Like God Knowing God and Evil

  How should we understand the story about Adam and Eve in the fall narrative of the biblical book of Genesis?  We are told they ate the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and their eyes were opened and they became like God knowing Good and Evil. To understand what is going on here one must first consider what becoming like God means for people who had already been created in his image.  When God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil..." God may have meant that Adam and Eve had become like him in having experienced evil.  He certainly did not mean they had become like him in having experienced 'doing' evil. We believe that God knows of evil. We do not believe that God has done evil. The mystery here is what is meant by 'know' and here that epistemological question is inseparably connected to the fundamental questions of ethics. What is good? What is evil? One should notice more than just the fact that the fall narrative explains how the serp

ent's evil manipulation precipitated the arrival of sin and death as defining human conditions. A major focus of the passage is on how knowledge (or awareness?) of good and evil affects the cognitive and psychological state of human beings.

       What did Adam and Eve suddenly know that they didn't know before?  Obviously, they couldn't have been expected to follow a law if they didn't already know right from wrong. Arguably, learning for themselves that the serpent was malevolent is what made Adam and Eve like God.(1) We should not have difficulty understanding why God would have preferred that no one encounter evil from which no benefit can come. But the knowledge mentioned in the fall narrative is the knowledge of good and evil--not just knowledge of evil alone. So knowledge of good and evil seems to be knowledge that the serpent was malevolent (evil), and also new knowledge about God.  The context suggests that Adam and Eve, or, at least, Adam already trusted God and knew him for his attributes as a powerful creator--even a good creator. Certainly someone they could trust. So what was new? We might consider how the existence of evil gave rise to the need for justice--i.e. the need for a guileless, innocent and impartial judge with the will and power to enforce justice. Adam and Eve knew God's judgments and sentencing against 'even' them were just for they did continue to recognize him as lord (Gen. 4:1). And so, ironically, all that was good about God, including his judgment, was only pondered after evil was first discovered.

     

  The change that took place to their state of existence as a consequence of this knowledge was dramatic. With knowledge of good and evil, came knowledge of their first moral failure and shame. Consider their responses to God when he asked them simple questions. Did Adam's answer really make sense to God's question, "Where are you?"  Adam didn't just say, "I'm here." His answer (Gen. 3:10) implied he thought being naked before God would be a problem and he himself undoubtedly wouldn't have been able to explain why. But God understood what had happened which is why he then asked, "Did you eat the forbidden fruit? And there again, they did not simply answer, "Yes." Their answers implied regret over having done wrong and involved attempts to explain why they behaved that way and that they did not intend to disobey. What they did intend is anything but clear. But intentions were on their minds because they now knew that intentions, whatever they were, could be good or evil.  They also knew that their behaviors could seem to God to have stemmed from evil intentions. Since they did not feel innocent, the physiological affect of this knowledge was shame.

     

 The text never actually says they felt shame. What the text says is that, prior to their fall "...the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.  Their attempt to cover themselves with fig leaves is the first indication that they felt shame. Shame apparently did not exist in any form whatsoever prior to their disobedience and the fact that the author highlights shame over nakedness rather than shame over their crime should cause a reader to pause and wonder. The text is provoking the questions, "What kind of animal feels the need to cover it's nakedness and why?" What kind of animal are we? How are we to understand ourselves? Whatever answer we provide to those questions, this text suggests that shame over nakedness is just the most pronounced symptom of a problem that shouldn't exist at all i.e. a propensity to feel shame in any form about anything.

      

 Actually, shame over nakedness is not too hard to understand when one considers that human sexual desire is an autonomic response that can be triggered merely by one another's presence. Sometimes, as when alone with our partners, we intend sexual desire or hope for that but most of the time we have no such intention. Covering up can help mitigate what would otherwise be the relentless suspicion of our intentions. The issue with our nakedness is symptomatic of our preoccupation with whether our intentions or the intentions of others are good or bad.  

      

The next indication that they felt shame can be seen in how they then responded to God's questioning. "The women gave to me and I ate," said Adam. "The serpent deceived me," said Eve. The point that the passage seems to be teaching is that they ceased to trust anyone-not even themselves and their own intentions.

      

 How to understand the change they went through is still complicated by the fact that we also have to understand what human nature was like before the change.  Some assume we should take Adam and Eve to have originally been immortal and that they lost that immortality. The passage is not that clear.  Since death was a consequence of their mistake, one could easily draw that conclusion.  But the presence of the other tree suggests that immortality was something they had to choose. They were not forbidden from eating of the tree of life until after they disobeyed. So another way to understand the consequence of their mistake is that they were denied the option of living forever.  And that leaves open the possibility that they weren't originally immortal.

