In this thought-provoking episode of the Enter the Bible podcast, hosts Kathryn Schifferdecker and Katie Langston sit down with Professor of Systematic Theology and The Northwestern Lutheran Theological Seminary Chair of Theology of Luther Seminary, Dr. Alan Padgett, to delve into the theological significance of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden.

Together, they unpack the symbolism behind the trees, the complex nature of good and evil, and the profound impact of Adam and Eve's choices. The discussion also covers free will, the promise of paradise, and how humanity’s moral understanding has evolved over time. Drawing inspiration from C.S. Lewis’s reimagining of the Eden story, this episode offers deep insights into the biblical narrative and its relevance today.

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mkwb6IguP0U.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Welcome to the Enter the Bible podcast, a place where you can get answers, or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible but were afraid to ask. I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker and.

Katie Langston: I'm Katie Langston, and we are delighted to have one of our most favorite, most prolific, most frequently returning guests, uh, Doctor Alan Padgett, who is a professor of systematic theology at Luther Seminary and a good buddy to both of us. Uh, welcome back, Alan. Welcome.

Alan Padgett: It's such a pleasure to work with you guys and anything that we do. And I appreciate the opportunity to talk more about the Bible, which is a book I happen to think is wonderful.

Katie Langston: Like, it's pretty good. It's okay, I guess. No.

Alan Padgett: I love it.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: He's a Bible geek disguised as a theology professor.

Alan Padgett: Well, that might be true, but you're not supposed to out me the first five minutes every day.

Katie Langston: Oh, I love it. Well, we are, um, today on the podcast, responding to a question that we received on our website from a listener. And of course, you, dear listener, can also submit your own question. If you go to enter the Bible.org and there's a little button that says ask a question and go ahead. And we try to, um, get to as many of them as we can. And today the question says, I always wondered why God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. And I think that's a very good question, because if he had not done that, then none of this would have happened. And by none of this, I mean the bad things.

Alan Padgett: Right. Interesting question.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: So before we started recording, Alan accused us of saving all the hardest questions for him. So and we said, of course, because you're so wise, you're so wise. That's why we save the hard ones for you.

Alan Padgett: Yeah, yeah, I'll give it a shot. Although it's a great question and it is. One thing to notice is the Bible itself doesn't have an answer like we're asking question that there's no answer in the Bible. We just are now really at the level of theology that is, we're theologically reflecting on the book that God, the Holy Spirit, has given the church to be a revealed text, a revelation inspired text, the Word of God. Um, but the answer is not there. So we have to think about different answers that we could come up with theologically. So maybe just a little bit about the chapter that that occurs in Genesis two. Uh, that it's another one of those places in the Bible where although there are plenty of literal things in the Bible, things that should be understood literally, think of like the Ten Commandments, for example. Um, there are plenty of things that are non-literal or figures of speech, or in this case, I think, highly symbolic yet sacred and true stories. So I think there's truth to be told in Genesis two, as the church has taught for thousands of years. There's truth here, no doubt about it. But it's not a truth that you would compare to, say, a science textbook or a straightforward academic history of the ancient Near East or something like that. It's, uh, it's a truth that God is communicating by means that would be understood by all kinds of different people, and especially the people of those days. So what are these symbolic stories about the origin of the of, of the universe and of human beings? What truth are they communicating? And it was not going to be a scientific truth for us, but a symbolic and theological one, an ethical one. So first of all, just to remind you of the story. So, you know, God puts all these trees in the garden, or maybe we'll just call it the Forest of Paradise because it seems to be full of trees. Yeah. And so Adam and Eve are young, and we we think they're kind of innocent. They don't even know the difference between right and wrong yet. Right. And so they're they're dwelling in Paradise, though. Dwelling in a in a Paradise. But one thing the scriptures is pretty clear about, I think, is that Adam and Eve are not perfect. And so that's another thing we have to say no to in our tradition. And it's not in all of the whole tradition of the church, but especially in a great poet like Milton, in Paradise Lost and in others who followed in a certain tradition of theology. Adam is like this amazing, fantastic creature who has all the virtues and powers of all humans ever. You know, he's kind of like altar boy or something. All human, all human altogether. And, you know, the Bible just doesn't say that. I mean, it seems to me that we're to think of Adam and Eve as like the, the innocent prototypical humans, the first humans, and the fact that they don't even know right from wrong yet suggests that they're young and innocent, not that they're absolutely perfect. So I think that's where we want to want to put, put our mind when we begin to wrap around the two trees that are different, that are not just there for food or shade or just to be part of the Forest of Eden. Those two trees are the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And you know, life is there because and we know this from other stories where this same tree appears, including the book of Revelation. The tree comes back. The trees for the healing of the nations. The tree is. You eat of the tree. You're not only healed of your illness, but it extends your life over and over again. If you continually eat of the tree, then you continue to live. So it's a good thing that the tree of life is there. God has given us life and but this is the promise or the reality, uh, of of the beginning in God's mind that human beings would, would live beyond death, that they could be healed of death, even of death. Not that we enjoy that now, but yeah.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: It's worth noting that the Tree of Life also shows up in the book of Proverbs where where woman wisdom is is called the tree of life. Right? To those who know, right?

