
That’s just goofy. If the Tree of Life weren’t magical, God wouldn’t have worried about A & E eating its fruit, and there would have been no need to station cherubim (with flaming swords, fercrissakes!) to prevent A & E from getting at it.
Let the story speak for itself, HeKS. You’re not reading with the intention of actually understanding.
KeithS
Yes, they did, and I have explained why.
That doesn’t work at all. As I pointed out, the experiential knowledge of evil after the fall, which refers to the effects of sin, is not the same as the pre-existent knowledge of right and wrong before fall. . Just because you ignore a point and refuse to engage it doesn’t mean that it is going to go away
More importantly, you have failed to explain why you think that your novel interpretation is correct when the entire history of Christian thought holds that Adam and Eve did, in fact, know right from wrong before the fall.
That Scripture doesn’t explicitly use the terms “right from wrong” is irrelevant. Scripture doesn’t say explicitly that Adam had free will or felt emotions. That doesn’t mean that they didn’t have those traits.
SB: They died spiritually that same day.
Says two thousand years of Christian history. You thought what?—that I just made it up. A physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. Spiritual death is the separation of the soul from God. This is the way all of Christianity, regardless of sectarian affiliation, understands the meaning of that passage. What is your argument against it?
StephenB,
You are trying to hang enormous amounts of Christian baggage on the Genesis story, yet it was written hundreds of years before Christianity even existed. Let the story speak for itself!
I am trying to understand the Genesis story as the author(s) intended, by looking at the author’s (or authors’) own words. You are trying to twist the story to fit your Christian beliefs.
For example, can you point to anything in the text that supports this baroque rationalization?
Yes, Keith, look at what I said:
If it so happened that God for some reason chose to imbue this fruit with some kind of supernatural quality – or even just some ‘natural’ component that would have ‘sealed the deal’ on humans being able to live forever, like some final piece of the puzzle – I’m not sure that would really be a problem. But the point is that this is not a necessary understanding. In both cases the eating of the fruit from the trees represented sealing a contract with God. One contract was for life, the other for death. God prevented them from being able to choose both. They chose the contract that led to death because they decided God was lying to them and that they could get something desirable for themselves from the tree itself. But God wasn’t lying. When they ate the fruit, they made their choice, sealing their fate, and God cut them off from himself as an ongoing source of perpetual life. In that very day they lost their chance at everlasting life and began the gradual descent into inevitable death, which was what God had told them he would provide for his part of the contract that was ‘signed’ by the eating of the fruit. He then took steps to ensure they could not ‘sign’ the contract associated with the Tree of Life.
In short, God used physical objects and actions in their environment to serve as representations of competing covenants that were open to them. He bound himself to honoring the terms of the agreements that were formally ratified by partaking of the fruit from the trees. Once they made the poor choice of eating from the tree that was forbidden to them he took action to prevent them from also partaking of the other tree that would have ratified their agreement for the reward of everlasting life, and his very visible way of doing that would serve as a constant reminder to them of their error and what they had given up.
Now, you can believe that this story has some historical basis or not, but it’s not incoherent. The seeming conflict that you pointed out in your OP is easily resolved and understood, unless, of course, you’re simply determined to stick to whatever uncharitable reading seems to create the most tension, which for some reason seems to be the choice that you consistently opt for.
Take for example Genesis 3:22, which you quoted:
Do you think God is saying there that these humans suddenly had the nature, power, intelligence, etc. of God? Or do you recognize that he says they’ve become like him only as regards “knowing good and evil”? And furthermore, what do you think this means? You seem to be determined to think it means that the humans didn’t know the difference between right or wrong, or that they should do the former rather than the latter. A more reasonable understanding, however, would be that they came to “know good and evil” in a different sense than they had before. And if that sense is to be understood as being in the same way God knows good and evil, then it seems best to understand the passage as saying that they came to view good and evil as something they could determine for themselves without the need of any guidance from a higher authority, and that this is precisely what they proclaimed by their actions and their choice to ignore God’s direction.
I’m going to bookmark this thread for future use in demonstrating how religion can turn minds to mush.
Unbelievable.
