Adam & Eve, and the Doctrine of the Fall

After reading a couple of posts by Maverick Philosopher here, as well as here, I began to think about what the story of Adam and Eve and 'The Fall' means. 


A bit of a problem was pointed out by a guest-poster on the site, where he noted in the first link why he has problem with the doctrine of sin, and subsequently the doctrine of submission. He believes in classical theism, we submit ourselves to divine authority, seeking his forgiveness, because we have sinned. But he feels the doctrine of sin rests on shaky ground, namely, the story of Adam and Eve. Now, I think this is a bit of a slippery slope. Even if one is to interpret the story of Adam and Eve in a way that they find inconsistent, it does not follow that we have not ourselves sinned, and are thus not needing to submit. There would be many reasons to submit to divine authority, not simply for seeking his forgiveness. Nevertheless, what he pointed out got me thinking.


In Genesis 2: 17, the Lord tells Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In subsequent verses, Eve is tempted by the serpent, eats from the tree, shares it with Adam, and they are both punished by God. The interesting thing is this: Did Adam and Eve have knowledge of Good and Evil before they ate from the Tree? To put it bluntly - if Adam and Eve did not know what they were doing, was it just for God to punish them? The following pentad is presented:


1. If God punishes, God punishes justly.
2. If God punishes an agent justly, then that agent is a moral agent that deliberately does something wrong.
3. A moral agent possesses the knowledge of good and evil.
4. God punishes Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden fruit.
5. Adam and Eve did not possess the knowledge of good and evil prior to eating the forbidden fruit.

From this, we have to reject one of the limbs of this argument in order to make it valid. We can't have all five. Which one would you attack? (1) and (4) seem out of the question right off the bat. 

Maybe it's helpful to examine what exactly the story of Adam and Eve tells us. Was God just in punishing Adam and Eve? I would say yes, because He told them deliberately not to eat from the Tree. Now, the only way this means anything is if Adam and Eve are able to understand that disobeying this would be wrong, or sin. Clearly we think this, because Eve recognizes that she should not eat from the Tree, and see's it as wrong. So I would reject (5) as the obvious limb that goes away - Adam and Eve must have had knowledge of good and evil prior to eating from the Tree.

The tough question, I guess, is why call it the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? If they had the knowledge beforehand that what they were doing was in fact a sin, then they did not acquire this knowledge from eating from the Tree. But if we deny this, then it would seem God punished Adam and Eve unjustly, since they knew not what they did.

Another interpretation is that Man was not Man, but simply an animal before he ate from the tree. In this sense, eating from the Tree allowed man to shrug off his animal innocence and become Man. In this type of interpretation, we are sort of side-stepping the above five options, and saying that Man wasn't a moral being until eating from the Tree. However this creates all sorts of problems, namely we would now say that Man made himself in God's image. Man took the action that made him an image bearer, which creates much deeper problems.

The story of Adam and Eve, and the Fall, has meaning when applied to each of our lives. I often think of the innocence of a child when I think of this story. In a sense, Adam and Eve were like children before the Fall, oblivious to their nakedness and innocence. Up until a certain age as children, we are also shameless. Despite having a knowledge of good and evil, we have yet to act in a way that we deliberately disobey someone, knowing full well that we are doing wrong. This is what Adam and Eve did, and by doing this, they introduced sin into their relationship with God, in the same way we do when we sin before God.

The question, to me, is why exactly is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil given that name? I'd appreciate comments as to your own interpretation of the Fall, and how you feel about this story.