Alan Padgett: So by following the wisdom of the Torah, the wisdom of God, you will live more prosperously and properly and live a long and blessed life. That kind of thing. Yeah. Great. I forgot. Yeah.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: And in in in Ezekiel. To which revelation borrows from that vision of the temple at the end of time, the tree of life was there, the river flowing from the temple. But. Right. But yes, that.

Alan Padgett: Beautiful images I love it.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Is so this this tree doesn't show up all that often in scripture, but it's beautiful imagery. And as you say that, you know, the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations, right? What a beautiful just what a beautiful image. Yeah.

Alan Padgett: Love that.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: And of course, the cross. The cross is equated with the tree of life too.

Alan Padgett: Right, in fact, is specifically talk about Jesus being hanged on a tree, even though we know he wasn't hanged so they could connect the older the Hebrew Bible with with the experience of Jesus as the Messiah and connect the cross with the tree of life. So yeah, that's kind of cool. That's beautiful. Um, so this tree appears several times. What doesn't appear so much is the knowledge of good and evil. So we're kind of thinking, now, what is this about? Right? And it seems like it's we have to focus on two different ideas. I mean, one is that it's a kind of knowledge, but it's not a scientific, logical propositional knowledge. It's a sense there, I think, is of an intimate knowledge and experiential knowledge. Um, and then there's also this phrase good and evil. And probably we're meant to take those two words together. There's a certain technical device that happens in Hebrew where it's called hendiadys by the scholars, where two words are connected together by and, and they're meant to be taken together and understood as a whole, but they're naming different things. I don't know, it's hard, like heaven and earth. You're supposed to really understand heaven and earth, as you know, the sky, the earth, everything created, everything you can observe, everything you can see. We would say today the observable Cosmos or something like that. Right. And so that's an example of that thing that they call him diocese. So I think good and evil is the same. So somehow it's talking about some spectrum, some whole some thing. And over the course of time, as theologians have reflected long, long on the book of Genesis. In fact, Genesis is the go to place for the whole Christian doctrine of creation since the get go. You know, we've always been reflecting on Genesis, so there's a huge amount of alternative ways of thinking about how this fits into the narrative. And what's the symbol of this? Well, one way is to think of it as having in your gut like knowing the difference between moral right or wrong. So the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. So typically, though, that's a thing that humans learn by experience. So we have to like make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. And then we realize, whoa, that was wrong. Um, how did I do that wrong? But we also learned what the good is and how to live the good, and how it's not always easy to do what is right in the face of things that feel like they're more pleasurable. They make more sense. They're more efficient, you know, they're they're more something else. It's not about following God's ways or God's wisdom, but about worldly wisdom and worldly goals.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah. Sorry. Or they're they're easier. The easier path, the path that doesn't require that much effort. Right? Right. I love those or that grants immediate gratification as opposed to right. Right. Yeah.

