Humanity in Sin Part 1 - The Tree of Knowledge of God and Evil
12.37This is my personal summary of the preaching of Rev.Dr.Stephen Tong on his apologetics series on The Fall of Man on 26th November 2006.
Many Christians respect the Scriptures but does not respect the church. Many people respect the holy lives of some Christians but find them not too intelligent. We have not fulfilled the potential in our reasoning. Faith is the return of the prodigal reason to the Truth.
Why would God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden? Why would God put the serpent in the garden to tempt man? Most people immediately look down on the Bible after reading this.
God made man from the dust of the earth and then gave limitation to man that they cannot partake of the fruit. And God also allow the serpent to tempt man. So doesn’t man become toys in God’s hand? This is a difficult question.
Human beings are the only beings that have both the physical and the metaphysical. The position of mankind is the point of contact between material and spiritual. We have dual ability to have relationship with physical and spiritual world.
Confucius says a gentleman would seek after Logos and not material things. This response has an error. It seems to him that a gentleman does not need to eat.
Jesus said that man shall not live by bread alone (but still need bread), but by every word that comes out from the mouth of God. Only when a person finds his value in God would he be truly satisfied.
When God made man, He not only provided for him all material food, but He also spoke to man. The command He gives to man intrinsically also becomes the gift of freedom.
If God does not want man to know good and evil, why would God reveal so much about good and evil in the Scriptures? But then why would God put the tree in the garden? Is knowing good and evil a matter of knowledge or a matter of wisdom? Knowledge is not the same as wisdom. Wisdom is the foundation of knowledge. Knowledge is the content of wisdom. Knowledge should be built upon wisdom.
God commanded man not to partake of the knowledge of good and evil because man needs wisdom behind this knowledge. Hence the purpose behind the command is related to wisdom rather than knowledge. It is the question of wisdom of knowing what sort of knowledge would bring death.
Is it absolute necessity for man to have trial? From general principle, it is of absolute necessity because of freedom is a mark of man’s dignity. But this freedom is constrained because only God has absolute freedom.
We have opportunity to exercise our freedom. Humanity gains perfection through a process. No perfection comes suddenly after receiving grace. So God allows trials and sufferings. These are necessities.
Why would God allow Satan to tempt Adam? God allows the opportunity for the existence of evil. Why would God not destroy the devil and allow him to bring all sorts of horrifying things to the people He loves?
Even the Son of God coming in the flesh did not have special privileges. Every single one of us goes through trials. He allows Satan to continue to demonstrate his errors and through that we see the trustworthiness of the truth of God.
When did the confusion between wisdom and knowledge begin? This is what causes agnosticism and relativity. It all goes back to Genesis 3. At that time, humanity heard both the words of God and the words of Satan. Satan’s question and statement to Eve is the beginning of epistemology. Epistemology is the study of knowledge. It concerns with the principle, the motivation, purpose, methodology, power, and result of knowledge.
“Has God said…?” This statement is very destructive. It planted seed of doubt on God’s motivation. Once Eve doubted, she took the lie as the truth and began to hate God. This method of knowledge is in all culture and is happening every day. When we plant doubt, we make people suspect. Relationships break down.
Does epistemology necessarily have the element of doubt inside? Paradoxically, doubt in itself is the opposite of knowledge. Should we doubt? But without doubt, how can we affirm the validity of knowledge? There are two kinds of doubt. One is the doubt that arises because something is hard to understand. This is healthy doubt. The other one is the doubt that is created because one has decided not to believe. This is destructive doubt.
When our starting point is wrong, the more we know the more confused we get. Eve doubted the absolute command of God and used absolute attitude towards the doubt that Satan plants, instead of doubting that doubt. We are in horrifying situation where most people are taking the epistemology of doubt towards absolute things. We should use skeptical attitude towards skeptical people. This way we can have victory over destructive forces.
When studying philosophy, we should not just look at the content, but also look at the motive behind one’s writing. Today many Christians lose their faith and many pastors are influenced by liberals because they have doubts about the Bible that is absolute, but never doubt those who throw those doubts. It is like allowing any outsiders to come in to search our house.
If we do not rebuild our knowledge from the right foundation, and keep building knowledge based on doubts people throw to us, our faith will go bankrupt.
God’s Word contains a lot of paradoxes. Satan’s words contain a lot of contradictions. Superficially they look the same, but in essence, paradoxes aim at reconciliation. Throughout history, often times right looks wrong and wrong looks right. Hence the Word of God becomes the object of our doubt and the words of Satan become the object of our trust. Absolute is made relative. Relative is made absolute.
After Eve eats of that tree, God no longer explains or gives the command all over again. He continues to allow us to use the freedom He gives us to listen to both His voice and the voice of the devil. The end result is either salvation or destruction.
So we are in a very scary situation. It is indeed very hard to live as a human. We are created between God and Satan, live between life and death, between the temporal and eternal, physical and spiritual. But in this state there is potential for great glory. It is God’s purpose to perfect us through this process.
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