The Big Picture and the Closeup

In the world of Genesis, knowing the difference between good and evil seems to be a bad thing. Adam and Eve develop what in English we call modesty, the sense that some things should stay private, which they experience as embarrassment. And somehow that makes them God-like. And even more confusingly, God treats this as a bad thing, objecting as if He were afraid of the competition. What a thematic mess, at least for a modern-day Christian!

It can be seen, then, that there is a clash between the empathic world view, the conscience, that informs our laws, grounded in a respect for others, and the psychopath’s. So who is right?