On Truth and Falsity

         How the Knowledge of Good and Evil Works

The serpent happened to be a creature that Satan could possess. Satan is very intelligent and crafty, and he caused this serpent to be able to lie. This serpent lied to Eve and told her that if she ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that God had forbidden Adam and Eve to eat, she would not die. Genesis 3:1-4 (KJB). But every word that the Devil used to formulate this false statement happened to be a true and useful idea derived from the contents of the Mind of God. Satan has never created anything. The Devil can only steal real and useful ideas from the contents of God's Mind and misuse them to formulate false systems. But the Devil happens to be very crafty. The Devil knows that no one will believe his lies and false systems unless he attaches some reward for believing them and doing them.

God creates only true and good systems that cause a safe degree of pleasure for His intelligent creations. But the Devil used God's true and real ideas to invent false systems that cause excessive pleasure that eventually results in pain and destruction. God has created true systems that cause a normal and healthy state of pride in His intelligent creations, but the Devil has invented a false system of excessive pride which causes a person to desire to get rid of God and take His place. The idea of "excessive" can be useful in some true systems. For example, a group of humans who went through a drought may desire to grow an excessive amount of food when the rain returns in order to use that food to see them through another drought that may come. When a person possesses excessive pride, that person will feel like a vast emptiness is inside of them which indicates the presence of spiritual death which God warned Adam that he would acquire if he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:17 (KJB). If Adam and Eve ate of that forbidden tree, Adam and Eve would retain the goodness and faith that God had put into them, but they would also acquire a state of spiritual death inside of them that would cause them to desire to participate in false systems of excessive pride and pleasure which God calls sin and evil. They would lose their innocence, but they would acquire the ability to use their good desires within them to use God's good and real ideas to formulate useful systems that are beneficial. But they would also gain the ability to participate in false systems of sin and evil that only prove to be painful and destructive. In other words, they would lose their innocence, but they would gain much more intelligence.

When one closely examines the state of reality, one will find that every false system within reality always comprises a false combination of true and useful ideas and experiences which otherwise can be used to formulate true and useful systems. All abstract ideas and all sense objects have proven themselves to be useful in the formulation of true and false systems, and therefore, they all have been experienced. In other words, the basic ideas and experiences that have been put into words in any language can only be true and real because they all happen to be useful for the formulation of beneficial systems, but they can also be misused to formulate false systems of sin and evil. Words that mean nothing are also true and useful because humans need to know the difference between that which is useful and that which means nothing. The useful idea of nothing gives humans the ability to recognize false systems which is useful knowledge. The useful and real idea of nothing also gives humans the ability to exclude all ideas that will not work in any system they seek to formulate. The knowledge of good and evil can also give humans the ability to make harmless mistakes such as mistakes in arithmetic. But mathematics closely resembles the state of reality because every false system in mathematics always comprises true and useful numbers and signs, and the use of the idea of nothing which is the mathematical sign for zero.

All of this put together means that God calibrated the minds of humans to experience only that which is true and real, but when humans acquired the knowledge of good and evil, they also acquired the ability to use their true and real ideas and experiences to formulate beneficial systems, or they can use those same true and real ideas and experiences to participate in, and to invent, false and destructive systems of excessive pride and/or excessive pleasure.