     

 What is clear, according to the text, is that Adam and Eve originally enjoyed God's special providence and attention in paradise though Adam technically was created outside of the garden. God was present, personable, made conversation, and gave Adam things to do. So a kind of state of alienation from God is one effect of the fall still affecting all humanity. Most theologians explain why everyone is born in this state by claiming that Adam and Eve's 'sin' is inherited. But before one attempts to understand what sin is, one would probably do better to first consider what we inherited when we inherited their knowledge of good and evil and shame.        

       

 Having knowledge of good and evil was reason enough for God to expel them from the garden.  The reason or reasons why God "..drove the man out.." were twofold, but one of them concerned the knowledge Adam had acquired..."the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil;... therefore the Lord God drove the man out."  Gen 3:22-24.  Implicitly then human beings were not ever supposed to acquire this knowledge.

      

 Before we get to what the issue was with having this forbidden knowledge, consider how Adam and Eve acquired the knowledge. Did they just walk over to the tree, pick the fruit and eat?  That's not what the text reports. The text hints at human characteristics other than brazen defiance were at work. Vulnerability to manipulation is what the text suggests. Eve's gullibility was apparent.  The story shows her to be naive.  What of Adam who didn't speak up?  "..she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate..." Gen. 3:6. We are only left to speculate why. The usual interpretation that his was a sin of pride is an argument from silence.  But if we are left to speculate, the possibility certainly exists that once the serpent turned evil, Adam and Eve's fall was inevitable simply because they were inferior beings.  

       

 The idea that disobeying God would be tantamount to rejecting God was surely something Adam and Eve could understand, but the idea that the serpent would intend to get them to choose to do that against their own will, was evidently something they never would have conceived of until that actually happened. Eve's own intentions or reason why she disobeyed, while arguably innocent, were, at least, logically inadequate to justify disobedience. The same could be said about Adam. Adam was not deceived as Eve (1 Tim 2:14).  The context does, however, allow the assumption that his compassionate human nature had been twisted to do something he would, like her, later regret.  The serpent's ability to exploit Adam and Eve's vulnerabilities suggests that creation wasn't designed to deal with evil and does not suggest there was  anything imperfect about the people God created. The difficulty for some, will come in understanding how they were still guilty of disobedience while they were, in another sense, somewhat innocent, but this is not hard to explain.  

       

 The serpent may have been trying to prove to God that Adam and Eve were not the trusting, worshipful, loving creatures that he created. (See the precedence for such a modus operandus evident in the book of Job). God, who deferred to Eve's judgment, ("The serpent deceived me..." Gen 3:13) was more persuaded by Eve's story than any logic of the serpent's which he did not even bother to inquire about. He was not persuaded, but he still had to partially fault Adam and Eve for having some responsibility for their actions. One can still become guilty even where there is no intent to break a law and that means the one who has acted is still nonetheless the responsible agent. Adam and Eve explained the reasons why they disobeyed and those reasons did indeed explain why but they did not completely exonerate them as responsible agents. What was actually proved, in the end, was that the serpent shared some of the responsibility for the disobedience and even more importantly, was proved to be evil. (See Ezek 28:15).

      

 Here, one needs to note that knowledge of evil was only acquired by having been manipulated--(an experience that reveals what evil is), and so getting manipulated into disobeying is what led to their knowledge of good and evil and to their expulsion. One must also remember that this was inevitable once evil arose within the more powerful and intelligent serpent. Arguably, people who have zero chance of protecting themselves are also people to whom God would understandably extend his mercy, while the serpent was not such a person. The serpent, not Adam and Eve, was operating with conscious, intentional, and evidently even premeditated free will. Besides receiving the greater punishment (on you belly you will go means a serious restraint on his mobility), the destruction of the serpent was foretold, as a part of a prophetic curse which set history on an apocalyptic trajectory in which years of enmity will ultimately end with him getting, metaphorically speaking, 'crushed.'  Justice, from our good God, is ultimately guaranteed.

         

As has been mentioned, one consequence of knowing about this evil and about the fact that we do not measure up to God's goodness, is the fact that we are now preoccupied with everyone's intentions and even our own. This is evidenced by the fact that we wear clothes. And this is a bigger problem then one might suppose.  Our preoccupation with intentions is really self-defeating. Whether we or whether other's are good and therefore safe or whether someone is bad and therefore dangerous will often be something we just have to guess.  And to our own shame, we will often guess wrong. Given our epistemic limitations, we will often not be able to 'know' or understand the intentions of others or even of ourselves.  Why did the serpent do that? Why does anyone ever commit a crime?  Why do we wear clothes?  Intention is hard to identify because the whole concept of intention is itself vague and hard to define.  What's more, 'intentions' often do not actually explain human actions. (2). As Reuben Abel explains, "The reason for an action need not be an intention; other possible reasons for an action are habits, dispositions, tastes, obligations, desires, and wants. All of these are legitimate answers to the question, why did you do such and such?" Eve, for example, "..saw that saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise.." Gen 3:6. Still, as Reuben also explains, "...it is always justifiable to ask why about any person's action."  We say 'justifiable' because, "To be rational is to act in accordance with reasons."  We are rational and we want to trust everyone and stop worrying but we can't because of what we know and have always known since the fall i.e. about how our intentions and the intentions of others are often bad.

