Nigel Tomes - LSM's Unorthodox Satanology

[Gubei]

Originally Posted by Paul Miletus

I believe the tree of knowledge of good and evil is "a physical thing with spiritual meanings".

Man's eating the physical fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil was a vivid illustration in the Old Testament how man's disobedience manifested and thereby corrupted him.

Brother Watchman Nee's teaching was very clear regarding this --

Thanks Paul,

Your quotation of Watchman Nee is more about the reason why the tree could be called the tree of knowledge of good and evil (instead of the tree of death), rather than how the physical fruit can make man fall.

Bascially, I think the physical fruit itself was not a contaminating source of man at that time because physical fruits are just nuetral thing like apples you and I eat in our daily life.

If, however, the apples on the table are prohibited by a mom from the access by her children in order to give them to the dad who is about to get home soon from work, and the children eat them out.... That could be a problem - disobedience.

So my tentative conclusion is this. Man's fall is more related to disobedience than physical eating the fruit (i.e. injection of something into man by eathing it). So it appears that I'm for KSA's "untuned piano" theory.

However, even though Adam was in a untuned contion (caused by disobedience) in the Garden, why his decendants should be born also "untuned" without regard to their freewill are not so clear to me yet.
Ovious is that "unavoidable being born untuned" and "having perfect freewill" conflicts each other quite a lot to me.

Anyway, judging from some verses in the Bible, I think the untuned condition (or sinful nature, or defected freewill) is sure to be inherited ever - which means every human being is sinner.

1. I welcome your comments on my tentative conclusion.
2. You said that the friut is a physical thing. According to Gen., the Garden and the trees are still there, being protected by angels and a flaming sword. And why can we not find the Garden now? That should be somewhere between the Mid-East countries...

- Gubei