“And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.” - Genesis 2:19
In the Book of Genesis, God gives unto Adam the power to, essentially, create as he speaks. It could also be thought of as prophecy, magic, or - more simply - the ability to Tell the Truth. “Make it so,” Captain Picard used to always say before a member of his crew would execute his orders on the Bridge of the Starship Enterprise. This is the meaning of “Amen” at the end of prayers, as well. Make it so; abracadabra - bring this reality into existence.
“And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.” God gave Adam authority: he gave him the power of the author, the power of Creation, whereby God himself constructed the entirety of existence in Seven Days (or so the Bible says).
With that power, just like with all power, comes great responsibility. When you know the Truth and have the ability to speak the Truth (which we all retain as part of our inheritance as free beings molded in God’s image), your responsibility becomes, simply, to always do so unerringly: even when it seems difficult, or dangerous, or confusing. Adam’s real sin with the Serpent at the Tree of Knowledge, therefore, is not that he disobeyed God - but that he contravened the Truth. He used the power he was given of naming, of speaking forward the Truth into existence (prophecy, magic, creation), and he introduced into it a logical flaw: disobedience, falsehood. And he did it for a terrible, but very common, reason: for a woman.
No wonder God kicked him out of Paradise. But it was, you have to admit, a rookie mistake. “She’s more important to you than the Truth? Then go on, you two deserve each other.” Eve is not a symbol of woman’s flaws, but of Adam’s inability to balance the desires of his biology and his spiritual connection to the Truth. Adam failed to master himself; he was defeated by God’s strategist, Satan.
Adam’s Original Sin was in permitting a Lie to be spoken into existence as a reality. The Garden of Eden, at that point, necessarily fell apart: because the Garden was a perfect statement of the Truth. The Truth that, God is perfect joy and abundance and that he desires that relentlessly and inexorably like a steamroller for all of his Creation. This is, after all, why he engaged in the Act of Creation in the first place: to express that Perfect Truth of his Love.
So if God loves us so much, why would he let Adam do something so stupid to in the first place, and why wouldn’t he just forgive him right away and make it all better? Simple: he can’t. He made Adam in his image, remember? What that means is he gave Adam the power to create his own experience of reality through the power of naming, through the power of the Truth. God has the power to create reality, but man has the power to create his own experience of reality. Free Will. Man is “made in his image” which means that man is connected to God through the image which he holds of God: that is, his perception of God, and his experience of reality. God allegedly kicks Adam out of the Garden before he can eat from the Tree of Life, and “become like us” (Elohim, Genesis 3:22), but I would offer the alternative interpretation that Adam kicks himself out of Eden by contravening the Truth and thereby destroying the integrity of a structure wholly conceived of and based upon God’s Truth.
This is why it is so important within the Christian system of myth that Jesus is the “Way, the Truth and the Life.” His message, in essence, is that the way back to the Joy, Abundance and Life of Paradise (”the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it”) is through strict adherence to the Truth. Not simply for it’s own sake, but because you - as a metaphorical, if not literal, descendent of Adam - have the power to create your own reality; you have Free Will. And unless you use it to serve only the Truth (”You can’t serve both God and Mammon“), you will live forever in the torment and suffering of Hell and of Death because your words, your thoughts and your deeds will forever struggle against one another.
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” - Gandhi
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10 Comments
Meant to include this somehow but it got lost in the shuffle.
Elizabeth means “my God is abundance“
http://www.donmeh-west.com/incarn.shtml
I’ve often thought this to be interesting: Man is created in His image, found to need company, then Woman is also created in His image. What’s going on here?
What do you mean?
Well, OK, but my theology really isn’t up to the challenge.
When Man is created, chapter 2 goes on to say that this was the first thing that /wasn’t good/. How weird is that?! Exactly /what/ ‘wasn’t good’ was that Man needed company. Now in the beginning, whose image was Man created in? Is the author trying to tell us something about the Creator? That Man created in the image of the divine is incomplete without a feminine component? Or what?
Like, how can something created in the image of the Creator be imperfect? Unless that’s the point, that things created in the image of other things are imperfect. Or that perfection can only be achieved in this respect through multiplicity. Or that this is how imperfection was created? Am I making any sense at all?
Imperfection is created through choice: through choosing not to do the hard work to master yourself and letting imperfection be “good enough”
I get it. Did God say that He was imperfect or did God say that copies are imperfect?
The other choice is: nothing is imperfect. Everything is as it should be. But most people are not anywhere near ready to hear that.
Like double plus good creation in action.
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