GENESIS 4:11-12 - Curses: How Fair?

“'Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.'”

FYI: I'm writing this post months following my original analysis of the verses which it's linked to (prompted by questions arising from reading about Cain's curse in Genesis 4:11-12).

Curses: How Fair?

Before addressing the specifics of the curse that God places upon Adam & Eve - which have been subsequently passed onto us - a more basic question I needed answered was the fairness of a hereditary curse in the first place. I can easily grasp the logic of punishing Adam for his sins, but how is it fair to disadvantage me (via a meddled-with-hand-me-down body and mind which has been perverted over the ages) for that?

So I decided to play a little make believe: imagine we had the benefit of being born with un-cursed flawless minds and bodies as God intended. We're now all equally free from internal flaws. But wait, those born in say, war-torn Africa, are still at a disadvantage from external influences. Fair enough, we'll transport our equally perfect bodies to equally perfect environments. We now have what is effectively Eden - and isn't that what we've been getting at all along? Let's continue and say that for every man, an identical but separate Eden is created, so alongside Adam on Earth A, God creates Mike on Earth B. On Earth A, well, we know how that turns out, but on Earth B, Mike's wife manages to resist Satan's temptations, warns Mike, and as a result they live happily ever after. An outside observer could still argue that Mike had it easier than Adam by virtue of his wife making the better decision and thus not "weighing the odds against his own free choice". Very well, we'll remove the last potentially "unfair" variable available: other people.

Success! At last, a universe in which we, oh wait, I mean you, can live and make your own decisions, removed from the dangers of other "unpredictable" people who might tilt the scales against you; it's the truly fair universe you've always wanted: sterile, surgically-controlled, and completely alone.

Admittedly, none of this haphazard reasoning got me any closer to an answer of my original question, but more importantly helped me bridge the gap between the seemingly contradictory ideas of a hereditary curse and God's absolute fairness.

C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity: Morality and Psychoanalysis

The bad […] material is not a sin but a disease. […] And by the way, that is very important. Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges them by their moral choices. […] When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing, does some tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty […] he may, in God's eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend.

[…] It is as well to put this the other way round. Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends. Can we be quite certain how we should have behaved if we had been saddled with the psychological outfit, and then with the bad upbringing, and then with the power, say, of Himmler? That is why Christians are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man's choices make out of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it. Most of the man's psychological makeup is probably due to his body: when his body dies all that will fall off him, and the real central man, the thing that chose, that made the best or the worst out of this material, will stand naked. All sorts of nice things which we thought our own, but which were really due to a good digestion, will fall off some of us : all sorts of nasty things which were due to complexes or bad health will fall off others. We shall then, for the first time, see every one as he really was. There will be surprises.

C.S. Lewis - The Problem of Pain (p. 65)

It would, no doubt, have been possible for God to remove by miracle the results of the first sin committed by a human being; but this would not have been much good unless He was prepared to remove the results of the second sin, and of the third, and so on forever. If the miracles ceased, then sooner or later we might have reached our present lamentable situation: if they did not, then a world, thus continually underpropped by Divine interference, would have been a world in which nothing important ever depended on human choice, and in which choice itself would soon cease

Partiality, in the sense that objectors commonly use the word, is impossible in the sphere of grace. It can exist only in the sphere of justice, where the persons concerned have certain claims and rights. -Loraine Boettner

If by “fair” we insist on meaning that God be absolutely equitable in how He relates to, or gifts, every individual, then we end up with what may amount to an impossible criteria for even an omnipotent God. No two individuals - not even clones - could ever be given the exact same gifts and circumstances in life.
-Is God Biased?

(back to Genesis 4)

Human Rights Without God?

An article I read awhile back that I recently came across again. For me personally, it's one of the strongest arguments against atheism. The underlined sections below were put in by me for my own benefit. From the Chosunjournal by whatistoknow (originally posted July 18, 2001):

"If there is no God, everything is permissible." -Fyodor Dostoevsky

Let me first say how much I admire the zeal and courage of all the non-Christian human rights activists many of whom have no other relationship with N. Koreans except their shared humanity.

