I'm currently reading Paradise Lost which I've never done before, not all the way through anyway. I'm up to Book 9 in which Satan convinces Eve to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, saying she won't die but will become godlike. Eve eats the forbidden fruit and then goes to Adam and confesses what she has done at which Adam follows suit, thus falling with her. According to Milton, this was because he was so enamoured of her he couldn't bear the thought of life without her which might seem relatively virtuous but is still putting self above God and a creature above the Creator which is idolatry. What should he have done? You might think this is a silly question, given the story's metaphorical nature, but it raises an interesting point. If those we love turn away from God, what can we do?
The answer is not much. Jesus said he had come to turn a man against his father and a daughter against her mother, and that a man's enemies will be the members of his own household. This is a radical, highly emotive teaching and yet it must be true. If people reject God, and we know that many do, we cannot allow ourselves to fall with them. We can, we surely must, do everything in our power to convince them of their error but, when push comes to shove, we have to choose. God or not God. We can pray for those we love but everyone's will is their own and we cannot force anyone to turn to the light, and nor can we allow their mistake to influence us.
This might seem a cruel doctrine but what is the alternative? Spiritual awakening is possible right up to death and so we should never lose hope and always work to encourage that. Moreover, it is possible that even after death we may be allowed to go to those we have loved who are trapped in spiritual darkness. Stories from the world of spiritualism do imply this. But our prime responsibility is to God and our own soul, and what Adam should have done when faced with his dilemma was to refuse to eat the apple himself and then help Eve in her fallen state as best he could.
I believe that the roots of the current war between men and women, in which feminism is a major battle, date back to the fall when complements joined by love became opposites striving for power or the former became mixed up with the latter. Hence the bickering of Adam and Eve with each blaming the other after they had fallen. The only way we can bring peace to this war, in which the two halves of humanity all too often see each other as rivals rather than partners, is through love. But then each side must be worthy of love which means that each side must ask itself not what can it get from the other or how it can use the other but how can it serve the other.
Adam would have best helped Eve by staying faithful to God. Similarly, modern man will only resolve the crisis caused by feminism by staying faithful to God and his own self, certainly not by going along with it even out of misconceived notions of equality. Only then will he be worthy of the role assigned to him in Creation.
5 comments:
@William - This is, of course, the normal situation nowadays. I think it is pretty straightforward what we *ought* to do, which is obviously not to follow the sin, nor support it; but to continue loving the person, as best we may - certainly not to withdraw love. It is that continued love which may be a lifeline for the lost soul at some point in the future, before or after death. What we actually do, the action taken, may be tough, may even involve separation - but the love ought to remain if possible.
We are often presented with the choice: Love me, love my sin. And in an age where identity is seen to rest on one's sexual practices, to reject a morally disordered sexual life is tantamount to rejecting the person caught up in it. It is true that we may have to separate ourselves from a person we love, although the separation is usually not our choice but that of the person whose actions we disapprove. We continue to love and pray for the person, but there is a nagging desire to do something concrete. We want to convince the person of our love and the rightness of our position and their need to change - usually impossible objectives. We have to bide our time and remain true to our principles, which are not ours so much as they are the reality God created. As William notes, this earth life may not be the only opportunity we have of reaching the soul of the one we love.
WW: The answer to the OP's question is in the Book of Moses, revealed scripture of the COJCOLDS. Specifically, somewhere in chapter 3, but everything from the beginning is necessary to understand the reveal.
We, as premortal spirit beings/children of God, wouldn't be here, in mortality for testing/probation, without the fall. It was a set-up.
Eve was tricked. Adam knew exactly what he was doing, and why he had to (was supposed to) do it.
IOW, Genesis is incomplete. Abraham chapter 3 is illustrative, but also incomplete. BTW, the Books of Moses and Abraham both explicitly say some things that Arkle (and maybe Bruce Charlton) intuited. Arkle had to have been a spiritual genius, or a plagiarizer. :-)
Book Slinger.
Adam should not have listened to Eve. God expelled Adam from Eden for listening to her, as stated in Genesis 3:17.
It's a hard lesson that many fight against.
God gave his commandments, men ignore, the stay in Eden is ended. That is the story of the West.
The question is how? How does a man strengthen himself in a world run for female interests?
I do believe that man's capitulation to the demands of feminism is another example of Adam unwisely listening to Eve and betraying divine responsibility for expediency.
It's hard to know where to go from here since practically all women have been infected by the virus of feminism and are in love with the power they think it gives them, justifying it all with the spurious doctrine of equality. Frankly I don't think much can be done without the use of force which is clearly out of the question. One just has to maintain the truth and try to be a good example of it and, most important, not cease to love and respect women or confuse the error for the person. Or the sinner for the sin as one might say. Respect does not mean listen to them when they rebel against the natural order though.
Perhaps if men had played their part properly it would not have come to this. Women only rejected the natural order when men rejected the spiritual order. On the other hand it is inevitable that as a world cycle comes to an end and matter dominates spirit so the female asserts herself against the male.
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