KeithS
Christians and Jews agree that Adam and Eve knew right from wrong. Both camps have read the same story you are reading. It is their bible. What is your rationale for disagreeing with them?
My position is consistent with all Christians and Jews. Your position is inconsistent with all Christians and Jews. How do you make the case that everyone else is twisting the story and you are the only one who gets it right?
StephenB,
The text takes priority, not later Jewish and Christian interpretations of the text.
If you haven’t noticed, the God of Genesis is quite different from the God that you and other modern-day Catholics believe in.
Stephen,
Perhaps this will be clearer if I point to someone else — HeKS — making the same mistake you are, of trying to impose his current religious beliefs on the ancient Genesis story.
Look at this passage from HeKS’s comment:
Now ask yourself, how much of that actually comes from the Genesis text?
Instead of accepting the text as written, HeKS has grotesquely distorted and elaborated it to make it fit with his theological preconceptions.
Pretty funny coming from someone who likes to accuse people of “not reading with the intention of actually understanding.”
KeithS
The text does, indeed, take priority. Show me where it says, “Adam and Eve did not know right from wrong prior to the fall.” Where did your read that in the text? How do you justify your bizarre thesis that the author of Genesis intended for the reader to believe it. How do you account for the fact that no Christian or Jew agrees with your take on it? Why do you think that the “knowledge of Good and evil” after the fact is synonymous with the knowledge of “right and wrong” before the fact? When are you going to make your case?
How soon we forget. I thought you said we are supposed to concentrate on the text. Where in the text does is say that the God of Genesis is quite different from the God of modern day Catholics?
HeKS,
That’s quite a stretch from the plain meaning of the words as written. From the text it appears that man now knows good and evil, something he didn’t know before eating from the tree.
Clearly it would reflect badly on the god of Genesis to punish people who didn’t understand the concepts of good and evil, so I see why apologetics like those you provide have grown up around the story. Those apologetics don’t change the clear meaning of the actual text, though.
Hi Patrick,
It’s really not that much of a stretch.
When reading someone’s writings in good faith, according to the Principle of Charity, one should begin with the assumption that they are writing in a way that is coherent, rational and not filled with self-contradiction, and that their propositions are in some way related to each other and to some coherent picture of reality. That is an assumption that can be overturned if no other conclusion is possible, but one ought to begin with that assumption and see if a rational, coherent interpretation can be derived from the text.
In this case, when considering the interpretation that Adam and Eve didn’t have any understanding at all of the difference between right and wrong, or of what they should and shouldn’t do, but that they were then severely punished for doing something they shouldn’t, any 5 year-old can note the conflict. As such, anyone who chooses to interpret the account that way must attribute to the author either an inability to notice even the most obvious of conflicts in his messaging or the specific intention of conveying to his readers that Adam and Eve had no idea at all what they were and were not supposed to do before eating from the tree. Except we know that the latter can’t be true, because in the account God specifically told Adam that he must not eat from that tree and what the consequence would be if he did, namely death. Later, when the serpent approaches Eve, she also knows that she’s not supposed to eat from it (even adding that she must not touch it) and that if she does she will die. So either God told her this directly or Adam passed on the prohibition against eating from the tree, but in either case, both Adam and Eve knew that they had been prohibited from eating from the tree and that if they broke this prohibition then very undesirable consequences would result for it.
So what are we to conclude now if we want to maintain this supposed conflict in which Adam and Eve are punished for doing something they didn’t know they weren’t supposed to do because they did not yet ‘know good and evil’? Are we to conclude that they didn’t understand the language? Or are we to conclude that the God of the account, after creating the universe, preparing the earth for habitation, bringing into existence different kinds of animal life and ultimately rational human beings simply couldn’t manage to give the humans the ability to understand that they weren’t supposed to do what they were told they weren’t supposed to do? The account doesn’t give us any indication of that. They avoided the tree until Eve was deceived into thinking that something other than death would result from eating its fruit.
It seems rather clear that we are meant to understand that their knowledge of good and evil changed after eating from the tree, and that they came to “know good and evil” in a different sense than they had simply understood before that they shouldn’t do what God told them they shouldn’t do and should do what God told them they should do.
