In the true spirit of Kierkegaard embark with me on a little thought experiment. If God Created man to be a channel through which he realizes his presence on earth through a personal relationship with him, then man will not recognize how completely insignificant he is. For in resting transparently in the creator Adam is abiding in his love and extends that love to Eve. Though he is insignificant before God he is so consumed with who God is and occupied with being that which God empowers him to be that he does not even see how incapable he is, for he is not abiding in himself. In Kierkegaard language, in relating the relation of the self to itself Adam’s self sees only the life of God that is consuming the relation, because he is resting transparently. This is love; that the self is not even important so consumed is the individual with being a channel of the sacrificial life of God.

In this case the definition of evil is: “The experience of of creation’s insignificance before God.”

When Adam sins, he stops resting transparently and grabs hold of the finite self. Since this life of God is characterized by love then love instantly ceases when the individual suddenly stops being concerned with the life of God and looks to his own self and tries to be its life. But since the individual is absolutely insignificant there is nothing for the individual to grab onto, nor is there anything the individual can provide for the self. So not only is there a lack of life to provide for the self-relation, but it must absolutely now be on a path of self-destruction.

Thus the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil can be called the tree of the knowledge of good which condemns creation’s insignificance. That is, that to have an objective understanding of good, as God does, one must also know of the powerlessness of creation to produce that good apart from God: the knowledge of evil. We see here again that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was not intrinsically bad, for it contained truth, but for man to take the knowledge apart from a context that would be a simple abiding in God’s will and command for the sake of sustaining another is to destroy himself with his nothingness.

Since this relation of the self is now void of the life and power of God, the individual has no choice but to desperately seek to take life from any source it can find; other individuals.

This completely reverses the relation among individuals. Where previously the individual sought to give of itself by the power of the life of God for the sustenance of created design, now it takes whatever it can from the other in a vain attempt to sustain itself with a nothing, an insignificance, thus highlighting its own nothingness and destroying itself and the other without giving a second thought to it. And this is hate.

So man is insignificant before God. This is part of design so that the relationship of abiding might bring about God’s image on earth. However when Adam no longer abides, but grabs the finite and experiences his insignificance before God he brings evil