Fall

Parables convey spiritual and metaphysically truth. The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden rightly understood, is perhaps the most wonderful parable of all. It was never intended by its author to be taken for history, but literal-minded people did so take it, with all sorts of absurd consequences. The whole outer world is amenable to man’s thought, and that he has dominion over it when he knows it. The thoughts that occupy your mind are molding your destiny for good or evil; the whole of our life’s experience is but the outer expression of inner thought. We reap a harvest that we ourselves have sown. Our free will lies in our choice of thought. (The Sermon on the Mount by Emmet Fox, p12-13)

Adam and Eve living in a paradisiacal state become conscious of opposites, of good and evil. We cannot develop into mature human beings without self-consciousness. And yet, it is a “fall” – into a world of self-consciousness and self-centeredness, estrangement and exile. Throughout this process, we fall farther into the world of separation and alienation, comparison and judgment. We are created in the image of God, but we live our lives outside of paradise. We need to be born again which involves dying to the false self and be born into an identity centered in the Spirit within us. (The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg, p114-117)

In the Greco-Roman mind God loves spirit, state, being and hates matter, story, and becoming. They transformed the Garden of Eden into a Platonic ideal. In this perfect Platonic garden, nothing ever changes, because in perfection change can only be for the worst. When Adam and Eve disobey they plunge from a perfect state of innocence to story, from being to becoming, from light into the relative darkness of Plato’s cave. However, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus is Our Father who art in heaven, hallow be thy name who creates a very good world (not perfect). God responds to Adam and Eve’s loss of perfect status with a compassionate coming-of-age story – childhood lost, adulthood gained. The text does not say they will be condemned to hell, be spiritually separated from God, be pronounced fallen, or be tainted with something call original sin. There is only one consequence indicated by the text: they will die – not spiritually die, not relationally die, not ontologically die, but simply [physically] die. Genesis is a story about the downside of progress – a story of human foolishness and God’s faithfulness, human rebellion and God’s reconciliation, human evil and God’s intention to overcome evil with good. (A New Kind of Christianity by Brian McLaren, p41-51, 54)

Man was created as a contemplative and fell from the unity of contemplative vision into the multiplicity, complication, and distraction of an active worldly existence. Man became an exile in a world of objects and centered no longer in God and in man’s inmost spiritual [true] self. In such a condition, man’s mind is enslaved by an inexorable concern with all that is exterior, transient, illusory, and trivial. Man is exiled from God and from his inmost self as God. (The Inner Experience by Thomas Merton, p35-36)

Not to eat of the tree of the “knowledge of good and evil” was basically a warning to keep from playing God and thinking that you can be like him, knowing what is good and what isn’t. The serpent tempted them and told them to forget following God’s direction and design, and go their own way, apart from God. So they did, and became separated from God and his ways and fruits of the good life that God had created. Because we don’t see how we get seduced into thinking the human race can play God and figure it out on our own, we continue to not see the trees with the good fruits that are available right in front of us. (The Law of Happiness by Dr Henry Cloud, p16)

The Beatitude that the pure in heart shall see God means that only with a proper relationship with others and God that the gates of Eden swing open once more. God and man walk together once again. (The Secret of Happiness by Billy Graham, p146)

In Genesis God is seen as an adversary rather than a friend. Humanity was viewed as fallen rather than in need of nurture and growth. Our problem is not original sin, but not understanding our full potential. (If God is Love by Philip Gulley and James Mulholland, p36-7)

There were 2 trees – one of love/life and one of knowledge/death – we weren’t ready for the 2^nd tree and therefore had to experience the hard way in our disobedience, like child disobeying their parents. (2/5/2011) (Randy)