Jessy asked me what the opposite of a dog is. When I told her I didn't know, she looked at me quizically and told me it is a cat. But what about salt? Mustard? Cheese?* Obviously I was bad at this game.
However, I tried to rectify my reputation by explaining the nature of opposites. I was told, and here blindly repeated, that a true opposite is something that cannot exist without something else. I gave the example of light and darkness, and good and evil before realizing my error. I had argued this before, but thankfully then on the correct side.
A girl in my English class had said that good and evil didn't exist when Adam nad Eve were created, and that the only way we can know good is through evil.
Well, then. God was good before humans knew evil, right? So even while evil or darkness can't exist without good and light (evil being twisted good and dark being the absence of light), good and light can exist independantly: you can have perfection and full light.
God is perfection, and Adam and Eve were created in goodness, hence God said: "It is good."
As for knowing good through evil, perhaps. If Adam after he had eaten the fruit could have stopped himself in the past, I'm sure he would, for he realized what he'd lost. He ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,** and so the knowledge of good and evil are true opposites since they exist dependently. Good can exist without the knowledge of good, but to have the knowledge of good one must have evil.
I'm pretty sure Jessy didn't want to know all of that.
*No, she didn't tell me the opposite of cheese
**Genesis 2:17
5 comments:
Can I get a "BOOO---YAAA" lol. Very true Reese, really interesting post.
Your poor sister... :)
Here are a couple of observations I have made on this topic (in general and specific to your post): God created the world good and said that all was "very good" on the sixth day. However, goodness does not amount to "perfection" and the two words ought not be interchanged.
If the world were perfect, God would not have told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. The earth would not have needed anything other than what God had already created. The earth was not filled yet, it was not complete. It needed gardeners and pro-creators, just what God created Adam and Eve to be.
Secondly, before God created man did He have knowledge of good? If so, by your conclusion He would either have needed to have (or know? or somehow be?) evil or He didn't know good.
Some things are one-way relations. You can have good without evil, but not evil without good. Light without darkness, not vice versa - as you have already stated. You can even be told that good is good, and light is light... And though you cannot imagine evil or darkness, their lack does not cause you not to understand good or light. In fact, those are the only things you CAN/DO know.
~ Jody
This really got me thinking! Very well said.
I think it was Augustine who said that evil is just the privation or negation of good; there really is no evil per se, just as you said that darkness is only the absence of light.
On the subject of Adam and Eve being created good, I have a theory that I think I'm going to write about in my next blog post.
Hey Reese,
Have you ever read "Phaedo" by Plato? In it, Socrates talks about things springing from their opposites. He probably meant something along your idea, though he also said that life generated (or pre-ceeded) death, and that from death (the dead) comes life. I was trying to figure out which came first at the very beginning. It was a kind of confusing dialogue.
Anyway, you may want to check that out some day when you don't have oodles of homework.
Reese! yay! I saw that you are following me! another fellow blogger :D
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