Alan Padgett: So in order to be fully human, we we've long thought that it's necessary to be able to make a free moral decision between alternatives. And so the tree is just like the tree of life is something that they have, but that will deepen later in time. So now they have life and now they have healing. But in later in the ways of God and in the ways of providence and in salvation, they'll actually be given eternal life even beyond death. So I11 way of thinking about this tree is to say that they're innocent. They don't know the difference between right and wrong. And rather than actually, um, there's it's like a test. It's a test of them to see whether they can follow God's ways. And they couldn't. Humans weren't capable on their own of doing the right thing all the time. And so I think the tree symbolizes that incapacity we had even before humans ever did anything wrong when we were innocent. Nevertheless, we had this capacity to go astray and to go wrong. And that's been built into human beings. I think actually as a good thing. It's not a bad thing. It may be that many evil things result from it, but it also think about our intelligence. Why did God make humans intelligent? Look at all the evil things we can do with our intelligence. Look at all the bad things. Look at how we can hold over other people and worm our way through the world, you know. Look at what we've done to other species on our planet. Other living things on our planet. With our intelligence.

Katie Langston: Powerful weapons.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: That we've.

Alan Padgett: Invented the capacity to understand a first that we've done wrong. And secondly, what the good is. And to know that in intimate way, it requires growth and experience. Um, and so I think the story is really a story of that growth and that experience that all humans undergo. And I don't think it's a bad thing that God has granted to our species this capacity for moral understanding and knowledge. Not so that unlike, um, you know, let's say an AI I program or a robot, or unlike other species like, you know, the fruit fly or something, we are able to do something. We have moral responsibilities and we can be blameworthy, but we can also do things that are morally beautiful. And if we didn't have that capacity, then all those morally good things would also not be part of human history.

Katie Langston: Do you think it's fair to.

Alan Padgett: Forget about that too?

Katie Langston: Do you think it's fair to say that if um. So if they. And then maybe I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but if they hadn't, you know, as far as the story is concerned, if, if, if they hadn't either had the, the tree there hadn't taken the fruit. Right. The knowledge of good and evil that as a result of that there, you know, there couldn't be moral good.

Alan Padgett: Right. Not in the creation, not in not in creatures on our planet. There'd be no moral good. Exactly.

Katie Langston: That's interesting. There'd be no.

Alan Padgett: Moral evil either.

Katie Langston: Sure, sure. Right.

Alan Padgett: But it looks like in God's plan. You know, we need to have some some creatures who have that capacity. And for whatever divine reason there are. And we could go endless speculation about that. Right. God believes that this is an important part of the the created world. Yeah. That some species have this capacity. It had to be complicated. They have to be intelligent. You know, all that other stuff. But they have this capacity along with the other things. And it may just be part of what happens to any creature that's created in the image of God has this inherent capacity, because it is also God who is moral. The ultimate source of all moral goodness. Yeah, but we're creatures. We're not God, and so we can't be perfectly good like God is.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: So you're talking about the capacity for moral choice or moral understanding. Moral discernment. You're all, I think, wrapped up in that is also free will. Right? That right. That we're creatures given the ability to make choices. Right? Good and bad. Right? Yeah. That that and and if the tree of the knowledge, you know, to take this story at face value, if the tree of the knowledge of good and evil wasn't there, then they didn't have the choice right to to choose badly.

