Though it is worth attending to the complications that beset the Augustinian Fall, I think it is also worth exploring its most tragic aspect. There is a tendency, especially when on the receiving end of evil, to assert a shrill empiricism: “This is how the world is! (!!!)” It is difficult, however, to reconcile this assertion with the thought that we can know “how the world is” because human beings seem incapable of taking a God's-eye-view of creation. Turning to scripture, Genesis 3 cuts to the heart of the Augustinian Fall. It is sometimes argued that, say what one will of the serpent in Genesis, at least he was truthful in forecasting the survival of humans after eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (v. 3:4-5). God, on the other hand, erroneously warns that if humans eat of the tree they will die (v. 3:3). Upon consumption, of course, Adam and Eve do not in fact die and, so the argument goes, the serpent is vindicated as honest. But here is the tragedy – the serpent did lie, yes, subtly yet brutally, the serpent indeed lied. For, despite the serpent’s full prognosis (v. 3:5), human beings have not become like God or gods simply because we are, with unreliable efficacy, capable of discerning good and evil. Despite our ill-gotten capacity for wisdom, human beings do not possess the God-like, open-eyed knowledge of good and evil (nor other aspects of God’s creation) with which the serpent tempted Eve. In an age where there is, ostensibly, nothing that is not knowable to the human mind, I wonder what the consequences of ‘knowing’ this tragic element of the Fall far too quickly are.