The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had formed. The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…. The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:8-17, CSB).

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’” “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.(Genesis 3:1-5, CSB).

In these two chapters from Genesis we see the formulation of some fundamental components of the Judeo-Christian ethic–free will, human depravity, moral law and justice.

God planted a garden in Eden and gave the man the responsibility for working in the garden and watching over it. (Why it was necessary for the man to protect the garden is an interesting question for another time.) Two species of trees in the garden are mentioned–the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Of the former, Adam and Eve could eat and subsequently experience eternal life. Of the latter, they were commanded not to eat or they would experience death.

God created Adam and Eve with free will so they were free to eat of the fruit of any of the trees in the garden (including the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). Since God commanded them not to eat of the one tree in the garden, He created a moral order to the universe. Since there were consequences to disobeying God’s command, there was justice in the universe.

Evil is the corruption of God’s good, of God’s moral law. It is borne out of deception and/or self-deception. Corruption is the result of defining good and evil for ourselves, of choosing own own way instead of God’s way.

Because they had free will, Adam and Eve had the capability based on what they knew about good and evil to choose God’s moral order or define their own moral order. Free will allowed Adam and Eve to be susceptible to moral corruption and their wrong choice gained humanity the ability to define good and evil for themselves and the potential to become formidably corrupt.

The story line of Adam and Eve’s unfortunate decision and the resulting corruption has been constantly replayed throughout human history. (In Genesis 6 humanity was so corrupt that God regretted He had made them–see Genesis 6:1-7.) As human beings and heirs of Adam and Eve’s original sin, we all have a propensity for corruption–for deceiving ourselves into thinking right is wrong and wrong is right.

Just as Adam and Eve wanted the ability to discern between right and wrong on their own terms and obtained it, we still can choose to do things that we know go against God’s commandments or we can choose to abide by God’s commandments. But, any definition of good and evil that deviates from what God says is good and evil is fraudulent and will always lead to death and destruction.

When we define right and wrong for ourselves, it leads to human corruption. So, every day we are faced with the choice of defining good and evil for ourselves or letting God define good and evil for us. How do you choose today?

They perish because they did not accept the love of the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a strong delusion so that they will believe the lie, so that all will be condemned—those who did not believe the truth but delighted in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12, CSB).