Having said that, let me also assert that I do not believe that the idea of human rights can cohere apart from a belief in God. The concept of 'human rights' itself is a secular attempt to derive the benefits sprung from the Judeo-Christian notion of human beings being made in the image of God. But since this humanistic effort ultimately fails, as I will try to show in this essay, I reject as a false dichotomy that The Chosun Journal or anyone else for that matter can promote basic human dignity for North Koreans apart from appealing to a standard established by God.

Recently Milosevich stood up to the judges in the Hague and defiantly lambasted, 'Who are you to judge me for violating human rights? This is an illegitimate proceeding and I do not accept its authority over me.' The judges sat there speechless. Of course they did. How else could they respond except for 'We won the war, you lost. That makes us morally right and you wrong.' Without a transcendent standard to appeal to, that's all morality can become, 'Might makes right.'

But the problem is the mighty are not always right. Take for example the recent revelation that a popular U.S. senator had killed more than a dozen women and children during the Vietnam war. Not only has Sen. Kerry not been prosecuted as a war criminal, the Bronze star he received for this action (albeit the atrocity was concealed at the time the award was given) has yet to be revoked.

But what about appealing to the universal declaration of human rights, or in short, 'Majority rules' morality? Well how does one measure the rules of the majority apart from appealing to rules that are not manipulated by politics or bound by the mores of a certain age?

Recently Sudan replaced the US on the UN human rights committee. The human rights community was shocked and felt an earthquake shaking under their foundations. A beacon of light had been taken over by a slave-trading nation. But they should not have been surprised. For man-made declarations are as reliable as the capriciousness of their authors. Charters and the like are always amended, deleted, or simply rewritten depending on who's in or who's out or what's in vogue at the time.

But significantly, this is not the case with the Bible whose Author is purportedly without change and whose pages have not been revised since their original authorship over 3,200 years ago for the Old Testament and over 1,900 years ago for the New Testament. Archaeological proof of the unchanging continuity of the earliest manuscripts compared with the versions we read now attests to this fact and attests to its unhuman-like (divine?) quality.

My question to the human rights activists who are not guided by the God revealed to humanity through the Bible is this: What moral compass guides you if not the eternal one? Your trustworthy hunch? Were not all the major atrocities committed by people who operated by their own sense of right and wrong? Didn't the defendants at the Nuremburg War Crimes trials offer plea after plea, 'My conscience is clear'? What makes your instincts more trustworthy than theirs?

If we've learned anything from this past bloody century rooted in optimistic philosophies of human nature, it is that man cannot be trusted. Man is selfish, narrow-minded, and apathetic. A few tyrants are not the only ones to blame for history's horrors. The blood of millions is also on the hands of the billions who have stood by in their self-imposed ignorance and rational self-interest while their neighbors get raped or hacked to pieces or gassed.

Man has been far more content in building memorials than in preventing atrocities. Sin of omission is just as wretched as sin of commission and we are all guilty of it and in need of salvation from it. How many Holocausts, gulags, killing fields, Rwandan massacres, Japanese rape camps, and deported N. Korean refugees do people need until they finally begin to yearn for the redemption of that human nature which makes people stand idly by allowing all of these horrors to occur?

I am not a believer by choice but by necessity. If there were any other way to promote human dignity and respect for one another besides by promoting monotheistic ethics, I quite honestly might accept it. But history has taught me otherwise. The rescuers in the Holocaust with few exceptions were people morally enabled by the Bible to transcend the 'majority rules' morality of their time. Read Martin Luther King Jr.'s powerful Letter from a Birmingham Jail, and again one sees the necessity of appealing to a transcendent unchanging moral standard to give one the authority not only to battle a racist society but to confront fallen human nature itself.

Of course this is not to say that there are no good atheists. Some prominent N. Korean human rights activists easily show the contrary. But how do they measure let alone promote moral progress? By relying upon the principle of might makes right? Or a changing declaration? Or a politically manipulated UN? Or fickle popular world opinion? Moral progress by definition requires a universal, unchanging, shiftless, non-contradicting standard which any person can rely on to know if he is headed in the right direction or not. Nothing man-made (or even polytheistically made) could meet these requirements.

