Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: hall@vice.ico.tek.com (Hal Lillywhite) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Sources for Demonology Message-ID: Date: 25 Feb 90 04:40:37 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. Lines: 64 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article hall@vice.ico.tek.com (Hal Lillywhite) writes: > >In article bgsuvax!kutz@cis.ohio-state.edu (Kenneth J. Kutz) writes: >>ON GODHOOD (SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION): ... >> "And the Serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For >> God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall >> be open, and ye shall be as gods." >> - Genesis 3: 4-5 I write: ... > Satan really claims 2 things here: > 1. You shall not surely die. > 2. Your eyes will be opened and you will be as gods, > knowing good and evil. >The first claim is patently false, they did surely die. However the >second claim, the one similar to Peck's thesis, is not only true but >is validated by God himself later in the same chapter, "...the man >is become as one of us to know good and evil..." (Gen 3:22) ... The moderator comments: >[It seems pretty clear that Gen 3:22 does not approve of man's knowing >good and evil. It says "he's already become independent of us in >judging good and evil, now before he does something even worse let's >put a stop to all this". In context I'd say what God is objecting to >is man developing his own understanding of good and evil independent >of God's. --clh] Well, this is getting a bit away from my original point and I hate to disagree with our moderator (I think he does an excellent job). However I'm not sure I totally agree with this. To me the verse seems to be saying that the man now knows good and evil *like* we do, not necessarily independent from us. The fruit after all was placed there by God so the knowledge of good and evil did in fact come from God (indirectly). I agree that the next item on the agenda is to keep the situation from getting worse as the rest of the verse indicates: Lest he partake of the tree of life and live forever... Why was it so bad that Adam could live forever? After all, without eating the forbidden fruit he would have done so anyway. I think that knowing good and evil he (and by extension all of us) could now sin. There is a great difference between eternal life in a sinless state and eternal life as a sinner. In fact I heard once that there is a Jewish ledgend that Cain's real punishment was that he would not be allowed to die as long as the world exists - he would have to live with what he had done. True or not this illustrates the situation Adam would have been in had he eaten of the tree of life and lived forever in his sin. Eventually life would become a burden instead of a blessing. The solution of course was for Adam (and us) to die physically but for Jesus to come and pay the price not only for Adam's transgression but also for ours if we repent. This provides us the opportunity to be freed from our sins so that eternal life becomes not only tolerable but desirable.