Alan Padgett: They can neither choose evil, nor could they do bad. They could neither do good or bad, right? And so they would be like, I don't know, like a parakeet or something, you know, where they do things, but they don't, they don't make moral choices like that, right? So yeah, I think that that's what that's one way of thinking about what the passage is talking about. We sometimes reduce that to free will. I like to think of it more holistically as this whole set of capacities that are given to us, that we might live and fulfill the calling to live in the image of God. And that's just one of this complex, embodied set of things that are given to us so that we might be, you might say, fully human, uh, in the way that God understands that to be. Yeah. And not just in a merely purely biochemical sense of the word. Right. Um, so that includes a spiritual life, a mental life, but also an emotional and a moral life. And I think those things are all connected. I don't think that we really have different, like, parts of us that could be like, removed, but it may just come as a total package. And I kind of suspect that's true. But obviously we're speculating here. But there's another sense of good and evil, though, that, um, we need to pick up and that is that we've been talking about the good and evil that Adam and Eve can do. That is the good that humans can do or not do, or when they're innocent, they haven't learned to do it yet, and they kind of experience these things, and then they grow in a certain kind of way. They. I'm not saying sin is a good thing, but that capacity to choose is an important part that you've been talking about and to make moral choices, to have moral responsibility. But another thing we can think of is good and evil is they don't know the good and evil that can happen to us from outside of us. That comes from no, there are no others, okay. But that come from, you know, the animals. Think about the animals. There's no giant predators that attack humans in the Forest of Eden. You know what I'm saying? There's no there's no terrible weeds that you have to fight off. You know, the woman is going to have children, but she doesn't have the pain. And the terror of childbirth is not upon her. And and so it seems like not that the world is any different. I don't, I don't think that the, the so-called fall that is the the origin of sin in humans. I don't think that affects the whole universe or the cosmos, or that somehow biology and physics and chemistry are different. But I do think that that, um, our that God protects the promise of Paradise is the protection. Um, and so there's a protection there that when Adam and Eve eat of the fruit, you know, fruit here is like the they they they do something and they, they, they learn, but they also have to deal with the consequences of what they've done. Uh, they're no longer in the Paradise. They're no longer in that protected space. They're let into the world to just whatever happens to you is what's going to happen. And so they experience evil and they experience, but they also experience the good and the beauty of a wild and unpredictable world. That's the world we actually live in, the beauty of a cheetah that could also maybe, you know, attack a young human. You know what I'm saying is this you can get a cheetah in its full speed. It's just a beautiful thing. You know, the beauty of a terrible thunderstorm at night, you know, just coming down this amazing, powerful light display. And yet it could kill you if you walk out into it and get hit by lightning. So we're now in that kind of a world where we have to struggle with the chaos and the powers of nature and the perils of the world, that God was protecting us in Paradise. And there I think, again, just like we did with the Tree of Life, we need to look ahead a little bit if we're going to study anything in the Bible theologically. And this is a really old idea. It's not my idea, but we really need to read all of the Bible. Together and let Jesus as the Messiah of Israel be the central lens by which we read the whole Bible together. I mean, this is so Christian and so deep, and yet it's so easy to forget in a world where we want to analyze and slice all the way down and we're not happy finding an atom. You know, we got to break up the atom and find the salt. Subatomic particles, you know what I mean? We're always looking to slice everything down. And I think in the Bible that's been given to us for a reason as a whole, as the church, and we're meant to read it all together. So saying that, then, I think that Paradise is, is, is partially an anticipation of that promise again, of the life to come and the new heaven and the new earth. Yeah. When we will once again experience a much preferable life together than we have now, in this age and in this earth. You know one thing humans won't sin. Another is we won't die. We will have eternal life. And but best of all will be we'll have this again, this absolutely intimate communion with God that we don't enjoy. Now, even the most saintly and pious and prayerful of us don't enjoy that. So I think it's good to see good and evil, both as an internal part of the complex of gifts we have, because we're created in the image of God, and God has a purpose for us. It's I don't think we're the most important creatures in the world or anything like that, but we have a unique purpose and place in the story of creation. And it also we can think of knowing good and evil as in your own body, experiencing things that can be delicious and wonderful and beautiful, but also directly experiencing things that can be painful and awful and and and just evil. Yeah. You know, the the pain and the suffering of this world. They didn't know that in the garden. So I that's what I've been able to discover from the wisdom of my spiritual ancestors, your the great doctors of the church, the teachers of the church over many a long year. And I think there's a lot to learn there, a lot to think about, and also a lot to be grateful to God about.

Katie Langston: So I, I'm remembering that, you know, when the serpent tempts Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he does so by saying, um, you will become as as gods, knowing good and evil. And so what I kind of heard you say, Alan, was that that that that ability to experience and understand and have moral reasoning and recognize Knows good and evil is is a is a piece of what it means to be made in the image of God. Yeah, right. That that's that's the sort of differentiator. And so in the Paradise to come, do you think it's fair to say that, you know, the conditions of Eden will be there, but we, you know, humanity, we will have had those experiences. So we will have, um, we will retain that knowledge of good, the knowledge of good and evil, which would then enable us to enjoy the good all the more.

