Nigel Tomes - LSM's Unorthodox Satanology

[Paul Miletus]

Originally Posted by Gubei

Dear Paul,

Thanks a lot. My next questions are as follows;

1. Was the tree of knowledge of good and evil

a. a physical thing with spiritual meanings
b. a figurative story for spiritual meaning (i.e. not a historical/physical event)

2. If your answer is a, how could a phsyical fruit make man fall? Is is that Satan hided himself or his "nature" into the fruit in order to get into man eventually? And why was the tree called "the tree of knowledge of good and evil" rather thatn "the tree of death", which could have been made more symmetrical with "the tree of life?"

3. If your answer is b, what spiritual entity does the tree of knowledge of good and evil stand for? (i.e. Satan, Satanic nature, death,....)

Judging from your past posts, I guess you would take anwer a

Many thanks once again for your help. - Gubei

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 --

In Hebrew, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is composed of three words: knowledge, good, and evil. Life is simply life; it is unique. But God cannot say that evil is good, or that good is evil. Other than knowledge, good, and evil, there is still another thing, which is death. Good and evil bring in death. Today, in order to gain God, we have to be pure. The meaning of being pure is to have one thing only. What we take into us is life, and what is lived out of us is the image. If it is life for us all the way from the beginning to the end and we have nothing besides life, we are being pure. When man joins himself to the knowledge of good and evil, he falls into death, and he becomes complicated. The tree of knowledge can be called the tree of good, and it can also be called the tree of evil. Humanly speaking, the tree of good and the tree of knowledge sound very nice, and the tree of evil and the tree of death sound very bad. But in the whole universe, nothing other than life is according to God's will. Everything outside of life is in the realm of knowledge, good, evil, and death. Today, man thinks that good is life, and evil is death. When man touches evil, he touches death. But when he touches good, does he not touch death also? When he touches knowledge, does he not touch death also? I have to shout loudly that the result of good and knowledge is also death.