Today, I'm going to disturb you and quite possibly cause you to rethink everything you thought you knew about the Fall of Creation as recounted in the Book of Genesis. I also run the risk of being declared a heretic by you and possibly everyone you associate with. If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll find this to be one of my typical, garden-variety postings. Newcomers may be shocked and I should apologize, but I won't because that's just the way I am.
We all (should) know the Fall of Creation story...
God told Adam and Eve that they may eat of any tree in the Garden except for the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Just one Commandment, the only rule, the sole edict, the solitary restriction laid upon mankind by their Creator, and they blew it.
God apparently turns His figurative back for a moment, and a crafty serpent slithered up to Eve to ask for clarification on the aforementioned dietary restriction imposed by Yahweh and asks,
"Did God say you could not eat from any tree in the Garden?"
To which Eve replied,
"No, God said that we may eat from any tree in the Garden except for the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the middle of the Garden, nor shall we touch it for in that day we shall surely die."
Let's ignore the fact that Eve extended the law to include a specific location (the middle of the Garden) and added merely touching the fruit (nor shall we touch it). Let's just assume that she was allowing for a margin of error. That seems prudent when dealing with Almighty God.
However, the serpent may have seen this as a willingness to fudge the facts, an opportunity to be sure and a weakness to be exploited. Perhaps.
The snake makes his move and plants the seed of doubt in the Word of God, saying,
"Surely, you will not die, but you will become like God, knowing good from evil."
Eve takes the snake bait. Then, Adam does likewise. Mission accomplished, let the war between good and evil begin.
After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, God returned from his peculiar absence (He's Omnipresent) and was taking a stroll in the cool of the day when He realized that Adam and Eve were nowhere to be found.
God found them cowering and hiding from their Maker with fig leaves covering their privates, because the First Couple had become aware of their nakedness.
God asks,
"How do you know you are naked? Did you eat of the tree which I forbade you to eat?"
Adam and Eve were caught red handed and red faced with forbidden fruit pulp stuck between their teeth, juice running off their chins, and the seeds still sticking to their fig leaves. They were busted.
Adam is the first to answer God's line of inquiry, and ingloriously pins the whole affair not only on Eve, but on God, Himself.
"The woman YOU put here, gave it to me and I ate."
Chivalry hadn't been born yet, evidently, but blaming the victim was already in full bloom.
When Eve takes the witness stand, she pushes the blame onto the Snake. It's all typical human nature stuff here, even at this primordial point in human history. Not much has changed, has it?
Author's Note: Pay attention now, this is where things get particularity weird...Adam is questioned.
Eve is questioned.
And the snake never testifies!
God asked both Adam and Eve why they had disobeyed Him, but the Almighty never asked the serpent a single question.
The Ancient of Days curses all parties involved; man gets thorns and thissel whilst trying to produce a meal by the sweat of his brow, woman get painful childbirth and is told to heed the word of her failed farmer of a husband, and the serpent goes crawling on his belly.
All bad stuff, really, and that's just for starters; disease, death, poverty, ponzi schemes, tooth decay, halitosis, war, female circumcision, mortgage backed securities, fiat money, demonic possession, the Yugo, and everything else we know to be evil came with that first curse.
Still, God never bothered to ask the serpent his side of the story. You would think that the Maker of Heaven and Earth would want to inquire,
"Hey, snake, I put a lot of work into all this, why did you screw it up with your mischief?"
Wouldn't you have asked? I certainly would have. I would have grilled that snake on the stand like a hostile witness, and then grilled that snake on a skewer with a little butter and lemon pepper, but that's me.
Maybe it's just my sense of fair play, but it leaves the whole motive of the serpent in an awkward silence. It reads to me like the Warren Commission Report, you're shouting at the biblical text,
"Ask the question! Come on! You've got the viper on the ropes, God! Ask the question!"
But God doesn't toss so much as a raised eyebrow at the apparent ring leader of the Fall of Creation plot. Instead, the Supreme Deity proceeds straight to sentencing (and I am foreseeably vexed!)
Then, it occurs to me that God created everything, including the silent serpent. He made the Garden, Adam, Eve, and the forbidden fruit, no less.
God, in His Omniscience, was also inescapably aware that this whole fruit eating force majeure was all in the immediate future of His Creation, as well.
What a blatant and obvious oversight for the Supreme Being, eh? Come on, Ancient of Days, what are you... new?
So, why was this "design flaw" allowed to happen? It's a product liabliability case, as clear as eternity is long. God could have performed a recall as He did during the life of Noah, but here when everything is at stake God knowingly and willingly does nothing. Is He malevolent? Spiteful? Negligent?
Hold on! Before you start chanting,
"Humans have freewill."
Let's see this for where the evidence leads us.... God's engineering "flaw" is allowed to happen, allowed to stand, and allowed to do harm, all of it... to everything and everyone ... forever, or a really long time.
That is what a cursory reading of the text would imply.
Or perhaps there is another possibility:
It's not a flaw. It's a feature.
The Fall was a necessary part of a Perfect God's Will. I'm not saying God is evil, I'm saying that there is really only one team.
We are speaking about an ALL powerful (that's without exception), ALL knowing (that's also without exception, EVER present (once again without exception) God, and there is no other. So, what gives?
We are left with only two possibilities:
1. The serpent outwitted God.
2. The serpent was an agent provocateur of God.
If you can suggest another option, drop it in the comments below, but try first to think about the implications and ramifications of their being only One team.
I find it very comforting, so should you.
God bless.
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