The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

I just finished watching the movie The Box. I believe the meaning of the movie whas that this place is "The Box"; a test of sorts. I have often wondered why we were here, why I was here. I this place a test for our soul?

In the Bible's first book, Genesis, we are told that our ancestors began their lives in a Garden of Eden of sorts. That they were told not to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. After much reflexion concerning the meaning of this metaphor, I had concluded that this tree represented an option that was open to us in the perfect world called the Garden of Eden. The tree represented the option of being able to choose between good and evil. Upon eating fruit from this tree, one earned the possibility of choosing to do acts of evil as well as acts of good.

Thus, the Garden of Eden represented a world were none of its inhabitants had the [direct] option of doing good or evil. All choices one had the possibility of making were of a neutral nature. Neutral choices are difficult to conceive for it seems natural to assume that all choices yields effects that are either good or evil. However, if good is defined as actions that reduce-mitigate evil actions, then a world-garden that would have no evil actions to fight would only provide for neutral actions resulting from our willed choices.

Then there is the symbol of the Tree of Life, which was taken away from us, or the Garden, whence we decided to choose to gain the ability to choose to act in evil and-or good ways. I feel that this tree symbolizes eternal life, life without dependence on a physical non-eternal fragile body that grows and inevitably decays until it is nothing but dust. Thus, in our original world-garden, we depended on no such body. We were made of one eternal substance, a spiritual substance (non-physical).

But here we are, in this place, this box. Our bodies provide us with a chance to live out our lives as we see fit. Yet we are all subject to certain limitations-constraints for we depend on this body to move, think, sense, etc. It is both a useful tool and a prison-type box. We do not know why we are here. We know only what we choose to know, directly or indirectly. On a moment by moment basis, we are continuously faced with options from which we must choose. We are not completely aware of the good or evil effects of each option presented to us for our knowledge of such predictions is limited and very often uncertain-unconvincing. However, were are often faced with options which we believe-know are very likely to yield evil effects. In other words, we often choose options knowing their likeliness of yielding evil effects-actions relative to the other options presented to us. And we often fail to choose the most altruistic options, those that would likely yield good effects for others.

Of course, it would not necessarily be fair to be given but one-and-only-one chance-moment to make the right choice. This may be why we are provided with a life-long life to make mistakes (so-called sins) and learn from these. Lucky for us, we can learn from these for through the intelligence incarnated by our mind-brain we can [re]define ourself. Without this ability to learn from our mistakes, from the mistakes of others, from the world, and from ourselves, we could not learn The Way of the World.

Sometimes, I think that it is awesome to be provided with the ability to choose between good and evil for it makes me feel more free. Yet this is only an illusion. You see, I would like to be able to instantaneously program my mind so that I could only do good, never do evil. But this is not the case. Each moment, I am challenged with more evil options (as well as good ones): Will I lie? Will I steal? Will I lust? Will I envy? Will I..? Will I tell the truth, will I give? Will I love? Will I resist temptations? Each new moment of our existence, we are faced with these options. And we always choose to realize one of our options (implicitly, we choose to choose); each moment involves a choice. Each choice is persisted into our mind-brain. Each evil choice will thus make it harder to make a good choice of the same nature. But each moment, we have the possibility of redeeming ourselves.

Hence, if this box is a test, it would seem that it would involve a test of our righteousness-sinfulness. If we end up making our mind into something good, we pass. If we end up making our mind into something evil, we fail. But what happens to us if we pass? And if we fail? The answer is not so obvious to me. One could think that an evil life will yield a sentence in Hell, while a good life would yield a reward of Heaven. It seems obvious to me that this Heaven is of the same nature as this Garden of Eden we spoke of earlier.

But as for Hell, the answer seems more difficult. Would we really be sent to a place of eternal suffering without any chance of redemption? Or would we be given another life in this box? A another chance to take the test? It would seem more compassionate and merciful of the Examiner if we were given a great amount of chances for salvation. But some may argue that some people deserve to suffer for all the evil they have done to others. To this, I would say that this place is filled with suffering enough for it is filled with souls that choose to effect evil onto others.