Did God Want Adam and Eve to Eat the Fruit?

hello everyone I thought that I would spend for this Patron only video a little bit more time talking about the tree of knowledge of good and evil or as my brother loves to put it the tree of the knowledge of good and bad um you know I made several statements recently I did a video where I discussed this question about the tree of the knowledge of good and bad and I've made a few times a few statements about the church fathers about s from the Syrian St ires of Leon and how in their writing they talk about how if Adam had waited and had been humble God would have given him the fruit even though in the text in Genesis it says that um that they're forbidding from E eating the fruit and so you know for some people the church fathers saying that might be enough and they might feel like you know that's the Christian tradition that's what the the fathers believed but I understand why for some more biblically minded Christians they might think that it's a copout they might think that or even atheists or even secular types they might think that it's a cup out to say that that I'm not actually dealing with the difficulty in the text uh and in the Bible about this weird situation where God doesn't want Adam and Eve to eat the tree of the no good and evil and says that they'll die um interestingly enough interestingly enough if you pay attention soon another discussion that I had with Alex OK Conor will be out uh where we discuss this specifically but I thought before even it comes out we could look at this question and what it will do also it will help you understand the way the church fathers uh live in [Music] scripture this is Jonathan Pedro welcome to the symbolic world [Applause] [Music] and so this is difficult thing for us to understand too is that the fathers lived in scripture in a way that is very difficult for people today to understand that it wasn't just that they knew their scripture but they lived in it it was the entire frame of their being and therefore sometimes when they say something about scripture they are so imbued in the text that they don't feel like they have to refer to where it is that they're getting their their thing in the Bible because it's so obvious and so imbued in the in the uh in their frame of mind you know and it's not just scripture it really is Christian tradition but uh that's what is imbuing their mind but the if you look in scripture you'll find the traces of what it is that they're saying and so this will also be a good way for us to kind of go into the text and I'll show you how this idea that God was going to give Adam and Eve the u fruit of the knowledge of Good and Evil is actually in the Bible it's it's not just something the church fathers came up with it is them continuing the deep deep tradition uh you know of of coming out of Judaism into Christianity and completely exemplifying it in their writings at different levels for different fathers as well now the first thing to do is nonetheless to remember the text of St Ephraim the Syrian because St Ephraim is amazing the hyns on Paradise I'm telling you folks if you haven't read it yet reading the hyns on Paradise is a Masterworks in symbolic thinking and you will read it and reread it and have to pay attention to every line in it uh you know to kind of understand how powerfully s eim sets up the structure now the way that St Ephraim helps us understand the garden is that he relates it because he can see the relationship and structure between the Garden of Eden and the Tabernacle and the temple and the mountain uh all of these images of sacred spaces that are set up in scripture he sees them as basically being the same thing so when he helps you understand the Garden of Eden he's he's doing it using the Bible the structure of what a holy place is what a place where God walks where God reveals himself to man what that place looks like and therefore it's helping us understand the Garden in that way and so the way that he sets up the structure is that he says that the tree of life is the highest Tre tree it is in some ways the place of the of the Revelation itself it's at the top of the mountain and that the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil is placed in the middle of the garden and what he means by the middle of the garden is between the bottom of the mountain and the top of the mountain that's where the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil is and then the tree of life is at the very top of the mountain and so the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil becomes a veil becomes a a a like the holy place looking into the holy of holies and it becomes in some ways that Veil becomes for Adam and Eve a kind of test of humility and and of preparation in order to be able to enter into the holy of holies into the highest place and so I want to read a little part of the of the text if you want to look into it more it's hymn 3 is the hymn where all of this is happening the whole hymn is is beautiful I you know it's hard when you try to quote parts of it because if I could I would have quoted the whole thing but I don't want to spend all my time on it so all right here we go and so in hymn 3 section 10 says God established the tree as judge so that if if Adam should eat from it it might show him that rank which he had lost through his pride and show him as well that low estate he had acquired to his torment whereas if he should overcome and Conquer it would robe him in glory and reveal to him also the nature of Shame so that he might acquire by his good health an understanding of sickness a man indeed who has acquired good health in himself and is aware in his mind of what sickness is has gained something beneficial and he knows something profitable but a man who lies in sickness and knows in his mind what is good health is vexed by his sickness and tormented in his mind so then he goes he goes in and gives an example of this a little later in hymn 3 section 14 where he says in the midst of paradise God had planted the tree of knowledge to separate off above and below Sanctuary from holy