Originally posted by Clete Pfeiffer
The way you've asked your question I can't tell for sure what exactly you are asking.
If you are asking how the TTKGE gave a knowledge of good then that one is easy. IF you know evil also know good and vise versa. That why they call it the Tree of The Knowledge of Good AND Evil.
If you are asking how The Law gives a knowledge of good the answer would be the same.
Also there's what I already said in my previous post about how the law describes good behavior as well as bad.
Resting in Him,
Clete
I ask the question in the way I do to get you to look again at the question and the nature of the problem we are seekign to resolve.
For I think you are looking at the situation in the garden from where we are NOW.
I am looking at it as if we was there. and nothing has yet happened.
You are argueing with the implication that the tree of the knowldge of good and evil needed to be eaten so that they might know the diference between good and evil.
I say this because you are justyfying the that tree as giving them the knowldge of good as well as evil when they ate of it.
I am saying that according to the book of romans that the LAW was given so that men might have a knowledge of SIN and be convicted of it.
That sin might be known to be sin by the law.
Now there are TWO laws.
"The LAW of sin and death."
and the "LAW of CHRIST"
BOTH laws are GOOD.
Yet after they ate of the tree of the knowlegde of GOOD AND EVIL.
They KNEW Gods knowledge of what was good and what was evil was in DEED TRUE.
and that thiers was NOT.
abd it was when the "VOICE of the LORD...." walked in the cool of the evening and called to them were they CONVICTED and they were afraid and went and hid themselves from the presence of the lord.
The IMPLICATION that is inyour words is that they only knew good AFTER they had eaten.
This is not so.
They KNEW ALREADY what was good and what was evil to do as I showed in my first post.
When they ATE of it they did so by doing what was right IN THIER OWN EYES and thus choosing what was good and what was evil according to thier own reasoning and eyes.(many do that in these forums too)
Then when they ate of it thier eyes were opened to see that they had sinned.
Now that which was EVIL was in thier own hearts and that which was GOOD they had; by so doing, been SEPERATED FROM.
If they had overcome evil with the good that God had given them(THE WORD) then would they have known by EXPERIENCE themselves what was good and what was evil but still would have LIVED!
For they would have been sanctified by the truth and would have inherited eternal life.
as it was "while men slept Hid enemy came and sowed tares..."