Monkey Wrench
Good and evil are absolutes determined by God’s character. Christians should always seek to align character and behavior with God’s character, with that which is good.
Christianity, however, throws a monkey wrench into that endeavor. Catholics called it “original sin”. Protestants called it “total depravity”. Christian theology in general refers to it as “spiritual death”.
When God said “In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die” (Genesis 2.17), He clearly didn’t mean physical death. Adam and Eve ate and still lived long lives. But Christian theology doesn’t believe God lied. He was referring to a different ‘death’. Man’s sin separated the race spiritually from God. We no longer knew Him; we didn’t go looking for Him to confess what we had done wrong. Instead, we tried to hide our guilt and shift the blame. We were driven from His presence, left to ourselves outside.
The New Testament says we were “dead in our trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2.1) and that by nature we do not know God (e.g. Galatians 4.8, 1 Thessalonians 4.5). Our understanding has been darkened and we are alienated from God’s life because of ignorance and hardness of heart (Ephesians 4.18).
Some Christians argue that our spiritual death means we inherently know nothing about God nor can we learn anything on our own. We are dead, they say, totally unable to function in a Godward direction. While I understand the interpretation, I think it reads too much into the imagery and ignores other Scriptures that indicate man in his natural state has some perception of God.
Paul depicts pagan Greeks as groping towards God (Acts 17.27). The apostle tells the Romans that God’s “eternal power and divine nature” can be perceived in the creation (Romans 1.19-20) and that Gentiles, by nature, can do what the law requires and their consciences can bear witness to them (Romans 2.14-15). In Genesis 20, Abimelech, a pagan king with no covenant relationship to God, hears from God in a dream and recognizes that taking another man’s wife is displeasing to God.
It’s not that we have zero reliable access to understanding God. It’s that our access is mixed. It is partial and incomplete and because we don’t inherently know Him exhaustively, it is difficult for us to determine accurately which of our perceptions of Him are accurate and which are not.
This separation from God, this blindness in us, requires God to reveal Himself to us. But even revealing Himself to us, we are incapable of grasping His character and goodness exhaustively. Because of God’s enormity and complexity, we are unable to see “His face”. He mediates knowledge of Him to us on our terms. John Calvin called it “God lisping” to us, the way a woman simplifies speech to an infant.
God reaches down to us. I’ve often said that the Bible is more of a coloring book than a divine encyclopedia. What God reveals about Himself in His Word is not exhaustive, but it is sufficient—sufficient for us to know Him to the extent that we need to. What He reveals to us is limited in scope, but not in accuracy.
Our inability to see good and evil perfectly ought to humble us. Though we wanted to be like
God knowing good and evil, we don’t really have the capacity for it—and I believe that’s why it was withheld from us in the first place. Since we grasped for it, God gave us what we sought: the responsibility of determining and judging good and evil. History shows that again and again we fall short of the glory of God in our attempts. We need His gracious mercy and instruction.
Christianity, however, throws a monkey wrench into that endeavor. Catholics called it “original sin”. Protestants called it “total depravity”. Christian theology in general refers to it as “spiritual death”.
When God said “In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die” (Genesis 2.17), He clearly didn’t mean physical death. Adam and Eve ate and still lived long lives. But Christian theology doesn’t believe God lied. He was referring to a different ‘death’. Man’s sin separated the race spiritually from God. We no longer knew Him; we didn’t go looking for Him to confess what we had done wrong. Instead, we tried to hide our guilt and shift the blame. We were driven from His presence, left to ourselves outside.
The New Testament says we were “dead in our trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2.1) and that by nature we do not know God (e.g. Galatians 4.8, 1 Thessalonians 4.5). Our understanding has been darkened and we are alienated from God’s life because of ignorance and hardness of heart (Ephesians 4.18).
Some Christians argue that our spiritual death means we inherently know nothing about God nor can we learn anything on our own. We are dead, they say, totally unable to function in a Godward direction. While I understand the interpretation, I think it reads too much into the imagery and ignores other Scriptures that indicate man in his natural state has some perception of God.
Paul depicts pagan Greeks as groping towards God (Acts 17.27). The apostle tells the Romans that God’s “eternal power and divine nature” can be perceived in the creation (Romans 1.19-20) and that Gentiles, by nature, can do what the law requires and their consciences can bear witness to them (Romans 2.14-15). In Genesis 20, Abimelech, a pagan king with no covenant relationship to God, hears from God in a dream and recognizes that taking another man’s wife is displeasing to God.
It’s not that we have zero reliable access to understanding God. It’s that our access is mixed. It is partial and incomplete and because we don’t inherently know Him exhaustively, it is difficult for us to determine accurately which of our perceptions of Him are accurate and which are not.
This separation from God, this blindness in us, requires God to reveal Himself to us. But even revealing Himself to us, we are incapable of grasping His character and goodness exhaustively. Because of God’s enormity and complexity, we are unable to see “His face”. He mediates knowledge of Him to us on our terms. John Calvin called it “God lisping” to us, the way a woman simplifies speech to an infant.
God reaches down to us. I’ve often said that the Bible is more of a coloring book than a divine encyclopedia. What God reveals about Himself in His Word is not exhaustive, but it is sufficient—sufficient for us to know Him to the extent that we need to. What He reveals to us is limited in scope, but not in accuracy.
Our inability to see good and evil perfectly ought to humble us. Though we wanted to be like
God knowing good and evil, we don’t really have the capacity for it—and I believe that’s why it was withheld from us in the first place. Since we grasped for it, God gave us what we sought: the responsibility of determining and judging good and evil. History shows that again and again we fall short of the glory of God in our attempts. We need His gracious mercy and instruction.