The unique gift of the Jews to the world is a book that reveals the coherent principle of moral progress rooted in the idea of one moral transcendent standard set by one Supreme Being that does not change or contradict itself over time, political trends, or mood swings because He does not change or contradict Himself as people or 'the gods' have been prone to do.

Only this monotheistic Lawgiver could give the philosophical and emotional support for the moral progress we have already seen in history led by those with the Bible in hand and heart: the end of ritual infanticide, the abolition of slavery in much of the world, the promotion of universal education and gender equality, and the establishment of hospitals, all before they became politically correct, are just a few examples.

No doubt many will cry out, "Inquisition!" or "Crusades!" But again, what standard are you using to judge these as evil? Believers can condemn them as utter hypocrisy in violation of the fundamental law of God, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' But what authority do atheists appeal to in their condemnation that does not fall into the trappings I've outlined above?

Nevertheless I cannot blame people today for their misgivings of my proposal that N. Korea should adopt Christian principles as its moral foundation. All they have to base their opinions on is the secularized Christianity we have today. But even today God has His remnant which has refused to bend the knee to Baal. The hundreds of believers who rescued Jews are good examples. So is Christian Solidarity which had led the fight against slavery in Sudan before it became politically correct. So are several of the Korean missionaries in China now.

You may point to the complicity of the Roman Catholic Church in Nazi Germany or to the silence of several white churches in segregated America, but these are powerful examples for why we need the Church to be more like Christ rather than more like society. I'm a firm believer of the separation of Church and state for this very reason. God forbid we have a secularized church! But the world be damned if the state is not informed, guided, and kept in check by a healthy Church.

Therefore, I reject as a false dichotomy that The Chosun Journal can advocate for the human rights of North Koreans apart from advocating for a coherent standard by which such rights can be affirmed and promoted. If North Korea could enter an age where a majority of their citizens picked up the Bible and followed its decrees, as there was a time in a morally progressive America in which that was the case, the North Korean people will be far more assured of obtaining the basic freedoms that God had intended for them to enjoy than reliance upon any man-centered ideas.

Psalm 146

Praise the LORD. Praise the LORD, O my soul.
I will praise the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them-- the LORD, who remains faithful forever.

He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets prisoners free, the LORD gives sight to the blind,
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down, the LORD loves the righteous. The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

The LORD reigns forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the LORD.

GENESIS 4:7 - The Need to Master Sin

“If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

The Need to Master Sin

All too often I find myself subconsciously treating sin like it's simply an inevitable byproduct of being a fallen creature rather than a conspiring entity "crouching at the door" that I must constantly battle.

This trickles downwards and manifests itself in the idea that so long as I'm sincere in my remorseful request for forgiveness, then the matter is resolved and I can move onto more active and important Christian duties - that God probably cares more about anyways - like Bible study, prayer, apologetics etc. On the contrary however, this verse is unmistakably clear when it comes to what God wants us to do: master it!

Short-Sightedness

It's easy to see the affects of murder but much harder to wrap our temporal minds around the harm of say, an impure thought, unless we consider it in the larger scope of its slippery degenerative effects, as the thought-provoking article What Sin Is & What Sin Does states: "Each sin makes the next one a bit easier. Over time, the conduct will become entirely acceptable, and we will sin without a qualm. Sin is addictive like a drug. As the addiction becomes stronger, the ideal depreciates until it is completely gone." After reading this I realized the sad truth of this statement as I reflected on the profound difference between how seriously I used to treat some sins which I can now barely blink an eye over.

A Losing Battle

We're told to battle against sin, but are then told that it's a battle we're bound to lose, now and for the rest of our lives. Is it any wonder we end up with blasé attitudes towards prevention and instead concentrate instead on forgiveness? C.S. Lewis offers great insight and encouragement on this matter in Mere Christianity (using the example of chastity):

"[...] many people are deterred from seriously attempting Christian chastity because they think (before trying) that it is impossible. But when a thing has to be attempted, one must never think about possibility or impossibility. Faced with an optional question in an examination paper, one considers whether one can do it or not: faced with a compulsory question. one must do the best one can. You may get some marks for a very imperfect answer: you will certainly get none for leaving the question alone. Not only in examinations but in war, in mountain climbing, in learning to skate, or swim, or ride a bicycle, even in fastening a stiff collar with cold fingers, people quite often do what seemed impossible before they did it. It is wonderful what you can do when you have to.

