What We Really Want
“For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:5 NASB
You will be like God – Translated in this way, the serpent’s voice strikes us as the epitome of arrogance, hubris and folly. Of course we can’t be like God! No one can even imagine such a thing. Although we often think of the first couple as uninformed children, I don’t think the story will bear that excuse either. The man and the woman are as adult as we are. They knew the stakes and they knew what they were doing. But it wasn’t an attempt to usurp the heavenly throne. No, the verse should be translated with the much more palatable, “you will be like gods,” a perfectly acceptable idea in the polytheistic cultures of the ancient world. Men did become like gods. Pharaoh was the perfect example. It was possible, at least it seemed so, to become like the gods. The serpent isn’t suggesting a coup. He’s just implying that this couple could have the same status as other members of the divine counsel. The only thing needed is the ability to determine what is good and what it evil.
To be like God is to be able to declare that this is good and that is bad. This is what Adam and Eve acquired, and this was the cause of the break, for there is absolutely nothing to guarantee that our declaration will correspond to God’s. Thus to establish morality is necessarily to do wrong. This does not mean that a mere suppression of morality (current, banal, social, etc.) will restore the good. God himself frees us from morality and places us in the only true ethical situation, that of personal choice, of responsibility, of the invention and imagination that we must exercise if we are to find the concrete form of obedience to our Father. Thus all morality is annulled. The Old Testament commandments and Paul’s admonitions are not in any sense morality. On the one side they are the frontier between what brings life and what brings death, on the other side they are examples, metaphors, analogies, or parables that incite us to invention.[1]
Jacques Ellul’s insight about morality needs to be seriously considered. Far too often we act as if morality is defined by certain rules of behavior. We think that living according to the rules means we are upright, moral people, and, of course, those who don’t follow our rules are, by definition, immoral. But Ellul forces us to see things differently. Rule-directed behavior is not the essence of morality, even if the rules come from the Bible. My friend, Moshe Kempinski, properly notes that the biblical commandments are not rules. They are opportunities to show God that we love Him. If we operate on the basis of rules we remove the supremely important divine element in life, that is, choice. God made Man a choosing being. Every moment becomes an endorsement or denial of God’s intention, that is, that Man should choose to live by aligning with God. As Ellul notes, true morality is the acceptance of personal choice, the exercise of the essence of human being. True morality occurs in deciding, not in conforming.
This is why Ellul can argue that the commandments of Moses and the exhortations of Paul are not examples of morality. They are the borderlines between life and death. Morality is found in the choice about what to do with these borderlines. Morality is found in the exercise of responsibility and the creative application of that exercise to our present circumstances.
The Bible provides us with a map of the borders. It proclaims that one side of the line leads to life, the other to death. It admonishes us to choose correctly with personal benefit in mind. The Bible also advises that we are not equipped to determine where the border should lie. We do not have the ability to decide what is good and what it evil. But we do have the ability to choose between these two options when they are presented to us. The temptation in the Garden was not about breaking the rules. It was about determining the rules. According to Scripture, only God is capable of that determination.
Were you shocked when Ellul wrote, “to establish morality is necessarily to do wrong”? How did you react to that? Did you realize that setting up a rule-based code of conduct is essentially to replace God’s determination of what is good and what isn’t? How much of our lives are really conformity or resistance to rules? Dance, don’t dance. Eat, don’t eat. Drink wine, don’t drink wine. Bow your head, lift your hands. Repeat a prayer, make up your own. Obey the elders, decide for yourself. On and on it goes. What is the difference between this kind of living and the life connection established by God in the Garden? Have you ever thought about it?
Topical Index: morality, rules, good and evil, Genesis 3:5
[1] Jacques Ellul, The Subversion of Christianity, p. 15.
Today we are traveling to Reggio Emilia, Italy, for a long stay. Internet connection will probably be quite slow for the duration. Please keep that in mind when you ask for responses from me.
