Start the whole discussion with the question of why there are two trees and not one. Then mention the errors of isolating the trees.
2017-12-05
The age old question of did God create evil is a pressing one. One place where it is keenly illustrated is in the question: Why did God put the tree of knowledge of good and evil into the garden.
This question is, in isolation, very interesting but in the context of whether God created evil I think it is impossible to answer rightly. The reason being that we are implying that God put it there as a test.
If we start with the assumption that the tree, or any temptation, is a test then we cannot escape the conclusion that God created evil. Sure we can do the philosophical dance trying to show that God can be good and pure while tempting us with evil, but then we, as an encore, must prove black to be white and justly be killed at the next zebra crossing. Moreover this is overtly against scripture, see James chapter 1.
So let us step back. There are two approaches which we can now follow. We can interrogate the meaning of good and evil and hope that we can, with some new understanding of those see how God remains good while still introducing the tree of knowledge of good and evil (our downfall here is if we still assume that God tests us, even for our good). Or we can ask again the question of why God placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden.
Oh LORD help me as I write to delight in You sharing You and praising You. And not to become puffed up with delight of my own cleverness.
While the former approach (interrogating the meaning of good and evil) seems to be the more promising line of inquiry, in that its resolution immediately answers our first question. Let us start with the second (why was the tree placed in the garden) as I believe it to be the more fruitful branch of reasoning.
So why did God place the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden? This is a difficult question because we are not told. So in our hubris let us look at what else we are told. There is a very striking statement when God drives Adam and Eve from the garden. He says “The man has become like one of us, knowing good from evil.” God acknowledges that the fruit of the tree has the stated effect: It imparted knowledge of good and evil. Th fruit is not a test, but a source of knowledge.
With this striking statement still ringing in our ears notice the second half of it, the motivation for driving man out of the garden: “Man must not be allowed to take from the tree of life and live forever.” Thus the tree of life is a source of life in the same way that the tree of knowledge is a source of knowledge. Neither are merely symbols (although they may be symbols as well).
We have not made much progress on finding out why the tree of knowledge of good and evil was placed in the garden. Yet we have not gleaned naught. We are shown that the tree is potent to give knowledge and that the tree has a sibling, potent to give life.
Again this reminds us of another interesting question: Why did God place the tree of life in the garden at all if He was just going to drive us away from it.
But now we have two questions. Each interesting in their own right and each with its thorns. However if we prune our questioning and graft the two questions into one we find a new question free from the past thorns with new insight to yield. The new question is: Why did God place both the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life into the garden where He placed people who could eat from them?
This question is delightfully free of the burden of justifying God’s actions and is right in the quest for understanding what God did when He created.
Moreover this question seems more in-line with the Genesis account. In that account at each mention of the trees they are mentioned together. God placed both trees in the garden in the beginning. Both are potent. We are excluded from both after our rebellion. The one exception is that we are not prohibited from eating of the tree of life in the beginning.
Why did God place a tree that would “make us like Him” and a tree that would “let us live forever” in the garden? In reach of man, mere creatures?
I propose that the answer is an extension of the statement “let us make man in Our image”. God creates as an expression of Himself. His order, His diversity, His richness and His life. He withholds nothing from the expression. God even creates a representative so that creation may be complete. The creation relates to man as its ruler and carer just as man relates to God as his ruler and carer. God created so fully that He put the means for mere creatures to attain divinity. Namely the two trees. And so God says of His creation: It is very good. Even as He is very good.
So what? Well this shows the massive intimacy that God shared with creation. From its inception it is (we are) the image of God. Almost another part of the trinity: Father, Son, Spirit, creation. This is a cause for wonder.
It also helps us understand Jesus, or is fulfilled in Jesus (deepening on which way you go). Jesus extends the intimacy by Himself becoming a man. He then builds the church, us, into a bride which He plans to marry on that great day. “Then the two will become one” (Eph).
The creation failed to raise itself to divinity, even though all the elements were there. Instead God raises creation into the intimacy of divinity through love and humility.
So what does this tell us about evil? It tells us what we did when we fell.
God created good and He created fully, in love He created. All parts with a will of their own, but all parts in unity. But then man reached out his hand to grasp the godhead. We declared I am not content to be a part of your creation oh God; No, I will define myself. I will be my god independent of You. So the unity was broken, the order of things was upturned and what was good was corrupted.
Instead of being in intimate relationship with divinity we chose separation from the source of life.
My temptation is to use this as the basis for a definition of good and evil: purity and corruption, intimacy and independence. But this is folly. For the tree provided knowledge of good and evil before the corruption entered. So I have not made any progress in answering the question of what is evil and where is its source if not God? However I have been reminded of the depth of wisdom and knowledge of God as revealed in Jesus and the depth of His love.