Alan Padgett: Yeah. And now, and not only do I want to talk about that, Katie, but to to to respond to something that I had meant to say and didn't, which is because we don't actually know what would have happened to Adam and Eve if they had not eaten, if they had not believed the snake and not eaten of the fruit, right? So my guess is that God would have found some other way, some less sinful way, for Adam and Eve to grow and learn and develop, develop this capacity that's within them. But because it was the capacity we've had all the way from the beginning, as humans, it was necessary that this option be there. Otherwise, God is like, we're just become puppets and God pushes us and determines everything that we do. And there's no, no freedom that's important for humans to be able to grow and become adults. So we don't actually know what would have happened and how it all would have worked out. But I think that in some way or other, we would have grown into these capacities and powers well, or two years for the world to come. It's kind of interesting is I think the world to come is dependent on this world. That is, God is not going to directly create the the New Age. God knows that. It's kind of like what would have happened in Paradise if they hadn't eaten of the tree. The period we're living through is an important part of getting ready for the world to come. The Earth part two, Earth 2.0. I like to call it, uh, and, uh, and so the reason I think that we don't sin in the world to come is that we are the kind of people that we are in this world, and then God uses that. But but we need to be able to grow and experience and develop in a world like this one first, or you wouldn't really be human in the world to come. You wouldn't actually be a full human being. You'd be something else. I don't know what it would be. An angel. Maybe. You know that never even the angels have choices between right and wrong. So I guess it wouldn't be an angel. You'd just be a very interesting looking primate. But you wouldn't be human.

Katie Langston: So that's that is interesting. Yeah.

Alan Padgett: And so I think that the human, our full humanity requires either this age or a different age that we didn't get to experience because we did eat of the fruit back in the early days. Right, right. But it requires something where there's danger and toil and troubles and things like that were going to happen, but maybe they wouldn't have happened. It's sort of like you have a child growing up. When do you decide to, like, push them out in the world and let them be on their own? Yeah. And I have a funny feeling God wouldn't have done that for a while. It might have been a while for them to to develop and grow before they would be, uh, allowed to go into the rest of the world. But this is all just speculation. We don't know any of this.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: I'm reminded of. Oh.

Katie Langston: I was just going to say just really quick, just because to the point that you, sort of made initially, Alan, that I thought was really interesting was like the trees presence in the story there sort of symbolizes that this this was always going to happen. Like, so the question of free will is like, yeah, it's there. But it's like, you know what I mean? Like it's kind of there, but it's kind of not because there's sort of this sense that, you know, human beings were always going to do this. This was part of what it is to be human was to was to have these sorts of experiences, um, and pain and suffering and sin and all of that stuff.

Alan Padgett: So, yeah, I think, I think at some point or other we just don't know what. But it's the depth and extent of the sinfulness of the human species may be part of the story. Of what? Of saying we ate the fruit and we believe the snake. Yeah. Because, I mean, the first thing that happens to the children of Adam and Eve is one brother murders the other. Right. You know what I'm saying? Right, right. Exactly. You jump right into some pretty horrendous evil, right?

Katie Langston: It's not, like, pretty clear that.

Alan Padgett: We just weren't really ready for what we did and how we how we decided to use our gifts. We really were up to us. I think it's right. Inevitably, we would have somehow grown and developed the way God wanted. But by sinning the way that we did, we jumped sort of straight ahead into loads of moral evil that, alas, we still, um, have to suffer with around our world all the time. Yeah, I.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Was just going to say it's been a long time since I read this book, but in C.S. Lewis's science fiction trilogy, the second book in that Perelandra it's called, is a reimagination of the Garden of Eden story, where if my memory serves, they don't, uh, give into temptation. And then it's it's just kind of an interesting thought experiment by and as Lewis is such a good writer, was such a good writer. Right. It's it's a very readable story. So if our listeners are interested, you might check it out. Yeah.

