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We must therefore expect, in the very nature of things, to find contingency in the
second chapter of Genesis.
"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou
mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of
it: for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2: 16, 17).
The twofold usage of the word "determine" is an interesting example of the difference
between what is mechanical and what is moral.
(1)
"I am determined to face the wind."
(2)
"Dust is determined to go with the wind."
In the first case a resolution is made after due consideration, a definite choice arrived
at after pondering alternatives. In the second case there is no choice, and there can never
have been an alternative.
It is obviously foolish to speak of a "will", apart from the person that wills, and it is
equally absurd to talk of "evil", as though it existed somewhere in the universe as a thing
in itself. Moral evil cannot be "created", or come into existence, apart from moral beings
who actually do what is wrong. When we discuss the existence of evil apart from the
actions of those who act wrongly, we are inventing difficulties which have no real
existence. The problem of evil is the problem of personality. If a moral person, who is
held accountable for his actions, transgresses a prohibition and thereby comes under a
penalty, it is utterly wrong to charge the One Who lays down the prohibition and inflicts
the penalty, with the creation of the evil thus punished. If such a state could be
conceived, anything would be possible, and the whole groundwork of truth would
dissolve. Under such conditions nothing would or could matter. To speak of
predetermined sin would be a contradiction, for sin is the transgression of a law, and a
predetermined act is itself of the very essence of law. Obedience and disobedience in this
case would be quite irrelevant.
In the story of the garden of Eden, we must not imagine some insidious trap, definitely
placed there so that man should fall into it. We must realize, rather, that man, as a moral
creature, had to be tested. In the law we read:
"If ye will not be reformed by Me by these things, but will walk contrary unto Me:
then I will also walk contrary unto you and will punish you yet seven times for your sins"
(Lev. 26: 23, 24).
These words would mean less than nothing if it had already been predetermined that
Israel would in fact "walk contrary". Indeed, if it had been decreed that Israel should act
in this way, then their so-called "contrary" actions would actually be in agreement with
the Divine intention and sin would become an impossibility. "To be forewarned is to be
forearmed", and the very knowledge of what in the natural course of things will
inevitably happen becomes by the interposition of moral agency a means of falsifying
such apparent predetermination.