WARNING: Like the one before, this is long. And it’s about one chapter, so the depth will be more ridiculous. But Genesis 3 addresses fundamental questions about the nature of free will in a powerful way, thus being worthy of in-depth analysis.
Genesis 3The Serpent is an interesting character. From what I understand it’s a snake. It feels like the Greek Myth thing again. We don’t like snakes, so someone writes a story showing how it’s a result of the proper cosmic order. And why can’t snakes talk anymore?
The argument for the Serpent being Satan or controlled by Satan isn’t completely invalid. Otherwise, what it’s motivation?
The way the Serpent convinces Eve to eat the apple is actually genius. He doesn't merely say God is lying. She'd never believe that. He appeals to humanity's natural jealousy, desire for power, and tendency toward projection.
He says that God would be jealous if there were others around with his power. She projects her jealousy of God and desire for power onto him. Now she wants to attack that which represents her worst qualities, and thus she eats from the tree.
I’d ask why God would make humanity when he knows humanity will fall from grace, but I don’t live outside the bounds of time. I can’t answer the question.
But what aspect of the purpose of humanity calls for us being able to make the choice to fall from grace in the first place. Maybe because being in God’s good graces is meaningless if it isn’t a choice. But that isn’t satisfactory.
8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ 10 He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ 11 He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ 12 The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’ 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent tricked me, and I ate.’
Why doesn’t God teleport Adam, Eve, and the Serpent to him, explain their transgression, and dole out the punishment? It’s odd to me than an omniscient god would ask these rhetorical questions.
He sounds like parents who know their child did something wrong, and are leading him to see what he reveals in covering up the deed. But since God already knows everything, isn’t this a bit sadistic? Why is a perfect God portrayed this way?
More confusion:
- Isn’t death punishment enough? And really, we’ve figured out pain in childbirth and plowing fields. Shouldn’t divine justice has more ompth?
- This book implies we just die. Which actually makes more sense than heaven and hell the way original sin is explained.
I’m going to use Dogma’s theory of the universe here. Let’s say God does something imperfect. His existence and the universe’s existence are predicated on his perfection, so without that everything would die. He does go to Heaven or Hell.
By eating the forbidden fruit, we are now like God because we have an understanding of good and evil, though an imperfect one. We die as punishment for our imperfection, like God.
Of course, I’m sure I’m missing much much other context, so I don’t want to commit to this theory too hard.
- Why does God choose to keep the Garden of Eden around? It has no purpose to anyone after we leave... Are we fated to return some day? Will it be repopulated with something else? Do the animals get to stay there?
With all that out of the way, let’s discuss free will.
The book contrasts Adam and Eve’s view of Good and Evil with God’s. They see their nakedness as indecent, even though God defaulted them to nakedness. And then God makes clothes for them to exit the Garden with.
Though in simplistic terms, we see God has a better understanding of morality than man. In theoretical terms, this is true.
But really, we don’t understand morality at all. Without religion, from where does it derive? Intuition? Genesis shows us our intuition is simplistic and wrong. I think the state of the world shows us the same thing.
No matter what we’d like to think, our conception of morality comes from one thing - who has the power to enforce their version of it. We don’t have access to the ineffable order of the universe to find out otherwise. We aren’t God.
This tortures us. Even when we’re certain we’re right, something lingers and tells us otherwise.
Before eating the Fruit, humanity experienced none of this conflict. If we didn’t die, but didn’t know how to act perfectly (Eve clearly didn’t), then something had to keep us from sinning. (I haven’t seen the word used in the Bible itself yet, but we’ll go with it).
Either it didn’t matter what we did, or God made sure we did the right thing at all times. Since I doubt the first is true, because God’s law codes apply whether you know of them or not (if I remember the rest of the Bible correctly), then the second is true.
What this means is you weren't responsible for your actions, but you didn't have free will. Also, you were literally incapable of understanding the why behind God’s will, you just had to trust it was correct. The Serpent broke that fundamental trust between humanity and God.
I wonder how that made God feel?
Plus, naive and innocent babies and children seem pretty happy and blameless.
Do we prefer perfection that's forced upon us or do we prefer the imperfection of our choice?
I almost prefer the second choice. But maybe that’s humanity’s fundamental flaw, or at least related to it. Now we’re thinking of humanity beyond humanity’s terms. At this moment I feel like the Bible is accomplishing its purpose. I appreciate this genuinely edifying moment.
Still, I’m not sure why we have to die for our sins. You can call it justice, but only if you see cosmic justice in legalistic terms, which are a product of human thought.
If the author of this book thinks there’s water in the sky, then I’d like to think for the moment that God has something better in store for us than death or hell.
I feel right now like things just are, which might be the highest form of experience possible.
I feel like God does matter, even if we don’t quite know why.
And I think that’s good.