       

 As long as Adam and Eve remained obedient, they would evidently have remained safely in God's paradise and ignorant of the serpent's malevolent intent.  As long as people do not concern themselves with each other's intentions and do not judge and question each other or even themselves, they seem to get along fine with each other, with themselves and God. When and where everyone is able to just take for granted that everyone else is behaving as they should, everyone get's along fine with each other and God.  This is exactly what we should expect in a perfect world created by a perfect God and apparently exactly what Adam and Eve had until they fell.  A preoccupation with the intentions of others, was a consequence of the fall.  Once they realized that they had lost a degree of favor with God, new thoughts arose.  They never used to have to think about the fact that his favor was contingent.  The prohibition against eating the forbidden fruit might have taught them that God's favor was dependent on their obedience even before the fall, but a line of reasoning that was more likely governing them in their pre-fallen state was that if God said this will kill you, then they would refrain because they weren't suicidal. And yet, after the fall, when, as the serpent said, they didn't die, they had to wonder what God was up to.  Of course, not knowing this wouldn't justify disobedience and so when asked why they violated the prohibition, what would they say in their own defense?  Never mind what God was up to? What were they up to?  And as for the serpent, how was any of this of any concern to him?  What was he up to?  Suddenly, everyone's intentions became suspect. Whereas Adam and Eve did not have any good answers, one thing was clear. There is such a thing as good intentions and bad intentions and the less capable we are of knowing and judging our own intentions and the intentions of others, the more vulnerable we feel.

        

 The rules governing whether we shall have God's favor are like laws that circumscribe boundaries around us and limit what we can do.  Undoubtedly, Adam and Eve didn't feel any limitations to what they could do while they were in God's favor in paradise and in no danger of loosing that favor no matter what they did. But once there developed within them a preoccupation with which intentions were good and which were evil--intentions they would often never be able to judge, know or understand, there arose the possibility and even proclivity towards a kind of self-destructive urge to recapture some sense of freedom by disregarding God's favor altogether. This would be sin and if we don't control that, then what arises can be as ugly as what the murderous Cain represented. 

         

Freud had things backwards. His id, which sounds a lot like the seat of sin Paul referred to as the flesh, is inflamed--not restrained by the natural law or conscience or what Freud called the superego.

         One of the lessons we are to learn is NOT that life is a test. The revelation of prophetic scripture is that life was a test and we failed. Life was a test of whether we could stand up to evil and there never was a chance that we could.  We were destined to fail and fall. This is not by God's design but is rather a consequence of the serpent's choice to do evil--evil which God undoubtedly foreknew. In fact, "test" is probably not the right word here.  The fall narrative is a passage that explains how human nature was corrupted by a superior being acting, to our detriment, in defiance of God and why our sin nature is therefore forgivable though, judgment, with consequences, will still be passed on how well we struggled with this nature.  

         

 Genesis is a book about origins--about the origins of heaven and earth, of life, of the human race, of language and the naming of things, of sin, of culture, of Israel and so on, but is itself also the beginning of a revealed religion. As such, this text appropriately challenges us to consider what we are going to think. All texts have authors who can have a variety of objectives for writing and one should bear in mind that understanding of the text begins with understanding those objectives as well as our own for reading on any further. One can and should be skeptical of any revelatory claim, but not because one holds an equally presumptuous anti-supernatural attitude, or thinks that one 'really' knows all about human origins. If, as may reasonably be assumed, one of the objectives of prophetic scripture is to defend God's goodness to a world in doubt about who he is and why there is confusing tragedy in his creation, then, after we find this, the best next question is not 'what went wrong,' but rather, 'Why are you telling us this?' This is tantamount to asking, yet again, what are the objectives of prophetic scripture and requires, yet again, that we consider our own motives for reading on. In what sense or to what end, might we be helped by this information? Am I convinced I need this help and do I want this help?

        

 The scriptures collected and canonized throughout the centuries of revelatory history reveal that we can still enjoy God's favor if we want to live a repentant life and practice, obedient, self-control, though this requires faith and

 hope and that we pray, as we have been taught, "lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil."

        Indeed, whether the philosophy

 of the text is revelatory or not, a good interpretation requires that one sustain, albeit temporarily or provisionally, a principal of charity which gives as much benefit of the doubt to the text as one would any story i.e. believe that the information supplied is purposefully provided and designed to contribute to the development of a coherent message with a moral and theme. Failure to consider this even provisionally simply bespeaks a complete lack of ability to use imagination as required when reading any story.

1. Later verses use the same word (ידע) euphemistically for sex as in "Adam knew his wife and she conceived and bore a son." (Gen 4.1).  

2. Man is the Measure. Reuben Abel