of holies Adam made bold to touch and was smitten like Uzziah the king became leprous right and so it's clear what he's saying right he's saying basically it's like a veil it's like a test if Adam had been humble and not prideful then he would have received the knowledge of Good and Evil from the point of view of good the knowledge of good and bad from the point of view of bad and would have known what shame is would have known what difference is would have known what uh What uh you know let's say what a bad thing is but from the point of view of good but because he took it in Pride then he he basically it revealed his lowly rank to him and it opened up the he talks about it at other places it actually opened up the holy of holies to him and he saw the glory of God that's what happened when he took the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil it's actually what the serpent said would happen he took the the fruit and then it opened up the glory of God but the glory of God was now to him a kind of Judge it bright was too bright on him so much that he had to hide himself and then saw his shame saw his bad because he had take he had been presumptuous and tried to raise himself up when he wasn't ready to to do that all right and so now if we want to understand that this idea that God wanted Adam and Eve to receive the fruit the place to look is not in Genesis you know the Bible is an interesting text because it moves back and forth right it talks to to itself and it responds to itself now the place we need to look at in order to know that God wanted Adam and Eve to eat the knowledge of the the fruit of the knowledge good and evil is actually in the story of Solomon now in the story of Solomon there are two versions of the story now the one that is important to us at the outset is the one that's told in First Kings now First Kings 3 1 to 15 let's look at this so at gibian the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in during the night in a dream and God said ask for forever for whatever you want me to give you Solomon answered you have shown great kindness to your servant My Father David because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart you have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day now my Lord you have made your servant King in I've made your servant King in place of my father David but I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties your servant is here among the people you have chosen a great people too numerous to count or number so give your servant a Discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong between good and evil between good and bad that's what he's saying for who is able to govern this great people of yours the Lord was pleased that Solomon asked for this so God said to him since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administrating Justice I will do what you have asked I will give you a wise and Discerning heart so that there will never have been anyone like you nor will there ever be morever I will give you what you have not asked for both wealth and honor so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among Kings etc etc etc all right and so what's interesting in this text is that you know St erus L Leon that's how he presents Adam and Eve he presents his children he says they are children in the garden and they have to learn they have to be trained they have to become more than what they are in order to attain their purpose which is to be United to God which is actually to become God through participation to become what Christ was given what Christ you know was incarnate into that was the Taos of man that's what the Taos of what of what God wants for Adam and Eve and so what's interesting here is that this is the way that Solomon presents it Solomon presents it and saying he humbles himself he says I am but a child so if Adam and Eve had recognized recognized that they were but children had recognized their humility had not been prideful and arrogant in trying to take for themselves that which was not with that for not for that that for which they were not ready then the result would have been different and we see that the result is different because that's exactly what Solomon asked for Solomon asks God to give him what Adam and Eve took in the garden and not only does God give him that he says this is the greatest thing you could have asked for it is the it is the the the greatest thing you could have asked for and therefore I will give it to you and not only will I give it to you but because that is what you ask for then I will give you wealth and honor and everything else uh on top of that okay so then what is the difference like what is the difference uh between receiving the knowledge of Good and Evil and being inappropriate or receiving the knowledge of Good and Evil in an appropriate way now the of course the difficulty in this and I want I want always to remind you that you know it's difficult when we talk about these things because we kind of fall in theological language and we have a sense in which it's like we think we understand understand it because I you know I'll tell you this and then you'll say oh I get it you know it's like okay they took the fruit they shouldn't have taken it you know and it's the knowledge of Good and Evil then they have this thing they know you know they're in goodness and then now they know shame instead of being in shame and knowing goodness and it's like it makes kind of it makes sense right we we think we know it but we have to be cautious to not think we understand it until we understand it and the best way to understand it is that the scripture is actually talking about reality and therefore we always have to be able to see the fractal representation of what it is the scriptures talking about now this of course is what's amazing about Matthew's book about about his language of creation which is that he's able to help you see the structure so that you can apply it at almost anything and that it makes sense now this is of course um a place where we specifically have to do that because in some ways it