Experience of Being Lost

There is a meme in atheist circles that can be illustrative for us.  This is the jibe to the effect that, in Eden, God lied to the First Couple, while Satan told the truth.  As for the "thou shalt not surely die" assurance from the devil, the denominations have had to insist that "spiritual death" (or some such) befell Adam and Eve, and indeed the experience conceptualized among humans as "living death" is common enough--and while one might argue endlessly about whether or not "life" and "death" are true antonyms, the question is raised to a greater pitch when it might be contended that Adam and Eve might never have had evidence, either direct or indirect, of "death."  Perhaps the matter might be more cogently--and revealingly--expressed in the contention that God lied to US in the Garden of Eden.

The First Couple, constructed as adults, were equipped presumably with a working vocabulary, and would have been presented with meanings and definitions independently of their own experiences.  The basics of their learning processes would have been initially binary--"yes" versus "no" being a template for the later (and less definite) "good" versus "evil."  The only real problem for the denominations--with their attachments to possessing humble-brag "simple" salvation economies--is to contend that the act of "rebellion" placed Adam and Eve outside of fellowship with God by attempting to appropriate his place.  "Knowing good and evil" is described as usurping God's role in judgment, and seeking instead to become one's own god.

What the devil really promised was for the First Couple to become "like God," with a knowledge of good and evil.  "Usurping" used then as a descriptor of the pivotal act--which was an act merely of trying to be like God rather than supplanting him--must be supplied by the commentator, just as the commentator must wrestle with the question of whether a life not worth living deserves better than to be called "death."  Nothing encapsulates a life not worth living better than does a life immersed in doubt of good versus evil.  To the Jesus of the agonized howl "Why?", physical death would have been a blessing, and he treats it as such.

And yet the denominations must insist that a throne-toppling motivation (either from Adam and Eve themselves or as pawns of Satan) is the thrust of the eating-of-the-tree violation.  Humanity was induced to want to know good and evil, and so lost their "innocence."  Of course the serially-unsatisfied, pre-"Fall" Adam might have been an adolescent, but he was no innocent.  Pre-"Fall," Adam and Eve were merely provided with an unmerited and revocable buffering from moral confusion.  The "knowledge" of good and evil about which Satan lied was not enough "like" God's to be the blessing Satan intimates.  This is apparent from the first.  Adam, with his newly-possessed moral "knowledge," presumptuously imposes the social stricture against nakedness on his marriage and against his all-seeing God--and effectively blasphemes his God in the process.

Anyone who so desires can say that Adam and Eve wanted to take the place of God.  Alternatively, anyone who so desires can say that Adam and Eve wandered from their initial wholesome experiences of God and into distressing and alien territory.  The "Fall," in this latter interpretation, is the moment not of initial wandering, but of the first experience of being lost.  It falls to the salvation-sellers to package the former alternative as some sort of notion of harrowing inherited depravity--humanity in a roiling and ever-unsatisfied state of rebellion--but that does not prevent their nurseries from expecting unfiltered delight from infants told that God loves them.

Jesus reaches out to gather all into his embrace, and invites all to become as little children.  This is the language of lamentable alienation, not of execrable rebellion.  While haughty presumption is indeed present with humanity, it exerts itself as a burgeoning fault, and Jesus treats it as such--as a festering, organic, spiritual malady, not as an all-pervasive curse.  Even in the most morally-decrepit ("ye, being evil") are the impulses of righteousness and mercy.

What really happened was Eve and then Adam, in concert with the devil and with themselves, beginning to construct the innumerable "kingdoms" comprised of the experience-realms of which we claim possession, and which we share with others.  That this wandering is at the base of our predicament is reflected in Jesus' continual invitation to the kingdom of God--an invitation without direction other than a desire for an experience-realm with God, forsaking all others.