We may, indeed, be sure that perfect chastity - like perfect charity - will not be attained by any merely human efforts. You must ask for God's help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection."

(back to Genesis 4)

GENESIS 3:21,23-24 - God's Hidden Compassions

The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.

[...] therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.

God's Hidden Compassions

When we talk about the fall, the focus is usually on how we're screw-ups, we're full of sin, and how God had to kick us out and make sure we stayed out. Pretty depressing stuff that we think makes God look like nothing but a judge, a righteous one perhaps, but also cold.

Despite Genesis being written in a pretty brief only-what-you-need-to-know style, there's a surprising amount of compassion scattered throughout these chapters.

Verse 7 states that Adam & Eve had sewn themselves coverings after their fall, and yet in verse 21 God goes ahead and clothes them in additional garments of skin. And while on the surface, verse 7 might seem to take away from God's act of mercy, I find it actually enhances it: this was not a simple case of God providing bare necessities that Adam & Eve wouldn't have been able to obtain otherwise (unlike say, providing manna to the Israelites in the desert who would have otherwise starved). It would be like a homeowner who discovers a tenant of his has been stealing from him and must be evicted, in the dead of winter. In one case, the tenant doesn't own a jacket and so the owner provides him with a ratty old one that certainly isn't the warmest thing but will suffice to keep him alive. In the other case, the tenant already owns that ratty jacket, he'll be fine, and yet the owner, in his compassion, runs after the man and offers him his own warm winter jacket. Maybe I'm reading into verse 21 too much but that's how I see it.

And as for the implicit compassion contained within verses 23-24:

"He might justly have chased him out of the world (Job 18:18), but he only chased him out of the garden. He might justly have cast him down to hell, as he did the angels that sinned when he shut them out from the heavenly paradise, 2 Pt. 2:4 ("For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment..."). But man was only sent to till the ground out of which he was taken. He was sent to a place of toil, not to a place of torment. He was sent to the ground, not to the grave, to the workhouse, not to the dungeon, not to the prison-house,- to hold the plough, not to drag the chain. His tilling the ground would be recompensed by his eating of its fruits; and his converse with the earth whence he was taken was improvable to good purposes, to keep him humble, and to remind him of his latter end. Observe, then, that though our first parents were excluded from the privileges of their state of innocency, yet they were not abandoned to despair, God's thoughts of love designing them for a second state of probation upon new terms.

[...] The command of that covenant being broken, the curse of it is in full force; it leaves no room for repentance, but we are all undone if we be judged by that covenant. God revealed this to Adam, not to drive him to despair, but to oblige and quicken him to look for life and happiness in the promised seed."

(Matthew Henry's Bible Commentary)

The cursed world in which we were "abandoned" to is in many ways a blessing in itself (something Pastor Dan mentioned to me in conversation) as it makes us realize that something is not right, things are not the way they should be...

"The reason why it can never succeed is this. God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. [...] God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing." (C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity)

EDIT (2008/10/28)

While I still like this interpretation, I should point out my later entry on Genesis 4:3-6 (Why Did God Reject Cain's Offering?) which interprets these events with a much more negative slant. Not sure if these interpretations can co-exist or not...

(back to Genesis 3)

GENESIS 3:11 - Why the Tree? Can God Tempt?

And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

Why the Tree? Does God Tempt?

Why did God even bother making the tree of knowledge? In a perfect world such as Eden, it seems to serve no purpose except to actually tempt Adam & Eve to disobey which doesn't seem like something a righteous God would/should do.

Free will: The majority of the answer's that I read talk about how the tree needed to be there in order to give Adam & Eve a choice to obey God rather than do things their own way. And if you look at the significance of the name of the tree, it's not the "tree of knowledge" or "tree of good and evil", but the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil". Were Adam & Eve incapable of distinguishing between good and evil before the tree incident? This statement seems like it would fall in line with my previous post about how they gained this level of consciousness following the fall.

