21 - ORIGINAL CONTRADICTION

For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened,

and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

December 31, 2024

One of the Bible’s most impressive descriptions of God comes in the 40th chapter of Isaiah (vv. 9-31).  There, God speaks, again and again setting Himself apart from His creation.  The poetry is magnificent!  “To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with Him?” (40:18)

Underlying the astounding claims in these verses is the truth that God is self-existent.  He has no beginning and no end; he has always been and always will be.  He is not a creature and He – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – stands apart in nature and being from all that He has made.  The apostle John implies this in the prologue to his gospel (see John 1:1-14 and also Ex. 8:10; Ps. 86:8; Is. 46:9).

In an earlier post, Reality with a Capital R, we had noted that God is one - one in that He is without division or parts.  This goes hand-in-hand with God’s self-existence.  Since He is one, He cannot contradict himself.  His Word is without contradiction; in fact, it must be without contradiction. There is no other like God and there can be no other like Him.

For our purposes, we want to note that it is impossible, both logically and in practice, to have two “self-existent beings” – two Gods, in the Biblical sense – because one of those would, necessarily, have to have been created by the other. 

To be sure, the Bible teaches that men and women are made “in the image of God,” but the Imago Dei stops far short claiming we are “like” God, as far – and further – than the image of yourself that you see in a mirror is from being you.  It is only a mere reflection of you.  And this introduction brings us to the story of The Fall in Genesis 3. 

I think it noteworthy that the Serpent’s approach to tempting Eve employs contradiction: he says, “… you will be like God…”  What the Serpent implies is “Eve, You can be equal with God; you can be on the same footing as God when it comes to determining what is good and what is evil…”

But, of course, as the opening explanation makes clear, that’s impossible.  There is only one God, only one Being in whom and from whom all standards of right and wrong, good and evil, flow.  The Serpent’s lie is that it could be otherwise!

Genesis 3 begins with the observation that the Serpent was more “crafty” (ESV ), “cunning” (HCSB), “subtler” (NKJV) than the other creatures.  He doesn’t come out and say, directly, that Adam and Eve can dethrone God, as in take God’s place, but he “puts his toe up to the line.”  And, sadly, Eve takes the Serpent’s bait: offered the first, the Original, contradiction, she accepts, and does Adam, too.  The rest, as they say, is history!

Just as we saw back in the Colliding with Reality post, an attempt to have two objects occupy the same space at the same time will fail, every time!  With two automobiles, both will likely suffer damage in the resulting collision, but here the Human Beings suffer all the damage, among which is the wherewithal to avoid contradiction and, thereby, to avoid sin.  As Isaiah would later write: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned – every one – to his own way…

Thus, Original Contradiction begat Original Sin!*

Again, ponder the extent to which the Principle of Non-Contradiction is: 1) built into the structure of Creation, in both the physical and spiritual realms; and 2) is inescapable.  Oh that we would have spiritual eyes that see what is always before us!  (See Mt. 13:15)

Next time: Contradiction and Relativism