Is our rapid growth in knowledge our downfall? We have impressively progressed in the 20th century, and the 21st century will, if things are and according to an expert on a History channel documentary, have more history than the previous 20 centuries combined. That’s dense.
The idea of this entry is set in context of the end times, the last days of humanity. I’ve been following the History channel all week watching their specials on armageddon. It’s mildly depressing, and somewhat frustrating at the same time. Regardless, it made me think.
Perhaps knowledge is our Achilles’ heel. God banned Adam and Eve from the garden for eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Clearly, God did not want us to know good and evil concurrently, or perhaps even at all. It is more likely that God didn’t want us to know evil to save us the burden, or whatever implication the knowledge of evil would impress; for God, according to Genesis 1, is found repeatedly finding that what God created is good, and chapter 1 ultimately ends with God seeing that what God created was very good. God, it appears, only intended for us to know good — not good and evil. ((This may be a large part of my conversation and argument regarding Calvinists and Armianists. If it is true that God intended, then what does that reveal about God? Does God plan, and to what extent does God see the plan to fruition?))
Nonetheless, Adam and Eve ate from the Tree and now humanity knows good and evil. That, I suggest, could be a sign warning us of our demise. God is found saying, in Genesis, “The man has now become like one of us [referring to the Trinity], knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever”. ((Genesis 3:22)) It is interesting to note, that if you take from this verse that all it takes to become a god is to know good and evil and live forever, then is humanity not set to become gods? For we know good and evil, and if we are to be eternally saved, then we will be in possession of those two characteristics. This is not relevant to the idea of my entry, although it could be mother to an interesting hypothesis.
The idea of this entry is that our accumulation knowledge could be a hint to the end times. More specifically, perhaps the end will be near when our knowledge provides us the capability to live forever. God “drove the man out” from Eden when he learned good and evil. ((Genesis 3:24)) Perhaps God will take a similar and parallel action when, and if, we are able to live forever as humans.
This is a very interesting interpretation of the creation account, and I will most likely develop it further. For the next entry, I will look to analyse the end of chapter 3, and seek to make theological connections.
I’d like to say that this is just an interpretation. I don’t know if I believe my interpretation. Moreover, I’m not one to deal with eschatology, the theology of the end times; I’m dealing with it in this entry, and it’s a bit uncomfortable. It is certainly an exciting area of theology, but I find that it is too speculative. I don’t think God wants us to know explicit details of the end times; and if I believe that, I don’t know what I think about the book of Revelation. See: Eschatology is too much for me.
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