So while God placing the tree there seems initially to me like a rather devious sort of thing to do, upon further examination it's ironically a very loving thing to do as it gave us the possibility of free will (that we screwed it up is besides the point I think). This makes sense to me although it's still an answer I'm admittedly somewhat uneasy with and it led to ponder the broader question of...

Can God Tempt?

If you're working with a perfect loving God, the answer obviously has to be an emphatic 'no': "for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone." (James 1:13) OK, but then how do you explain verses like the one where God tells Abraham to kill Isaac in Genesis 22:1? Heck, many of the translations themselves use the phrase "God tempted Abraham...". Is this a contradiction?

Thankfully, I found an article entitled Does God Tempt Man or Not? Which helped to explain that much of the confusion has to do with the interpretation of the word used for "tempt".

"The original terms, rendered “tempt” in the KJV, are from nasah (Hebrew) [...] The Hebrew nasah can denote putting something to the test, proving it. Observe, for instance, that David refused to use Saul’s armor in his conflict with Goliath since he had not “proved” those implements (1 Samuel 17:39). Again, note how those Hebrew lads in Babylonian captivity challenged Nebuchadnezzar to “prove” them with a ten-day diet test [...] It is in this sense that Moses employed nasah of Jehovah’s action towards Abraham. The Lord put Abraham to the test in order to develop trust in the patriarch, and to demonstrate that Heaven’s promise concerning the Messianic seed was unfailing (cf. Hebrews 11:17-19). [...]

James suggests that the Christian ought to rejoice when he falls into manifold “temptations” (James 1:2). Clearly, “enticement to evil” is not in view here. Rather, the inspired writer speaks of “various trials” (NKJV ), i.e., the tests that come to the Christian as a consequence of his godly living. In these one is to rejoice, knowing that the “proving” (dokimion) of his faith works patience (James 1:3). When properly understood, there is no conflict between Genesis 22:1 and James 1:3.

I like how this initially negative thought of mine can still be positively spun. Having had a rough few months myself lately and find myself quite often angry at God, it would be helpful for me to remember such things: that God is more glorified by you praising and obeying Him in hard times than when everything is going gloriously in your life, that any suspected spiritual attack you might be experiencing can be a reason for rejoicing as it's a consequence of improving, of living a more Godly lifestyle, after all, Satan has no reason to bug the person who's happily living in immorality.

(back to Genesis 3)

C.S. Lewis on Pride = There Will Be Blood

I am a huge fan of C.S. Lewis; reading Mere Christianity was one of the turning points of my spiritual life and of all the chapters in that book, the most revelatory one to me was his chapter on "the great sin":

"There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves [...] the vice I am talking of is Pride".

I am also a huge fan of film, and while I keep separate blogs for my film-related thoughts and my Bible/Christian ones, this is one of those occasions where I feel justified in putting a film recommendation here. Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood is the greatest illustration of pride that I have ever seen committed to celluloid. It also happens to be one of the best films I have seen in a very long time and one that has stuck with me even weeks after seeing it - twice! (update: three times)

So despite film recommendations from cinephiles being a dime-a-dozen I'll still go ahead and say that I think this is a must see for any Christian and particularly those who think that the movies have nothing to offer but immoral entertainment. There Will Be Blood is likely one of the most powerful, intelligent and spiritually reflective films I have ever seen in my life. Go and watch it! And even if you've already seen it and didn't feel like you quite "got it", sit yourself down, read Lewis' chapter on pride, then go and watch it again!

(and if you're looking for someone to watch it with, I'm sure I'd be up for another viewing, and another, and another...)

GENESIS 2:9 - Forgotten Tree of Life, Pride

Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Forgotten Tree of Life

Wow. I can't believe that despite having grown up in the church and knowing all the basic Bible stories front-to-back - or so I thought - I had totally forgotten that the tree of life even existed! I suppose this isn't much of a surprise considering how the entire fall deals mostly with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Or so it seems...

