In
the Garden: Explicit Choice, Conscious Fall
The Story
And
the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every
tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely
die.” – Genesis 2:16-17
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| "Wait, so this fruit is bad for our health?" |
God then
makes the first human and gives him a commandment: eat from whatever tree you
want as long as it is not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is a
simple, binary moral choice. Eat any other fruit and live. Eat this one fruit
and die. One choice is presented as good, one choice is presented as evil.
Adam and
Eve (with a little prompting from a talking serpent) chose to ignore God’s
command and eat the fruit. Because of this one choice, evil enters the world
and humans are doomed to die.
This is
perhaps the most famous story about moral choices ever told. There’s a good
chance you’ve heard it before, and a good chance that any given game designer
heard it a few times growing up. It’s no surprise that the majority of video
games take their cues from the system of morality it represents.
It’s also a story that has been
politicized heavily in our times, but let’s step back from the controversies
surrounding it and instead take a look about what sort of moral choice this
story presents us with.
Adam and Eve are given two options from which
they can choose freely. One choice is morally good (obey God and don’t eat the
specified fruit), one choice is morally evil (disobey God and eat the specified
fruit).
The
critical point is not simply the binary opposition of good and evil, but rather
that the choices are clearly defined. Regardless of what Adam
and Eve eventually chose, God has given a choice for them to make, a law for
them to obey or break. Even before they eat the fruit, they have information
on good and evil.
Next: [OE003] The Game Mechanic: Red vs. Blue
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