is at the very origin of understanding the Rel relationship between wisdom and knowledge for example um and understanding how it applies to our life in general so what uh one of the keys to understand it is actually to look at the other text that King the other place in the Bible where King Solomon asks something from God now and we're not going to go through it again because I don't want to spend so much time like reading the Bible but you can look at it for yourself it is in 2 Chronicles uh chapter 1 and in that version what Solomon asks for is wisdom and knowledge that's what he asked for he says he he asked for wisdom and knowledge instead he doesn't just ask for knowledge of Good and Evil now what's interesting in the one that we did read is that God says you ask for knowledge of Good and Evil and then I'll give you wisdom I'll give you a wise heart for discernment and this is of course all of that is tricky because in the in Genesis as well when Eve sees the fruit she says that it's good for wisdom and then for the knowledge of Good and Evil and all of that is true right it's like this is the key like of kind of understanding in some ways what it what is the what is the what is being played with in terms of of understanding and it is in some ways the difference between the knowledge of Good and Evil and wisdom now wisdom you know we we we think of wisdom often as something like applied applied knowledge but the best way to understand wisdom is to understand the reason for knowledge is to understand what is the reason for the knowledge of Good and Evil like what is the purpose right and so it's not just that it's applied in the sense applied to Everyday to Everyday uh life but that it is in some ways higher because it is because knowledge of Good and Evil is something that it's like you could just know what good and bad is is you don't understand why you don't understand the purpose of good and bad you don't understand the higher thing that unites them together you could say and therefore uh it can lead you to a whole lot of mess which is what we see in the story of Adam and Eve but the idea that ultimately what you need is wisdom that anchors the knowledge of Good and Evil that's the good way that's the best way of understanding it and so what I want to do with you is I want to look at some examples hopefully as close in everyday life to kind of understand what it is you know what the problem is of trying to gain the knowledge of Good and Evil without the proper alignment without the proper or like receiving it from Heaven receiving it from purpose is maybe a good way of understanding it at a lower level is that unless you receive the knowledge of Good and Evil from the higher reason from the purpose for which you're doing something then it will lead you into a lot of mess now an example in the Bible of this is is the grumbling we call the grumbling in the desert right and so the Israelites are in the desert God is leading them to the promised land but they don't seem to totally know that they don't they can't see beyond their struggle they can't see beyond their their lower struggles so they see they don't have enough food they don't have enough water they don't have enough of the the Comfort stuff that they used to have back in their slave days in Egypt and because they for they can't remember they can't see beyond their duality of good and bad at the lower level they can't see the purpose of why it is that maybe they're struggle they don't have as much as they did in Egypt because they're aiming towards a higher reality then they have the knowledge of Good and Evil you know quote unquote without wisdom and then they then they Grumble because they can see good and bad oh yeah because they're hungry because they're thirsty because they're suffering and they have all of this problem but because they are not able they don't have the wisdom to be able to see be what it is that God is doing for them then their situation becomes unbearable it becomes a kind of complaining and a grumbling in the desert that's one aspect of understanding the the problem right of the of the knowledge of Good and Evil that is taken without proper alignment without the proper alignment towards a higher reality because then it creates this issue where it is you're suffering but you don't know why you're suffering and therefore because you don't know why you're suffering or you don't or because you you can see good and bad at the at the lower the lower aspects then you can't really align yourself properly of you know there are many examples of that one of the ones I've used before but I think is just one of the the best example is in Karate Kid now for those who don't know in Karate Kid there's a Sensei Mr Miyagi who teaches karate and he tells this young boy I'll teach you karate right H but when the young boy starts his training Mr Miyagi it just says all right now go paint my fence and then he goes and he Paints the fence all day and then the next day he comes back and he says now go wax my cars and he's and he shows them how to do it very particular way of waxing the cars putting the wax on rubbing the wax off and and and he I think there's three like he tells him to do these chores that are and and so Karate Kid The Karate Kid is stuck in a situation where he's doing a bunch of things and he can see that it's hurts and it's frustrating but he doesn't know why he's doing them because he doesn't know why he's doing it he's stuck in the problem of the knowledge of Good and Evil without being able to see beyond it without being able to see the the the wisdom the application right the the orientation of what it is that he's doing and and so now he's stuck in the problem of of of of uh and then Mr Miyagi at some point reveals to him right the purpose of what he's doing and and what it does is it aligns him right as soon as M Miyagi says okay now I'll show you how the things you're doing painting the fence you know waxing the cars is going is going to help you in the purpose that I've set for you and then it kind of realigns him properly okay um and so this is of course weighs in to