Was sin necessary for knowledge?

[John V]

Will post my thoughts later. Wanted to get the first thread in the new forum!

[A Theist]

Will post my thoughts later. Wanted to get the first thread in the new forum!

Can you be more specific? I know that God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, so they had that knowledge not to do so. Are you asking if sin was necessary for the spreading of knowledge in all areas like, science, medicine, i.e.?

[Catholic_Lady]

I'll have to get to this later on today. Time for my workout!

[The Grand Nudger]

@OP Q
I don't think so, no.  God is contended to be both sinless and omniscient.  This state of affairs would strongly suggest that there is no requirement of sin, for knowledge.

[John V]

Will post my thoughts later. Wanted to get the first thread in the new forum!

Can you be more specific? I know that God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, so they had that knowledge not to do so. Are you asking if sin was necessary for the spreading of knowledge in all areas like, science, medicine, i.e.?

A common atheist complaint is that:

- knowledge is generally considered to be good, but
- A&E could only gain knowledge of good and evil by sinning.

I'm working from the common, but not universal, position that before the snake tempted them they were naive - neither righteous nor sinners.

They sin. Note that they don't just get knowledge of evil through sinning - they get knowledge of both good and evil, even though they hadn't done good.

So, if doing one gives knowledge of both, it stands to reason that doing good - rejecting the snake's temptation - would have likewise opened their eyes to both good and evil.

Also consider the angels. Using the common Christian position that the snake, Lucifer, Satan, the dragon in Revelation, etc. are all references to the same being, we see that:

- Lucifer was tempted internally, succumbed to the temptation, and went to evil (Isa 14)
- He tempted A&E, and they fell
- He probably tempted the other angels, and a third of them fell (Rev 12:4)
- Two thirds of the angels did not fall

It seems clear that the godly angels did not sin, yet they apparently have knowledge of both good and evil.

So, A&E could have gained the same knowledge by rejecting the snake as they got from eating the fruit.

(Note that this is speculative and has nothing to do with God's foreknowledge. I believe God knew that they would fall. The point is that theoretically that wasn't the only way for them to gain knowledge of good and evil.

[The Grand Nudger]

-were the order reversed, I can see a much stronger argument to be made.

[Tiberius]

Surely that just means that sin was only necessary to obtain knowledge of good and evil, not knowledge itself.

Didn’t Adam name all the animals? That implies he had the knowledge to do such a thing.

[Foxaèr]

Genesis, the beginning, Tree of Knowledge, original sin.

It is a common theme in religion that knowledge equates to sin.  Why?  Because knowledge of the truth outside of religion conflicts with theistic interpretation.

As is the case with any interpretation, one must weigh the realistic against the fictitious.

We could go the route of spending pages determining what "sin" is.  Even knowledge.

Sin is as subjective to the theist as beauty is to anyone.  Not all theists consider something to be sinful.  If sin is subjective, then one's opinion of what one considers sinful can be ignored by anyone with a different subjective opinion.

Knowledge, however, is as objective as the fact that a rock is a rock.  Knowledge has been convoluted by theists for an impure agenda, but in the end academic, empirical knowledge is distinguishable from subjective misunderstanding.

Sin, after all, is merely conceptualized misunderstanding.  Sin is what someone dislikes and has decided to consider sinful.  A sinful act goes against no one except the individual it personally offends.

Knowledge is not sinful. It is rather arbitrary to forbid knowledge.

[John V]

Surely that just means that sin was only necessary to obtain knowledge of good and evil, not knowledge itself.

Didn’t Adam name all the animals? That implies he had the knowledge to do such a thing.

Yes, this regards moral knowledge only. They had language, so they had knowledge. Maybe more knowledge than we have today, but of different sorts - but that's another discussion.

[The Grand Nudger]

It seems as though moral knowledge would be required to sin, though, and this has implications both for the garden narrative and the notion that humans are inescapably sinful creatures by nature.