Nuance and Growth

I watched a video yesterday from Jonathan Pageau, an iconographer, regarding story of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Bible. He asked the question: did God want mankind to know the difference between good and evil? According to Genesis, God did not want this because he commanded Adam and Eve to stay away from the tree. But then there's a later account of King Solomon where he asked God for wisdom to discern good from evil and God grants his request. See 1 Kings 3 if you want to read that story.

Christians will say there's no contradictions in the Bible. They will also say God is unchanging. Yet, here is a clear case of God saying two opposite things. So, which is true? The answer is nuance. Evangelical Christianity takes a wooden, literal view of the Bible. Rather than look for symbolism and allegory, they read at the surface level. That's how we get things like the Earth being created in six days. Unquestioning devotion to a shallow understanding of things.

To get to the heart of something requires patience and an open mind. We have to willing to admit we don't know certain things. We have to own our biases and it's uncomfortable to have our world view questioned. When a political or religious idea is challenged, rather than immediately get into a fight, take a minute and pause. Am I reacting emotionally to this information? Why is that? Can learn something new here? If we can sit in a place of humility, we can grow. But if we know it all and are 100% certain, we cannot. If we truly believe in progress, we have to believe there are areas to progress into. We always have the opportunity to learn.

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