What If God Had Not Created The Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil?

What if God had not created the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Well, that question goes to the very heart of what it means to be human. But we’re jumping ahead of ourselves. Let’s look at the narrative.

The creation of man followed a two-part process: first was the material creation, and then the inspiration of essence. We’re told in scriptures that God formed man out of the dust of the earth, that is from clay. The word Adam is the masculine form of “adamah” meaning “earth.” It’s related to the word “adom” meaning “red.” With new knowledge we now know clay from which Adam was created was nothing but a binding retainer for the concentration of minerals. As reported in Daily Mail and Fox News, Science Biological Engineers from Cornell University’s department of Nanoscale Science in New York State believe clay might have been the birthplace of life on earth. Clay at its most basic is a combination of minerals in the ground, some sort of breeding laboratory for tiny molecules and chemicals, which “it absorbs like a sponge.” It’s believed those chemicals carried out the complex reactions that formed proteins, DNA and eventually the machinery of living cells, say scientists. This is the reconciliation of the Genesis account with the elemental composition of the human body.

The material structure of man is just a housing or casing. The Bible compares the body to a tent. (2 Corinthians 5:1) But it’s a technologically advanced casing. It has sensors embedded to collect data and provide feedback. It’s why we “feel,” “taste,” “smell,” “see,” “hear.” These are data input systems for the material world. “We” analyse these data to make determinations about the material world. We don’t really “see” with our eyes for example. The eyes merely receive light rays. These are translated into electrical signals and carried by the optic nerve to the brain for analysis. It’s not our casing that makes us “human.” It’s the inspiration of essence. The Bible calls this inspiration is the “breath of life.” We’re told God blew into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life and Adam came alive, became a “living soul.” The “breath of life” created man’s spirit, gave birth to “consciousness,” gave man a mind, a will and emotions.

Both the material and immaterial components of Adam had test parameters. The test parameter for Adam’s materiality – his physical makeup was the tending of a physical garden, the Garden of Eden. The test parameter for Adam’s spirit was his relationship with the spirit personage called God. The test parameter for Adam’s mind was intelligence and imagination – his ability to name all the animals and retain the data. The test parameter for Adam’s emotions was Eve. He could connect with her emotionally, which was why he composed a poem – “bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh.” The test parameter for Adam’s will was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. There were all sorts of trees in the Garden but two trees in particular were special – the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Everything revolved around those two trees and this was communicated spatially by the fact they were planted in the middle of the Garden. (Genesis 2:9) The ordinary fruit trees related to the material world but these two trees were about the immaterial world. They would determine the destiny of man. Of the two only the tree of knowledge of good and evil would turn out unique to the Garden. We will come across the tree of life in the New Jerusalem: “Then the angel showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” (Revelation 22:1-2) In other words, the LEAVES of the tree of life are for political and societal solutions while its fruit dealt with the question of the destiny of mankind. Adam and Eve could partake freely of the tree of life.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil was a totem of enactment of legislation. Hitherto only physical laws were operational on earth. With the prohibition of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, human law came into existence – “And the Lord God commanded the man saying, “You may freely eat the fruit from every tree in the garden; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, otherwise on the day that you eat from it, you shall most certainly die.” (Genesis 1:17) This was the first negative commandment in human history. The devil will contest the threat of death, suggest it was nothing more than propaganda. The supply of alternative interpretation of what the tree of knowledge of good and evil represents is what eventually landed Adam and Eve in trouble. The mistake of Eve was failure to recognize that there’s something called “channeling.” When she was talking to the serpent, she didn’t know he was a mere channel for THE Serpent, Satan. The Serpent had a political agenda and his aim was to ferment rebellion against God, just as he did in heaven. He was crafty about it. Subtle. The Bible says the “serpent was more crafty – subtle, skilled in deceit than any creature of the field which the Lord God had made.” (Genesis 3:1) Satan positioned himself as the champion of the under-privileged class. Hinting at class warfare he posited the God Class was oppressing the human class, keeping the human class down with disinformation. He implied he was in the know, that he knew God well enough. It’s a combination of half truth half lie. The dummy sold was that God was trying to prevent human race from evolving to higher status, the God Class. It’s the same dummy being sold through New Age: “For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, that is you will have greater awareness, and you will be like God, knowing the difference between good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5) In other words, to “ascend” to master status one must access esoteric wisdom.

It was only after the introduction of this new information that Eve “SAW that the tree was good for food, and that it was delightful to look at, and a tree to be desired in order to make one wise and insightful.” (Genesis 3:6) She saw “enlightenment.” She didn’t come to that conclusion from partaking of the fruit. She did so solely based on Satan’s representation. She took the fruit thereafter. We must be careful what we open ourselves to, who we listen to. The pedigree of an instructor matters. Presentation of novel “knowledge” and “rare” information has always been Satan’s modus operandi. Those seduced by Satan’s misinformation always feel they’re wiser than the rest of humanity, that they’re in the “know.”

The planting of the tree of knowledge of good and evil also inaugurated the advent of freewill. Without freewill we cannot be “human.” But the concept of freewill in the Bible is not the inherently flawed notion of “freewill” advocated by humanists. That is an absolutist concept and there can’t be absolute freewill. Society will not exist. There can be no society if freewill has no circumscription or regulation. Imagine a society where everyone is free to do as he or she likes. That is not a society of humans; that is anarchy.  And an absolutist freewill possessed by someone is a negation of another person’s absolute freewill, which then cancels out the notion of democratised freewill. There can’t be absolutist freewill. It’s a contradiction in terms. Freewill always presupposes a circumference or boundary. Even on Facebook. The paradox of the man who says he has no freewill is, how did he come to that independent determination in the first place? Not without freewill. Freewill is not the same as license. Laws always regulate freewill.

Freewill presupposes choice, not lack of boundary. Without choice there can be no freewill. And so the notion of freewill is choice within an ambit. For Adam and Eve it was choice between the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They chose the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Essentially they chose death over life. It’s the same binary system Moses presented to the Israelites: “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live.” (Deuteronomy 30:19) God might as well be saying those very words to Adam and Eve!

But the tree of knowledge of good and evil also established the principle of God’s sovereignty. He is the ultimate lawgiver. What is right is what God says is right, what is wrong is what God says is wrong. Eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil would not have been wrong if God had not declared it wrong. And so disobedience was the key issue. Which was why they hid from God. A guilty conscience is a marker of disobedience. God is the arbiter of moral law. And he’s inscribed moral law on every heart. Paul writing about this millennia down the line said, “Even Gentiles (non Jews), who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they’re doing right.” (Romans 2:14-15) Jesus says moral law is the second greatest commandment – love your neighbor as yourself (unselfishly seek the best or higher good of others); but God MUST come FIRST. The greatest commandment is to love God, Jesus said. It is the first commandment. In other words, morality devoid of God is anchorless. First we love God, then we love our neighbor. (Matthew 22:36-40) Human goodness devoid of God has no frame of reference. It’s why our goodness cannot save us. Only the precious blood of Jesus can. (Ephesians 1:7)

If you’ll like to give your life to Jesus, please pray this prayer: Father I acknowledge that I am a sinner, that Jesus died for me, that you raised him from the dead. Father please forgive me. I accept Jesus today as my Lord and my Saviour. Amen.

© #Illuminare Leke Alder | talk2me@lekealder.com

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