Learning to think through making choices

"And the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, what if he puts forth his hand, and takes also from the tree of life, and eats, and lives forever." Gen 3:22

Man's physical survival requires him to make choices. These range from choices of food to choosing a spouse and procreating the species. Making choices is so basic and necessary that Man does it without thinking, but the necessity of choosing isn't only required for his physical survival. It's also necessary because Man can develop his ability to think only by making choices.

Teaching Man to think by making choices is in fact the most important objective of the Bible. This is vividly demonstrated by God's prohibition to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. By choosing to disobey God and eating the forbidden fruit man embarks on his life of choice. He didn't have the ability to think until he chose to eat the fruit. He acquired the ability to think by making the choice.

God warns him: "as soon as you eat the fruit you will die". That means if he continues to be the same man who doesn't make choices he will not die.

Man, however, doesn't continue to be the man who doesn't make choices instead he becomes another man, one who makes choices and so he lives. The man who doesn't make choices dies as soon as the man who makes choices comes into being.

There is no place in the Garden of Eden for the man who makes his own choices. If he is to live it must be outside the Garden where he continues to live by leading a life of conflict and making choices.

Only the man who doesn't make choices can live inside the Garden of Eden and only the man who makes choices can live outside.

The reason why choice features so prominently in the story of the Garden of Eden is not to show its importance in itself but to demonstrate its importance as a necessary step in equipping man with the ability of free thought so that he can live outside, in the real world. Making a choice makes man thoughtful.

The purpose of the story of the Garden of Eden is to show the importance of thinking about the choices we make.

Thinking not choosing is what raises the individual to a higher plane of civilization but thinking is a necessary component of choosing.

Man survives because he makes choices, but this teaches him to think, if he thinks about the choices he makes.

Not all men become thinking people, only those who think about the choices they've made. Man can learn to think only if he has the freedom to choose. Thinking men cannot develop in a society which limits Man's ability to choose.

Unlike Man, God, being infinite, survives without making choices. God's nature is to create without making choice and without thinking. Man becomes a creator, like God only when he makes a choice and thinks about the choice he's made or thinks then makes a choice based on his thinking.

Man being finite can only survive by exercising choice. He could have chosen to eat of the fruit of the tree of life and not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Then he would also be like God and live forever but he wouldn't have been like God the creator.

Man's choice was between living forever and being a creator. He chose to be a creator.

Man can't be both infinite and a creator like God. He must choose between the two.

When one thinks about the choices he has made every experience in life becomes a considered experience. This is what elevates man to a higher spiritual level. This is what God means by saying "he has become like one of us". Socrates considers a life of thinking as the only kind of life worthwhile living.