Is becoming like God good or evil?

@GreatestIam2 Said

Is becoming like God good or evil?

I would like to restrict giving God any other attribute except for knowing good and evil in this thread. Just for simplicity.

I have two quotes I would like you to consider.

“Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil.”

“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”

Knowing good and evil is the same as developing or gaining a moral sense. This is something that all governments and religions wish to develop in us and seems like a good idea to me.

If being perfect like God means that we must have the knowledge of good and evil, then Adam and Eve had to eat of the tree of knowledge ---- if they were to accomplish what most seem to think is a worthy goal. Morals. As God says in Eden, such is to have your eyes opened. A good thing IOW.

In the Jewish view, A & E did the right thing and they name it our elevation. In the Christian view, they did the wrong thing and call it our fall.

Is becoming as Gods, in the moral sense, good or evil?

If evil, please explain what is evil about developing a moral sense and following scriptures that tell us to be as Gods.

Regards
DL

@MadCornishBiker Said

It can only be good because God is the epitome of goodness, having the perfect balance of Love, Justice, Wisdom and Mercy, as an unbiased and deep study of the bible reveals. That is because asking why things happen eventually reveals the reasons.

@tariki Said

I have mentioned before a dialogue between Thomas Merton, a Catholic monk, and the zen scholar D T Suzuki. This dialogue ( "Wisdom in Emptiness" ) revolves around a discussion on the "Fall of Man". There is so much in this dialogue that to attempt a brief summary is - at least for me - impossible. However, there are a few points mad ein it that are relevant to this thread.

Merton refers to some words of St Augustine, who spoke of true "knowledge" (scientia) as the soul reaching out to what is beyond itself, that is to God. Yet if the soul deserts God and turns in upon itself and wishes to enjoy its own spiritual power as though without God, it becomes inflated with pride, the beginning of sin.

So, still with St Augustine, the soul deserts wisdom ( sapientia ) which is always unchanging and one, and desires knowledge from the experience of temporal and changing things, becoming "puffed up" rather than being "built up".

Merton says ( to clarify! ) that the first state of human beings is one of un-selfconscious reaching out to what is metaphysically higher than themselves, yet intimately present within their own being, so that they are hidden in God (as the ground of being) and united with Him. This is the state of innocence. The knowledge of good and evil begins with the fruition of sensible and temporal things for their own sakes, an act which makes the soul conscious of itself, and centers it on its own pleasure. It becomes aware of "good and evil" for itself. As soon as this takes place their is a change of perspective, and from unity/wisdom the soul now enters into a state of dualism - now aware of itself and God as separated beings - God as object, outside of themselves, and an object of desire or fear.

From my own Buddhist perspective (which IS explored in the dialogue) all this links with suffering (dukkha) as being grounded in the "self" as constantly seeking more of what gives it pleasure, and less of what gives it misery, all based upon a false perspective. There being no such "self", this all becomes an exercise in futility.

@MadCornishBiker Said

It can only be good because God is the epitome of goodness, having the perfect balance of Love, Justice, Wisdom and Mercy, as an unbiased and deep study of the bible reveals. That is because asking why things happen eventually reveals the reasons.

@tariki Said

From my own Buddhist perspective (which IS explored in the dialogue) all this links with suffering (dukkha) as being grounded in the "self" as constantly seeking more of what gives it pleasure, and less of what gives it misery, all based upon a false perspective. There being no such "self", this all becomes an exercise in futility.

@wirelessguru1 Said

Well, thank you...

+1 (Neo)

@GreatestIam2 Said

I like my ego and would not give up the self and no God would demand such. If there was something wrong in being the self, then he would not have given it to us in the first place.

@GreatestIam2 Said

I agree with you my friend but I suspect we will change our minds when he answers my question to him. I hope not but.

Regards
DL

@GreatestIam2 Said

Wow. We just may have found an issue where we will agree.

If good as you say, then God must have been unjust in punishing A & E for doing what you said is good. Right?

Regards
DL

@GreatestIam2 Said

I like my ego and would not give up the self and no God would demand such. If there was something wrong in being the self, then he would not have given it to us in the first place.

Are you suggesting that we should not develop the moral sense that comes from the knowledge of good and evil and stay what amoral?

Regards
DL

@MadCornishBiker Said

I obviously, for once, gave an answer that was too brief, because I credited you with the intelligence to know what I meant. I am sorry I was obviously wrong in that.

I have never said that what Adam and Eve was good. It wasn't. They disobeyed the one instruction they had been given. The had the fruitage of all the trees in the garden to eat but still they had to have the one they had been told not to. How could that possibly have been good?

On top of that look at the hardship they have brought on mankind by their actions. Because they disobeyed all of mankind suffer illness and death.

God told them what would happen if they disobeyed, how could carrying out his warning be unjust? To have not dome so would have been unjust.

Adam and Eve did not develop a moral sense, they lost their moral sense when they disobeyed, and came to know things that they should not have known. True they came to know good and bad, but nowhere did it say that they came to know which was which, or how to tell the difference.

We have inherited that inability from them. If that were not true everyone everywhere would adhere to the same morality, but even in the same national group or faith, there is a great deal of dispute about what is good and what is bad.

Becoming like God is good, but only if you become like God in everything. Adam and Eve were incapable of doing that. Taking on the knowledge of Good and Bad without the Wisdom to know which is which was the bad side of what they did.

You say that the Jews say that what Adam and Eve did was a good thing. You do not specify which particular branch of the Jewish faith you refer to. I have known a few Jews, but none that agree with what you have said. Certainly none in Jesus day felt so, and Jesus, in his pre-human days was there at the time and he didn't think so, nor did his Apostles after him. Don't forget Jesus lived taught and died as a faithful Jew. One who had the job of bringing the Jews back to faithful worship.

Those that believed and followed him became part of the "New Israel" the "Israel of God", later known as the Christian Congregation. Those who refused to return to faithful worship stayed with the, by that time disapproved Jewish faith, and have apostatised even further since those days, thus endorsing the reasons for their being disapproved by God.

It isn't as if they weren't warned that it would happen, and all because the Messiah they were given did not fit what they wanted.

@GreatestIam2 Said

I like my ego and would not give up the self and no God would demand such. If there was something wrong in being the self, then he would not have given it to us in the first place.

Are you suggesting that we should not develop the moral sense that comes from the knowledge of good and evil and stay what amoral?

Regards
DL

@MadCornishBiker Said

God did not give us the self, we developed that as we grew. He has however given us guidelines in His word to tell us what our self should be.