Significant?: The tree of life really only gets two mentions, both of which are tangential to the "story" of Eden and the fall, but of course the Bible is so much more than a narrative and from that perspective it becomes clear how important the tree is even from these two sparse mentions: 1) It's the only other thing given special mention in this verse alongside the soon-to-be-infamous "sin" tree, which must mean something. 2) Later on in Genesis 3:24 when God bars Adam & Eve from Eden, it doesn't say he's doing it to protect the nice plants, furry animals, or flowing rivers within, but specifically "...to guard the way to the tree of life."

Guard the tree of life? There's no mention of them ever having any interest in it in the first place. Ah, and therein lies the rub... (following quotes are all from this brilliant must-read article from Christian Faith)

If he had eaten of the Tree of Life, he would never have been interested in the forbidden tree. But having NEGLECTED the tree of life, it was really only a matter of time before he would fall to the temptation of eating the forbidden fruit.

A lot of times we get into trouble because we focus on the forbidden thing. We fight with temptation, and lose, because we focus on the temptation. God wants us to get our eyes off the temptation, and even off the moral rules of what would be right and wrong, so we can get our eyes onto what He is wanting us to focus on. We inevitably move towards our most dominant thought.

Sin in some form will always look attractive to us unless we get a new focus.

Reading this was like a splash of cold water. In forgetting about the tree of life I had put myself in the same precarious position that Adam & Eve placed themselves in. All this time I should have been focusing on God's goodness and attempting to emulate Jesus' love. Instead I've been doing what I thought was a righteous thing by constantly pondering questions of morality and how to fix my problems, without realizing that this ironically can only lead me away from my goal and towards the worst of sins:

Pride

Satan loves to get us to look to ourselves. A sure mark of a satanic religion is one that tells you to look inside yourself for the answer. There are many variations on this theme. One is the eastern meditation type thing, where you are told to get in touch with your own godhood. There is another variation, far more subtle, and far more likely to appeal to Christians. That is, to measure yourself up against certain moral or spiritual principles, and consider how well or badly you are doing, and resolving to improve. Multitudes of sincere people are doing this, and fail to realise that in this way they will never become what God wants them to be.

Looking at self is a fruit of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Just knowing good and evil doesn't give you the power to do what is right, however. When Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree, they began to be self-conscious. They started looking at themselves. They knew they were naked. Until then, they weren't even aware of that. In fact, they were clothed with a kind of spiritual glory before they fell, and they lived in the presence of Almighty God without shame. After eating of the forbidden Tree, they lost that glory and began to be selfish and desire to escape from the presence of Almighty God.

If you look at yourself, judging yourself by your knowledge of good and evil, you will either end up congratulating yourself for your good performance (self-righteousness) or becoming depressed because of the guilt of failing to live up to those standards. Neither of these results is what God wants. God made us for Him, and He is not satisfied when we prefer to ignore Him and become wrapped up in our own righteousness or lack thereof. He wants us to enjoy Him, to trust Him, and that only happens when we dare to take our eyes off ourself, trust the power of His cross, and begin to get our eyes on Him.

It just goes to show you how conventional wisdom doesn't count for much when it comes to spiritual matters. In attempting to tackle my problems head-on I was only weakening my chances and allowing for pride to make its way in. "The devil laughs. He is perfectly content to see you becoming chaste and brave and self-controlled provided, all the time, he is setting up in you the Dictatorship of Pride - just as he would be quite content to see your chilblains cured if he was allowed, in return, to give you cancer. For Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense." (Mere Christianity)

Who would have thought that in trying to simply investigate what the forgotten tree of life was all about that I would realize something so fundamentally significant that needs fixing in my life and I'm sure most people's lives. More important than focusing on how to fix sin - be it anger, immorality, pride etc. is to pursue the only one who can help us thoroughly defeat them, and that is Jesus Christ.

(back to Genesis 2)

Geroge Washington's Farewell Address: Morality & Religion

Came across this intriguing section of George Washington's farewell address by chance while reading up on issues of morality and religion. It was for when he retired as the first ever President of the United States of America:

"Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."