Good and Evil
- Jeff Kent
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
From where does the knowledge of good and evil originate? Human beings have that sense that certain things are just “wrong.” The person who believes in the spontaneous generation of life (life just sprang from non-life) has no legitimate answer to this question. The only way for there to be something which can be called evil is for there to be something which can be objectively called good. That “something” is none other than a holy God. The atheistic evolutionist’s world in which man is nothing but elements, enzymes and electro-chemical reactions has no standard to judge good and evil. Things just exist. People just are.
Adam and Eve were forbidden by God to eat of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Before they disobeyed, the first pair knew only good. They did not know what evil was nor had they experienced it. They lived in a paradise with God. They didn’t know how “good” they had it! Then everything changed. Enter the serpent.
One of the devil’s lines in his temptation was that “in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Eve considered “that the tree was desirable to make one wise.” She thought that knowing good and evil was a good thing, and so Eve ate. While they were munching away, the knowledge that they had disobeyed God sunk in. They got what they wanted. They tried to cover themselves and hide from God.
It got worse. God acts, and they begin to experience the consequences of their evil deed. The woman’s pain in childbirth will be multiplied. The ground is cursed with weeds so Adam will now toil and sweat to have food. They are driven from the Garden away from the tree of life and out of fellowship with God. In a few years, their older son murders their younger one. They now understand the concept of “good and evil” and have experienced both.
Today, humanity still lives with the consequences of their actions and will do so until the end of all things. Praise God, however, that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). Someday, evil will be no more.
><> Jeff