Alan Padgett: That is an interesting, uh, book. I think I like the first one better out of the Silent Planet myself. I think it's a better story, but, um.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alan Padgett: Uh, and then that impossible novel, that's the third one, you know.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah. That one, that.

Alan Padgett: Hideous novel that it's really hard to make your way.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Hideous strength. Yeah, yeah, that's.

Alan Padgett: The right name. That's the true name. People who don't like it really don't like it. And people who love it really love it. That's been my experience.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: I yeah, I don't, I like I like the third one but that's not yeah that's not my favorite.

Alan Padgett: We'll talk about that in another podcast. That's right, that's right, that's right. So yeah I mean it's a hard question. Just to circle back to the question. Yeah. Um, I think if, you know, we have talked before about literal and figurative. And so we're just sort of assuming that's the right way to go here. And I think it is. Um, but the other thing is, is we're asking a question for which, again, the scripture itself doesn't have an answer. So we're just sort of taking the things that are revealed and trying to make sense of them in a direction of maybe why that might have happened. But I do want to kind of get to the point where we eventually say, we don't know that anything we believe here has a very low evidential basis. How's that? That our reasoning pattern pulls a lot from our imagination and our ability to make stories that fictional stories, and a lot less than some of the other key doctrines of the faith, which are more clearly revealed in God's revelation in the in the Bible.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: But I think I'll just add one more thing and then we should probably close. But the it's true that the Bible doesn't give us an answer for that, but I think human experience corroborates a lot of what you were saying, Alan. Right. We all experience the, you know, the the moral dilemmas and trying to do the right thing. At least I'll, you know, hopefully we grow to want to do the right thing. Right. Uh, and and knowing what that is and trying to discern what that is, is a constant. You know, it's it's something that we all have to do, especially as we as we become adults. Uh, and that experience of good and evil coming from outside ourselves is something that we all experience. And I like what you said about, you know, that it's not, um, you know, the the, the terrible thunderstorm may be destructive and may be, uh, dangerous, and it's also beautiful. Right. So those, uh, I think a lot I think what you said, even if the Bible doesn't provide the exact answer, it doesn't answer that question. It feels true from our experience of the world and of our and of our our own capacity for both good and evil. Yeah. Yeah.

Alan Padgett: No, we're getting insights from our own experience, our own knowledge, the wisdom that we've learned from studying the world, studying each other. Yeah. Um, in some of these answers. But again, it's not as far as the direct answering to what God is up to and why. That's a little it's a bit, um, yeah. We're we're doing the best we can to make sense of it, but we don't. I'm not convinced that these are the only right ways to think about these things. And if we look back in the history of the church, we'll see a variety of perspectives as well. We're not alone there. But I would say in the long run, what's the fundamental truth about this is that, um, Applies to the individual and their development, as well as to the whole species and its development from the ancient origins of the human race. So there's like a parallel or an analogy where every mature, every human that matures and lives to adulthood, we all have to go through this same period of innocency and then then experiencing the evils that can happen in the world, even though our parents and family want to protect us. And then realizing at some point that, whoa, I it's not just other people do bad things to me. I have done wrong to others, and I need to repent, and I need to change my ways, and I need to be. It's a developmental process in the individual. And I think you're absolutely right, Kathryn. We we experience the meaning of the story in our own lives when we when we grow and in the lives of children that we are privileged to live with.

Katie Langston: Wow, so much rich food for thought there. And yeah, I think it's fair to say we can only scratch the surface. Um, but that, uh, just thank you so much, Alan, for being here and tackling the hardest questions. You know, that we can throw at you. Um, and thank you to our listeners for asking such interesting and challenging questions. We hope that this has been at least a little bit insightful. Um, and for more, uh, kind of rich discussion and exploration of the Bible, please head to enter the Bible.org. And there you can get all kinds of things, uh, courses, podcasts, conversations like this, videos, lots and lots of different stuff. So go there, enter the Bible.org. And of course, if you did enjoy this podcast, please rate and review us on either YouTube or your favorite podcast app. And of course, the very best compliment you can pay us is to share the podcast with a friend. Until next time.