Thoughts on the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

I doubt this is a new idea, but I don't think I've seen it expressed in this way.

What does it mean that Adam and Eve should not eat from a tree that is described as the "tree of knowledge of good and evil?" 

I think it simply refers to the way we understand what is evil and what is good experientially.  In short, if God created a world in which actions have consequences, then the way we understand evil is through the consequences. 



We feel pain when someone assaults us, we feel loss when someone robs us, we feel grief when we are ashamed of something we have done.   Those experiential effects that flow from our actions are the indication to our perception that something is wrong, destructive, evil.

Prior to eating of the tree, Adam and Eve would have had no experiential knowledge of evil because they had not committed any acts that were "wrong".  Perhaps they would have some knowledge at some point of the rebellion of the fallen angels, but perhaps what is being spoken of with the tree is a different sort of knowledge.

At the point when Adam and Eve believed the lie that they could be "like God" and sought to be autonomous, to be their own god, they immediately experienced a consequence - they were ashamed of what they had done.  They were "naked" in that their heart intent was exposed.  They experienced firsthand a consequence to an action.  The difference between good and evil became clear.

But does this small choice to eat a bit of fruit explain the full scope of what evil has included in human history?   In principle, yes.

Imagine a world in which actions had no necessary consequence.  Imagine a world in which a Hitler or Caligula could live forever with no possibility of guilt or death.   A world where love and hate had not distinction, where savagery and a mercy were morally equivalent.   What sort of world would that be? 

I don't think God could have made (as a logically possible world consistent with His character) a world where evil acts did NOT have consequences.   It is the consequence that reveals to us the evil.  So, as Romans 8 says, the creation was subjected to futility - by God, it seems, "in hope" that the world would one day be freed of that bondage.   It is the bondage, the suffering, the decay that causes us to long for something better.

So in short, it seems likely to me that the tree of knowledge had no particular character that distinguished it from any other tree - what led to the "knowledge of good and evil" was the experience of the consequence of wanting to make the rules, to be in control of what God had made, wanting to be one's own God. 

And so when we ponder on the question of why evil exists, once again we come to the conclusion that it is not logically possible for God to create free moral beings without allowing the possibility of what we experience as evil.   A world where actions do NOT have consequences would be a world without meaning, a world where right and wrong have no distinction.   

The final answer is not "where did evil come from" but "what has God done in it's wake?"  That answer comes in the person of Christ who absorbed the consequence in order to fully demonstrate the goodness of love and mercy.  And in that context, the lone unforgivable sin is to insist His sacrifice is of no consequence.