“good and evil then simply represented the birth of choices”
Epicurus (341-270 BCE) was a very wise Greek philosopher whose view on good and bad is revealing. He said: “Either God wants to get rid of evil [bad], but he can’t; or God can, but he doesn’t want to; or God neither wants to nor can, or he both wants to and can. If God wants to, but can’t, then he’s not all-powerful. If he can, but doesn’t want to, he’s not all-loving. If he neither can nor wants to, he’s neither all-powerful nor all-loving. And if he wants to and can—then why doesn’t he remove evil?”[i]
Insight # 34 comes from Seth who is a “disembodied personality” (not present in the material world of form). He was “channeled” by author Jane Roberts beginning in 1963. Seth’s insights are profound not because of where they come from but because of their intrinsic truth.
“In certain respects, Eve rather than Adam eats the apple first because it was the intuitive elements of the race, portrayed in the story as female, that would bring about this initiation; only afterward could the ego, symbolized by Adam, attain its new birth and its necessary alienation. The tree of knowledge, then, did indeed offer its fruits—‘good and bad’—because this was the first time there were any kinds of choices available, and free will. In your particular legend, Adam appears first. The woman being created from his rib symbolized the necessary emergence, even from the new creature, of the intuitive forces that will always come forth—for without that development the race would not have attained self-consciousness in your terms. Good and evil [bad] then simply represented the birth of choices, initially in terms of survival, where earlier instinct alone had provided all that was needed.”[ii]
__________
Additional Reading:
- Good and Bad, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 1
__________
[i] Ranke-Heinemann, Uta. Putting Away Childish Things. New York: Harper/Collins, 1994, p. 60.
[ii] Roberts, Jane. The Nature of Personal Reality. New York: Bantam, 1974, p. 241.
