The Bible, which is a very interesting and here and there very profound book when considered as one of the oldest surviving manifestations of human wisdom and fancy, expresses this truth very naively in its myth of original sin. Jehovah, who of all the good gods adored by men was certainly the most jealous, the most vain, the most ferocious, the most unjust, the most bloodthirsty, the most despotic, and the most hostile to human dignity and liberty-Jehovah had just created Adam and Eve, to satisfy we know not what caprice; no doubt to while away his time, which must weigh heavy on his hands in his eternal egoistic solitude, or that he might have some new slaves. He generously placed at their disposal the whole earth, with all its fruits and animals, and set but a single limit to this complete enjoyment. He expressly forbade them from touching the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He wished, therefore, that man, destitute of all understanding of himself, should remain an eternal beast, ever on all-fours before the eternal God, his creator and his master. But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge.What we see in Genesis 3:22 certainly raises my own eyebrows:
And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.A plain reading of the Bible reveals the obvious issue of whether or not man "knew good and evil" before, or after, the Fall -- and thus whether or not man ought be responsible if the former. Nearly every time Bakunin's major point is raised with an apologist, the apologist insists that man "knowing" good and evil here means experiencing it. I brought to the attention of one recent apologist the fact that the same phraseology is used with respect to God, and thus a consistent hermeneutic would require an inference that God has also experienced evil. The apologist, needless to say, did not agree, yet was unable to provide a satisfactory reply.
An important question remains -- is the "Fall of Man" simply the acquisition of a moral conscience? It seems so at first glance. For indeed, if man does not know good from evil, then how could the choice to eat the fruit have been "sin" at all? Did the serpent lie about this? It appears that God gives substantiation to the claim in 3:22. Further, God cursed the serpent, and why would God curse the serpent for telling the truth?
The next section is particularly relevant in this day of theonomist revival:
On behalf of human liberty, dignity and prosperity, we believe it our duty to recover from heaven the goods which it has stolen and return them to earth.If God exists, it is a moral affront to man to call himself "free". Let us consider this for a moment -- is there a "free will" at all, if God exists? Does man have the ability to choose freely between actions? Obviously not, according to orthodox interpretations of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. According to these traditions, man has only one choice -- God's way or hell. That is not freedom at all. That is indeed slavery.
If God is, man is a slave; now, man can and must be free; then, God does not exist.
A jealous lover of human liberty, and deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him."
-- Mikhaill Bakunin, "God and the State," 1883
It is thus impossible to hold to theism and man's freedom without a contradiction. In the regress of events, if God lies behind them, our freedom is not only an illusion, but a mockery of God's sovereignty -- Calvinists agree. They claim Paul and Jesus did too [c.f. Rom 9].
See his Wikipedia entry for more.
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