Genesis 2 and 3, The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Postmodernism, and Critical Theory

People in general don't want to be told what to do.  This is the sin nature of mankind, a cursed rebellion passed down from Adam.  So people won't have to do what they are told, they disparage the credibility of the authority.  God is attacked in diverse manners so He won't get in the way of what someone wants to do.

The premoderns, even if some did not view themselves or the world correctly, related everything to God.  Truth was objective.  It was known either by natural or special revelation of God.  If God said it, it was true.  It didn't matter what their opinion was.  Many invented various means to deal with how they might contradict that, but God remained God.

Modernism arose and said revelation wasn't suitable for knowledge.   To be knowledge it had to be tested by scientific evidence, man's observations, consequently elevating man above God.  Man could now do what he wanted because he had changed the standard for knowledge.  Faith for sure wasn't good enough.   With modernism, faith might make you feel good, but something had to be "proven" in naturalistic fashion to say you know it.   The result was modernism trampled the twentieth century, producing devastation, therefore, unsuccessful with its so-called knowledge.

Premoderns had an objective basis for knowledge, revelation from God.  Moderns too, even if it wasn't valid, had human reasoning as an objective basis.  Still today, many depend on what has been termed, "empirical proof."  Postmoderns haven't believed or liked either scripture or empiricism and it relates to authority, whether God or government or parents, or whatever.  No one should be able to tell somebody else what to do.  Modernism failed.  Look at the American Indians and institutional bias, bigotry, and injustice.  It's all just constructed by power and language anyway.  I should be able to do what I want.  I know better.  I have my own knowledge of good and evil.  You tell me what to do for no good reason.

Critical theory proceeds from postmodernism, but is ironically constructed to sound like modernism. It's not a theory.  Theory is by definition supposed to be rational and associated with observations backed by data.  Critical theory criticizes, but it isn't a theory, rather a desire.  People desire to do what they want and don't want to be told what to do, so they deconstruct the language to serve their desires and change the outcome.  In the United States especially, they criticize white men, those who constructed language and power for their own advantage.  They kept down women, all the other races, and sexual preferences.

The postmodernism behind critical theory procures its knowledge with total subjectivity.  Those proficient in theory based on their own divination know what's good and evil.  Having this secret knowledge is being woke.  They have eaten of the tree.  White men are evil.  The patriarchy is evil.  Anyone contesting gender fluidity and trangenderism is evil.

Epistemology is a field of study that explores and judges how we know what we know and whether we really know it, that it is in fact knowledge.  What is a sufficient source of knowledge?  You can say you know, but do you really know?  The Bible uses the term "know" and "knowledge" a lot.  Biblical knowledge is certain, because it comes from God.  You do know what God says, when you learn it.  You can't say the same thing about what you experience or feel.

In Genesis 2 (vv. 9, 17), what was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?  In the same context, Genesis 3:5-7 say:

 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods,, knowing good and evil. 6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. 7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

If Adam and Eve depended on what God knew, they would not have eaten of the forbidden tree.  By eating of it, they trusted their own knowledge.  The tree wasn't the tree of the knowledge of good.  God provided that knowledge.  Just listen to Him.  By eating of the tree, now someone also had the knowledge of evil.  The knowledge of evil, what someone might call, carnal knowledge, reminds me of three verses in the New Testament.

1 Corinthians 5:1, It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.

Ephesians 5:3, But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints.

Romans 16:19, For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.

God forbids or warns against the increase of the knowledge of evil.  Don't become curious with evil. That last verse of the three is especially enlightening.  Adam and Eve, however, upon eating were no longer simple concerning evil.  The knowledge of evil isn't especially helpful and we don't need any other basis for the knowledge of good other than God.  God is good.  All goodness comes from above (James 1:17).

Critical theory posits a special knowledge, like that of the gnostic.  It is an invention, an impression, or a desire.  What the theorist knows now is evil, because he's stopped listening to God as a basis for what he does.  He doesn't want to do what God tells him to do.  He wants to do what he wants to do.  There is no objective basis for his knowledge.  Like James wrote, we are tempted when we are drawn away by our own lust and enticed.  It isn't knowledge or truth.  It is lust, like what Adam and Eve had in the garden.

When someone does something he wants to do, he now has experiential knowledge of that thing, something like carnal knowledge.  He functions according to his own lust, his own feelings.  He's being true to himself, so true by his own presupposition.  His truth is his truth.  He's authentic.  He listens to his music.  He eats what he wants, drinks what he wants, watches what he wants.  A man wears a dress if he wants, because he wants to wear it.  She can pierce herself wherever and with whatever she wants and lie with another woman if it's what she wants, if she's being true to herself.  This clashes with God, but God is only a construct anyway of a white patriarchy for the purpose of power.

The person who knows evil is a person of the world, doing what he wants, experiencing it all for himself.  Maybe his parents have said, no.  They've said, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.  He is wise unto that which is evil, which is impressive in this world.  He has a worldly vocabulary that conforms to how wants to talk.  It's not profanity any more.  That was all just a construct.  It's authentic speech, art imitating life and life imitating art.  It's like the pursuit of Solomon without God -- altogether vanity and vexation of spirit.

That the knowledge of evil would make one wise and was a pleasure to look upon, this is a lie of temptation.  Critical theory standardizes lies and turns them into a curriculum.  Someone can claim an expertise, become a licensed operator of these lies.  The lies are more than condoned; they are institutionalized.

Eve saw the fruit of the tree.  It was good.  It would make her wise.  This was critical theory.  She was now woke.  Right after she ate was reality, was true, and then both Adam and Eve had to deal with that.  Every man will deal with that.  In the end, the theories, that aren't even theories, won't make any difference before a holy God.