GEN446 Humankind stands in a special relationship to God, both because people represent the pinnacle of the created order and because they alone have the distinction of being made “in God’s image.” In one version of the creation story, human beings, after eating of the forbidden fruit, become godlike, “knowing good and evil.” (this verse).  It follows that we can no more avoid the moral condition than we can avoid being the creatures that we are, for God has invested us with moral knowledge.  Thus, creation – both of the world and of humankind in particular – has important normative implications.  The world is created as a cosmos, revealing the design and purpose of a benevolent creator, and human beings are created (or very early on become) creatures with moral discernment.  Taken together these two aspects of creation manifest themselves in the view, implicit throughout Scripture, that all human beings stand in an irreducibly moral relationship with a God who both created them for moral purposes and judges their moral conduct.  PASTIMP 133-4