And from the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that was pleasing to the sight and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and bad (Gen 9)
And the LORD God commanded the man saying: “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.” (Gen. 16:17)
We all know how this worked out. Did you ever wonder why God did not prohibit eating the fruit from the tree of life? We can of course speculate about this and the results will probably be very illuminating. It will, however, not change the fact that our time on earth is finite. Another fact we cannot deny is that our lives are driven by hope and fears of what could come and what could not come. In fact, as soon as we enter this world we are experiencing separation anxieties at a non-cognitive level and as we grow older and accumulate knowledge about the world our anxieties move on to a cognitive level – telling us what is bad and what is good for us. And since our knowledge of the total world will always be limited, so will our knowledge of what is bad and good. In light of this part of the human condition, it is clear that eating from the tree of knowledge produced a curse – ultimately enabling us to understand our own mortality.
The nature of knowledge is in general neutral: facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education. The question is what are we doing with the acquired knowledge? This is where the cycle closes with scripture. Eating from the tree of knowledge made us a creature of choices. The burden falls on us to decide what we do – the first choice has a ripple effect through the ages. Even doing nothing is a valid choice.
Science and technology are abundant sources of creating knowledge with a degree of complexity that is beyond the common man to understand. We are all consumers of the results of technological advancement and often forget the implications of this technology beyond providing more convenience. A good example is for instance that Google or Amazon know us well enough to suggest what would be appropriate for us to buy before we even think about it.
I would like to invite you to a Lenten Study to explore the problem of knowledge and ethics. To make this topic digestible, I will start the discussion with the play “The Physicists” by the Swiss playwright Friedrich Duerrenmatt. This text is about 50 years old (1962), it is more relevant than ever. In one of the comments Duerrenmatt states:
“Every attempt of an individual to solve a problem that impacts everyone is determined to fail.”
To step into the immediate future, people of faith have to wrestle with this topic so as not to be blindsided. With the first bite we took from the forbidden fruit we opted for free choice: a burden that we have to acknowledge and find an answer within our fabric of faith. The question at this time is not what would Jesus do – it is what we should do!
We will meet the first Sunday of Lent March 5th after the 10AM service to talk logistics. I plan to have four sessions. You can also reach me at haensch5@aol.com for details.
– Wilfried Haensch