kind of understand how the knowledge of Good and Evil and the higher aspect of it how they are connected together now in in the in the story of St Ephraim you know he talks about Uzziah and he says Uzziah is a man in in the story of King David who the priests are carrying the Ark of the Covenant and then they slip and the Ark of the Covenant starts to fall then Uzziah goes up and then he tries to stop the Ark from falling and he touches the ark and he falls dead and the idea in the text is that in some ways he didn't he how can I say this like he did it impetuously because that wasn't his role and he wasn't a priest he wasn't in the right place to touch the holy thing and therefore the holy thing for him became a kind of harsh judgment and a painful judgment that brought him down and so there's another another way of seeing it another way into understanding the relationship between the knowledge of Good and Evil and the higher truth or the higher mystery that joins them together and makes them properly um is in understanding something like the Dunning Krueger effect right A lot of people are talking about the Dunning Krueger effect right now which is the the tendency for people to overestimate their capacity all right uh and so it's a different Tack and in some ways it seems it might seem unrelated but this is the more prideful element of the grabbing of the knowledge of good and bad for yourself when you're not ready for it which is the idea of thinking you can do something when you're not ready for it and kind of claiming that for yourself and then as soon as that happens right you become a slave of good and bad good and bad wrecks you right good and bad does not can I say this like s from says it's not like you are in a place of good and you can see how things could go wrong or how things could be off no no no now the good and bad just totally destroys you um a little example of that that I've lived in my life and you know it's just funny because it's my son you know I love my son he's an amazing uh boy but when he was young we brought him one time to join a soccer team I he was super young he was like seven years old I don't remember seven or eight years old and he wanted to play soccer he was really excited about it and he just wanted to play soccer but he never really played soccer for a soccer team and then he went to the soccer practice uh and the coach said okay you know I think it's like their goalie wasn't there and so he asked the team he said we need a goalie uh who wants to be the goalie and my son said I'm going to be the goalie and the and the you know everybody was like well have you been a goalie before he's like I'm amazing I'm really good I'm the best like I'm really good at being a goalie I mean he was super young and he thought that he could do it like he was sure that he could be the goalie uh and and and so he was so confident that he convinced the coach right to put him as goalie and then what happened right then the light of the glory of soccer Shone down on him in a way that he was not ready for that exposed his shame right exactly like in the Garden of Eden it exposed his shame instead of being a vehicle for his glory right if he had been ready for that if he had been ready to become goalie if he had practiced if he had done everything needed and then at that moment right the coach had recognized him as being ready to become a goalie and had given that to him from above and would have said oh I see you're good like I've been watching you practice I've been seeing what you're doing I'm going to take you from below right like Christ says sit in the back so that people can ask you to come to the front right he would have said now you come into my glory come into the glory of of of sakur and I'll put you as goalie and now you will and now the knowledge of Good and Evil will be a garment of Glory for you and you will become you know a shining Soccer Star but instead he my son was like I can do this like I'm the so you know I'm I'm really good at playing soccer I'm really good at being a goalie when he had never done it before so they put him in the goal and he was humiliated like humil it in a way that was so sad to watch you know he just baled and cried and you know you know we had to comfort him obviously you know and and it was so difficult for him to go through that it was one of those things that we've all been through that I remember his story I probably have a hundred stories like that from when I was young or in my life when i' when I've been cocky and thought that I could do something and play myself in in a situation like that but this just the one story that I remember and what it can help you understand is just to what extent the these stories right the stories in the Bible the story of the knowledge of the of good and evil or good and bad uh and it's you know the idea of the right taking that in the right way or entering into the knowledge of good and bad with the right attitude in humility and receiving it from above will bring you into the holy of holies will bring you into the glory of the thing that you're participating in uh whether it is whe whether it is ultimately your spiritual life and God or whether it is playing soccer or whatever or whatever you're engaged with and so hopefully that was useful kind of help you understand what it is that these texts are talking about and uh and everyone thank you for your support as usual I really appreciate everything that you know that you're willing to support what I'm doing and that you take it seriously it's uh it's very I appreciate it EV every day uh gives me great joy that I have the chance to do this and so thanks a lot we have a lot coming very soon we're going to announce all the new courses we've got so much stuff coming coming up we just finished all the art for God's dog it's really great we're finishing up Jack Jack and the uh the beans sock Jack and the Fallen Giants uh so there's so much stuff going up and your support definitely makes it possible for my for me to free myself up to be able to do all those things so thanks everyone and uh talk to you soon bye bye