The story of creation and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as told in the first three chapters of the book of Genesis is one of the most interesting spiritual texts that has come down to us. For here, told in the simplest of terms, is the story of how we were created and why we are as we are now. The story has different elements to it and can be taken on different levels but the aspect I want to look at here concerns the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Here's the relevant passage.
'And the Lord God commanded the man, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall die."'
The first thing to note is that this is all in Paradise and so this tree forms part of Paradise. Everything in Paradise has been created by God and everything there is good so the tree in itself is good. What is the tree and what its fruit? Clearly, the tree is the self-conscious mind and the fruit is that which awakens mind, thought. The tree is knowledge of good and evil or just knowledge. Adam and Eve did not have an awakened mind before eating the fruit. Thereafter, their eyes were opened which means their mind, their capacity for self-reflection and thought, awoke.
Does this mean the serpent was correct and Adam and Eve were right to listen to him? After all, they moved out of naive innocence into a world of experience in which they could grow. In the prelapsarian Garden of Eden nothing could change or so it might seem. This is a theory certain esoteric schools would subscribe to and they would see the serpent/Lucifer as the Light Bearer his name implies, being either a liberator of humanity in a Promethean sense, freeing us from a tyrannical Gnostic-type Archon god, or else simply working in line with the needs of evolutionary development by helping to awaken mind in infant humanity who were little more than animal men at that stage.
In my view this, to some, appealing scenario is not correct. We know that God is love and God is good. As in goodness is God - there is no goodness apart from God. God is also truth so what he says about not eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil is also truth. And yet it awoke mind in man so how do we reconcile these two facts? The fruit is knowledge and knowledge is good but there are two sorts of knowledge. The knowledge that comes from God and the knowledge that comes from self. Eating the fruit from the tree after having been told not to do this gave knowledge apart from God. It was the act of a being that wished to become God, or a god, it makes no difference, without reference to the true God. One can speculate that the fruit was not in itself evil but eating it before being ready to do so made it the source of sin and death.
Knowledge is good. As potential co-creators with God we are called to knowledge but that knowledge should be centred in an awareness of the full reality of God. Knowledge without that awareness becomes evil or there is the strong likelihood it will become so. The serpent tempted Eve to disobey God therefore to deny God and assert the separate self. This was the cause of evil and why Lucifer is no heroic freedom fighter but a rebel against goodness and truth, something that continues to this day.
4 comments:
I've always felt that the Serpent was promising we would 'know' or intimately experience good and evil in a deep way, but not necessarily be able to tell which was which.
If there was no self conscious or awakened mind, no thought, then what was there, unconscious, mindless obedience? And if that was what was, how could there be choice? And how could that choice be meaningful, let alone an Original Sin?
I don't think the garden story makes much sense honestly.
I see what you mean but the story is not saying there was no conscious mind before but that at one time it was aligned to God and then chose to separate itself from God for its own supposed advantage. So perhaps not thought per se but egotistic thought.
Western societies writ large have cultivated an entirely materialistic individuality which has inverted individuality to a levelling of the individual through emphasizing health and restless activity and distractions. We are prompted to willingly subvert our divine nature into a mere organism that is required to be useful to our systems that desire control.
I only mention this because Eden provides an important concept of detachment. We can choose to focus on eternity instead of gains and losses.
There is a Christian current that chooses to uphold the view of Adamic Man with all the racial consequences this implies, materially but also spiritually. However dubious individuals may use this to keep us mired in control systems just as badly as the egalitarians, the concept remains valid in its realistic depiction of man and the need to quit worrying about saving everybody. If not all men are descended from Adam then they have not partaken of the original error. Only through a spiritual miscegnation have Western societies led other peoples into materialistic individualism. An inequal but true and good world is possible, and individuals need to understand the individual dignity of their nature and to seek forgiveness and resolution to conflict that is being perpetuated.
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