Genuine consequences

If a God of Love has to give genuine choice and that choice has to have different outcomes for it to have been genuine, then surely He would point out the genuine consequence of both choices, so that those faced with the choices are clear about what they are choosing.

This is indeed what God does. He warns man in no uncertain terms of the drastic consequences of eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - it would bring about death.

Death seems a very harsh punishment for a relatively small act! Perhaps that is the point - it wasn’t a punishment. It was (and still is) the genuine effect, the genuine consequence of turning away from relationship with God. The genuine effect of eating contaminated food is a stomach ache. The genuine effect of putting your hand in a fire is a burnt hand. The stomach ache, the burnt hand are not punishments. They are what happens when you eat bad food or stick your hand in the fire! Similarly then, the genuine effect of eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was death.

The properties of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil were such that when one ate of it one would understand not only good but also evil. As man would feel the absence of God (having turned his back on him by taking the fruit in the first place) man would understand evil.

Einstein once argued that darkness can only be defined as the absence of light, and cold can only be defined as the absence of heat. In a similar way, evil can only be defined as the absence of good. God did not create evil, nor is evil somehow God’s nemesis. But where the presence of God is absent, there is evil, just as where the presence of light is absent, there is darkness, or where the presence of heat is absent, there is cold. The natural consequence of the absence of God, the absence of a Love that is the source of life, is death. Death cannot co-exist with life, just like darkness cannot co-exist with light or cold cannot co-exist with heat. The problem with death, of course, it that it is ultimate and irreversible.

The choice is clear, the choice is genuine, the consequences are real: don’t eat from that tree. Stay away from it and you will live. Eat of it and you will die. Trust me. I know!