‘THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE’

12. What prospect did Adam and Eve have, according to Genesis 2:17?

¹² God had told Adam that he could eat freely of every tree of the garden except for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. (Genesis 2:17) Everlasting life was set before this couple and their offspring, conditioned only on their obedience. It would be a disgrace upon God’s entire family in heaven and on earth for Adam to be so disrespectful as to disobey God.

¹⁶ The Bible indicates that the tree was real, speaking of it as one among the fruit trees of the garden. (Genesis 2:9) What was the “knowledge” that the tree represented? The Catholic Jerusalem Bible makes a pertinent comment, in a footnote on Genesis 2:17:

17. According to a footnote in the Catholic Jerusalem Bible, what was the “knowledge” that the tree stood for?

¹⁷ “This knowledge is a privilege which God reserves to himself and which man, by sinning, is to lay hands on, [Genesis] 3:5, 22. Hence it does not mean omniscience, which fallen man does not possess; nor is it moral discrimination, for unfallen man already had it and God could not refuse it to a rational being. It is the power of deciding for himself what is good and what is evil and of acting accordingly, a claim to complete moral independence by which man refuses to recognise his status as a created being. The first sin was an attack on God’s sovereignty, a sin of pride.”

18. (a) Of what was the tree symbolic? (b) For a perfect man to sin by eating of the ‘tree of knowledge’ what decision would he first make?

¹⁸ The tree was, in effect, symbolic of the boundary​—the line of demarcation—​or the limit of man’s proper domain. It was right and proper, yes, essential, that God inform Adam of that boundary. For a perfect man to eat of that tree would require the deliberate assent of his will. It would indicate the determination made beforehand that he would withdraw himself from subjection to God’s rulership, to go out on his own, doing what was “good” or “bad” according to his own decisions.