When I was a child, I thought the story of the Garden of Eden was kind of silly. A snake, two fruit trees, and a big father figure. It seemed arbitrary. I think today I’ve started to understand now how that story is incredibly profound and applicable today, thousands of years after it was written. I was reading on Slashdot about how it was a story meant to inhibit our natural scientific impulse, our desire to gain knowledge. After all, God told Adam and Eve that they could have their run of the garden, enjoy it, eat from all the trees - except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This tree, along with the tree of life, were situated right in the center of the garden. God tells them that if they eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they will surely die. Well, the crafty serpent comes along and contradicts God. “You will not die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.” Eve thinks this is a good deal and she eats, and gives some to Adam, who also eats. Suddenly, they see that they are naked, so they make some lame fig leaf clothes. Then, they hear their loving creator coming, so they hide in the bushes from him (as if that’ll work).

So, of course, this Slashdot reader saw what he thought was a calculated attempt of independent thinking suppression by Religion. The moral of the story: don’t look for knowledge, just believe and the Pope/preacher/Bible will tell you what to do (or something along those lines). This was the level I probably read it at as a child, but it is a very shallow reading. An intentionally shallow reading, for it doesn’t even seek to understand the difference between “knowledge” and “knowledge of good and evil.”

It is important that the tree from which God forbid them to eat fruit was not the “tree of knowledge.” After all, throughout the Bible wisdom is regarded highly: “Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.” (Proverbs 4:7). The shallow reading of the Eden story would contradict this. (”That’s ok,” dear Slashdot might say, “the Bible is full of contradictions. Run along, I have a bush to… er, a Steven Jay Gould article to read.”)

I realized this morning that this story is an archetype for sin - a fleshing out in literal terms abstract concepts. More importantly, it is the final reduction of evil in the world. Massaging the equations of suffering and evil and all that is bad in the world, deriving the source, this is the simplest expression of What’s Wrong, and we all agree that something is.

There is a spiritual reality that is more important and indeed, more real, than the mere physical reality we can see and touch. What makes up this meaningful story behind the arbitrary story? Redemption, prayer, hope, faith, the will, mystery, adventure, love… Concepts that are difficult to nail down to A causes B, but which we “hope” are real, lest nihilism and meaninglessness rule our lives (or self-delusion and an unwillingness to think hard about such unpleasant unrealities). These are eternal themes. These are what inspire us in movies. These make up Life, not even the most complicated of chain reactions. And these are what Satan, also known as the accuser, the fallen star, the father of lies… these are what he wants to destroy. He wanted to be God and thought he could, and this ugly jealousy and bitterness and false pride could not be tolerated in God’s presence, and he was thrown out.

And this brings us to our story once again. God had created a wonderful world for us, and given us the freedom to enjoy it. He was the source of our Life. He made us partners not only in enjoying creation, but in creation itself, allowing Adam to name all the animals. (That’s a whole nother symbolic journey). There was no sin.

God is Love. This is repeated throughout the Bible, and the Bible, if taken as a whole, reads as a love letter from God to his people. The spiritual reality includes real love. Materialism/atheism states that this is all there is, and, since your consciousness is the only reality, you are the center of the universe. This is implicit, not explicit. And this was the lie of the serpent, the most crafty. (This is Satan in disguise, if you weren’t sure). This is the alternative view: “You don’t need God. Once you eat from that tree God told you not to eat from, you’ll know everything, including good and evil.” That was a lie. It was disguised, as Satan always is (another verse, much later, describes him as masquerading as an angel of light). There was some element of truth to it, but ultimately it was truth compromised. For God did not lie. It was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Only they already knew Good. They had a relationship with Good. God is good. Eating from that tree gave them the knowledge of Evil. And with that, an alternate way at looking at creation. Where before they saw Life, Love, and God’s creation, now they could see what that would look like without Good, without God. And it looked like a very complicated, but explainable chain reaction. And they saw the Second Law of Thermodynamics. They saw death. If God is Good, and the source of all Life and Truth, Satan is Evil, and the source of all Death and Untruth. God creates. Satan destroys.

And where does that leave us today, thousands of years after this (literal, symbolic, take your pick, I don’t claim to know for sure) story took place? I am not advocating renouncing science and praying for bread. God encourages us to seek knowledge, but knowledge without life is, well, dead. Knowledge with life is what we were meant for. We chose to go our own way, but God didn’t abandon us to entropy. We chose to believe that we could understand the universe on our own. We chose (and choose, myself included) every day to believe that lie. What is the logical consequence of the lie that the universe just is, and we can do without God? Death, just like God said. The second law of thermodynamics. And we can continue to believe it, with the implication that we can never reach the infinity we strive for, we can only try our best. But God didn’t abandon us. Though we decided to head out into exploration of Death, he followed us, spoke to us, loved us. And in Jesus, he entered this entropic world in physical form, God in Man, lived the perfection that all politics and philosophy try to capture, and we killed him. We killed God because he exposed our finiteness. He exposed the great lie that we can be self-sufficient and we killed him for it. Death is the inevitable consequence of sin. Separation from God is, of course, the consequence of choosing to separate from him! And without God, the only source of Life, the universe is mere matter subject to the second law of thermodynamics. We can believe that lie and God will allow us to. This is why I believe that “hell” is death, the end result of entropy. If you read “The Great Divorce,” by C.S. Lewis, he captures this beautifully in a story, where people who have rejected God, over the course of infinite time, become more and more isolated, and wish for more and more isolation.

But God is Good, God is Love. And in Jesus, he defeated death when he rose again to Life! You hear a lot about the cross in Christianity, a lot about Jesus dying in our place, and that is true. But it was his resurrection that is the real one ray of perfect hope in this universe. He defeated Death, and when we believe and surrender to Him, though we are tainted by the choice to know Death, he lives through us and creates real Life, the kind that we hope is true, but fear (thanks to the accuser) is just an illusion. Real Love, real Hope, real Faith, real Redemption, real Adventure. This is the miracle of the resurrection, and the fullness of true Christianity. Following the Christ to life.

One final note. Even in this, I see my attempt to wrap everything up in a manageable essay. I’ve tried to do this for years. If my goal in distilling my faith into an essay is to create something I can rely on, I am believing the original lie, that I can be self-sufficient. I can never capture infinity in an essay. The life of God will always elude definition, for it is not finite. There will always be a way to look at any explanation or story through eyes of faith or through the eyes of the serpent. Satan doesn’t believe in this great story; he has chosen not to. If this story were told to him, he would say “Well, God rigged it from the beginning! It really is just a big chain reaction, like I said, you’ve just added a layer of indirection! God caused me to reject him, and I inevitably went to destroy his creation, and Eve inevitably was weak enough to believe me… With or without God, I win.” The choice is always there. Do you want to “win,” or do you want Life? In order to choose the latter, you must believe he exists. And once you do, you begin to wake up to the battle going on around us: the lie of the self-centered universe vs. the life of the Christ centered one. Mormonism will promise life, but you have to work for it. Islam as well (with different rules). Buddhism will tell you that life and death are an illusion. Only Christ offers life, and the only requirement is implicit: to believe him.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
John 10:10