The Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil
The Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil
Francis Turretin
Why is it called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and why did God give Adam a law about not tasting it?
I. The question has two parts. (1) With respect to the name, i.e., How did the tree of knowledge of good and evil obtain this name? (2) With respect to its use, i.e., Why God used it for a symbolic law to test man?
II. To no purpose is the question raised What sort of a tree was it? Was it a fig tree (as some think because after the fall man made an apron of its leaves); or was it an apple tree (as appears to others from Cant. 8:5 because the spouse is said to have been raised up and brought forth under the apple tree)? Since Scripture tells us nothing about it, nothing certain can be ascertained. It would be a rash no less than a useless curiosity to inquire into those things which God has willed to conceal from us.
Whence called the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”?
III. It would be better to see why it obtained this name. Now we think it was so called not formally (as if it was in itself rational [logikē] knowing good and evil); not effectively (as if of itself it was scientific which, when eaten, was either the producer or assistant of knowledge, as was held by some of the Jews and by the Socinians after them); not putatively, from the false nomenclature and promise of the serpent (the opinion of Rupert, Tostatus and others) because there is no reason why Adam or Moses should wish to impose a name upon the tree derived from a most barefaced lie (the fraud of the imposter being fully known). Rather it is so called both sacramentally (because it was an exploratory sign and a warning to avoid the experimental knowledge of evil equally with good) and eventually a posteriori by anticipation (inasmuch as from eating of it, he was really about to experience the difference between the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience, so that he who was unwilling to discern by precept, might discern by experiment; and he was to be taught by his own evil how much good he had lost, how much evil on the other hand he had drawn upon himself, from what a height of happiness, into what a profound abyss of misery, he had precipitated himself by sin).
IV. God selected this tree then, to explore (explorandam) the obedience of Adam. Thus arose the special law given to him concerning not tasting its fruit: “of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:16, 17). This is called “a positive law” because it did not bind man from the nature of the thing (which was in itself indifferent), but from the mere will of God. It is also called “symbolic” because it was given for a symbol and trial of the obedience of man. For in it, as a matrix, the whole natural law was included. As Tertullian says, “that primordial law given to Adam in paradise, was, as it were, the matrix of all God’s precepts” (An Answer to the Jews 2 [ANF 3:152; PL 2.599]). By fulfilling it, he would have testified his uncorrupted love and obedience towards God; by violating it, he professed that he threw off the dominion of God and preferred his own will (yea even the voice of the Devil) to the divine will and voice.
Why a symbolical law was given.
V. Therefore that exploratory law was necessary in addition to the natural law impressed upon the conscience of men. (1) In order that God, who had granted the dominion of all things to man, might declare himself to be the Lord of man and man might understand himself to be a servant bound to obey and adhere to him. Although the natural law had already clearly declared that, yet because someone might think the natural law to be a property of nature and not a law, he wished therefore (by a peculiar law about a thing absolutely indifferent) to declare this more clearly. Thus on the one hand, the dominion of God might appear (who by his own pure free will forbids that of which no other reason can be found beside his will); on the other, the duty of man (searching into no reason for the command or interdict, but composing himself to render obedience on account of the will of the enjoiner alone). (2) That sin might be made more conspicuous by that external symbol and the evil of the concealed ulcer be dragged to the light (or the virtue of obedience be far more clearly exhibited). For the virtue of obedience would have been the more illustrious as the evil was because forbidden of God. “For,” says Augustine, “how great an evil is disobedience could not be better and more carefully impressed upon us, since therefore man became guilty of iniquity, because he touched that thing contrary to the prohibition; which, not prohibited, if he had touched, assuredly he had not sinned” (The Literal Meaning of Genesis 8.13 [ACW 42:52; PL 34.383–84]). (3) To declare that man was created by him with free will; for if he had been without it, he would not have imposed such a law upon him. (4) That by interdicting the fruit of a beautiful tree, he might teach that his happiness does not consist in the enjoyment of earthly things; otherwise God would not have wished to prevent his using it. (5) To teach that God alone and his service must be sought before all things as the highest good and that we should acquiesce in it alone.
VI. To make this trial of man, God might indeed have enjoined upon him or prohibited something great and difficult (as he tried the faith of Abraham by a severe and difficult command). However, he wished to give a law concerning a thing neither great nor difficult in order that obedience might be easy, and man be deprived of every excuse if he should transgress. Hence Augustine says, “Whoever thinks the condemnation of Adam either too great, or unjust, assuredly knows not how to measure the great iniquity of sinning where there was so great a facility of not sinning; as therefore the obedience of Abraham is deservedly celebrated as great, because the slaying of his son, a most difficult thing, was commanded; so also in paradise by so much the greater was the disobedience as that which was commanded was not of difficulty” (CG 14.15 [FC 14:385; PL 41.423]).
VII. God gave this precept to man for his trial. It was not that he was ignorant of his mutability or of the event. Rather it was partly to make known to man himself his own weakness (in order that he might find out by the event itself the great difference between the Creator and the creature); partly also that God might have an occasion of more distinctly declaring his glory about man, which without this would have remained hidden in its principal part (viz., as to the exercise of mercy and justice, to which the way was opened by sin).
Turretin, Francis. 1992–1997. Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Edited by James T. Dennison Jr. Translated by George Musgrave Giger. Vol. 1. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.