I mean, consider this statement from God:
“From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will certainly die.”
Ponder that bold part. Suppose you fully understand that you’re not supposed to do what God tells you not to do and that bad things will result from disobedience. You mentally comprehend the notion. And yet, if the day comes that you actually disobey God, your relationship to the conceptual knowledge of such disobedience, its results, and to the state you were in before you disobeyed, will change significantly. You will have a more personal connection to and understanding of the concept. Furthermore, in making the conscious choice to disobey God, you would have declared your independence from him, deciding for yourself what is right and wrong rather than relying on guidance from God as a higher authority. It is no surprise then that, in addition to knowing something mentally, the Hebrew word used here for “know” (yada) can mean to come to know something by experience, and is also used of “knowing” another person sexually.
Now regarding the question of whether or not the trees had been imbued with special properties themselves, one must similarly attempt to discern whether or not that’s the best interpretation of the account, but I’m going to leave off on that for now.
Two things. Critics of the Fall mythology mostly think the punishment was disproportionate, considering the lack of understanding exhibited by the perp.
Secondly, critics mostly find it irrational and psychopathic to punish people who were not party to the crime. It’s Stalinesque. Punish a village for the offence of one person.
Third thing: The doctrine of original sin was pretty much invented by the Catholic church. Some — if not most — Jews believe that the eating of the fruit brought death into the world, but they do no believe sin is inherited. Muslims do not believe sin is inherited.
The inheritance of sin was invented to justify the Jesus. Prior to the invention of Christianity, no one knew that people had to be forgiven for things they didn’t do.
In point of fact, sins cannot not be inherited. The Father (or mother) always passes them along to the next generation in some form. It has nothing to do with God’s desire to punish and everything to do with the very nature of generation.
Indeed, the effects of an overpowering vice in one man may be felt in every succeeding generation. In some cases, it can be overcome, but moral weakness in parents tends to produce unnecessary pain in children and may even lead to a serious malformation in their character.
Children may suffer from poverty because their father is too lazy to work. Boys typically become angry hoodlums after one of their parents abandons them. Girls often lose their identity and self-respect after experiencing physical or emotional abuse.
In many cases, the same moral weakness can be passed on when a son models his father. In other cases, one moral flaw will breed the opposite moral flaw as is the case when a libertine daughter rebels against her prudish mother. Causes produce effects, and sin is an exceedingly powerful cause.
That is one of the main points to be found in Scripture. Sin causes pain and unhappiness in the sinner–and in everyone who must live and interact with him. More importantly, sin clouds moral judgment. Hence, the irony: The greater the sinner, the more likely he is to think that he has no sin in him.
So in effect, nonbelievers have the same incentives as believers to behave well.
Sin destabilizes society (see any cautionary tale) and rebounds on the sinner.
Sort of like a sin meme then? Sime? Simem?
StephenB,
William J Murray to KeithS
“Oh, and what or who is your “grounding for moral and ethical behavior”?”
I would also be interested in your answer to this question.
——————
Actually, I’m the one who asked WJM: “Oh, and what or who is your “grounding for moral and ethical behavior”?”
My response to my question would be this (in short): My morals/ethics are a product of nature, nurture, and life experiences/interactions. I’d say that most of my morals/ethics are due to life experiences/interactions in that I’ve learned what is right or wrong by observing and interacting with other people, hurting other people, being hurt by other people, raising a child, watching certain movies and TV shows, reading books, observing and interacting with animals, plenty of thinking, making plenty of mistakes, being aware of and dealing with political and legal ‘authorities’, etc.
Creodont2,
Well, then if you grew up in a less friendly environment, your ethics would be different, and thus people’s whose ethics are for killing, cheating, violence, selfishness, thievery, those ethics are just as valid as your correct?
You certainly can’t judge their ethics to be bad right? Because they are a product of his nature and nurture.
“Ever mind the rule of three,
What ye send out comes back to thee.”
Whereas you can so judge, of course, as you have access to objective morality and can therefore pronounce on who and who is not a sinner.
If only there was some way to mark those sinners, some kind of badge they could be forced to wear. Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to wait until the Theists run the world again for that.