This morning I scribbled an essay ruminating on the Problem of Evil (aka: how can a just, all-powerful God and evil co-exist) and how it relates to the story of Adam and Eve (via William Blake and Milton's Paradise Lost/Regained). I'm not a religious person - I have faith, but it's very personal - and certainly no Biblical scholar, so if anyone's interested in reading through it and giving thoughts from a more knowledgeable Christian perspective, I'd be fascinated to read them. My blog has no ads or monetisation (it basically exists for me to get thoughts out of my head and to keep writing) so I won't be gaining anything from your reading other than (hopefully) a richer understanding of the subject matter. If parts of it come across as blasphemous, hopefully it's at least clear that it's intended in a spirit of honest, respectful inquiry.
Here's the essay. If anyone reads it, hope you find it interesting!
I read through your essay. While I don't agree completely with your assessment of the topics mentioned, you seem to do a well enough job at articulating your thoughts. Meaning I can (hopefully) offer a more detailed perspective from a Biblical Worldview. My personal views may or may not reflect the collective thought of GAF memers who participate in this thread. So the following response is coming from someone who takes a more literal approach to the Bible and attempts to use the information within the Bible itself to define its context.
Many of the values we hold most precious in Western society are, in a straight reading of the story, Satanic and self-destructive. The serpent convinces Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, which shatters their blissful ignorance by giving them self-consciousness and awareness of the existence of evil in the world. For their curiosity and acquisition of forbidden knowledge, they are cast out of paradise but set free in the real world.
Western Society strives closer to Atheist/Secular world view. When we look at how the science's are valued by western society people tend to think this approach more logical and reasonable. Logic, Reason, and Knowledge are themselves idolized and worship. We think this is new, but it is ancient. For example look at the Greco-Roman civilizations, the practice of Philosophy (Which is the combination of one of the four greek words for love Philia. And the Goddess of Wisdom Sophia) the literal love or dare I say "worship of wisdom". Atheism is popular because man no longer needs to heed to a High Power, man himself has become the idol of worship.
Men since ancient times has always desired to worship something, something to idolize. We see this everywhere even in the modern age. The Bible tells us that the Creator is the only Being that is worthy of worshiping. All of creation reflects the majesty of its Creator, and in kind all of mankind (as well as angels) have built into their very nature the ability and desire to worship. This perversion of the original intent of worship is satanic, in that Satan himself was the first to manifest this perversion.
The Bible states that Eve was deceived by the serpent, yet Adam sinned knowingly. This should raises questions as to the where abouts of Adam when the serpent approached Eve. When Adam discovered Eve, she was already fallen. This enforces the cowardice and deceptive nature of Satan, as he had to wait for Adam's absence. Adam did not have to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He could have left Eve to her fate, yet Adam loved Eve so much he would rather join Eve in her predicament than exist with her. (This is a powerful message. Just as Jesus loved humanity so much, He would rather come to earth and join us in our predicament, than exist without us).
This sentiment that Adam and Eve lived in blissful ignorance and through the the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil they obtained forbidden knowledge is an idea born of Biblical illiteracy. Adam and Eve were made perfect in their day. They had a literal 1 to 1 connection to the Creator Himself. God walked amongst Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. They were eternal, immortal, and clothed in glory. Had they had any need, God Himself would have provided. Would you not ask questions to a omniscient being if He lived among you? This is the lie of the Serpent
"Hath God Said?" out of hatred towards God and His creation he has caused mankind to enter into a state of entropy. For the sake of clarity, I am not targeting your statement, but the sentiment as a whole that is popular amongst some circles of thought.
Was this a test, to see if His creations were pure enough to ignore temptation? Did God give humanity the capacity to act independently of his instruction as a way of verifying the purity of their devotion? This interpretation seems incompatible with His divine omniscience: to know the answer to a test beforehand means it was never a test at all. If God's knowledge is more multi-dimensional, knowing the outcome of all possible decisions without his creations being specifically designed to choose any single one, but all ultimately ending up at the same point - the events of Revelation - there seems to be a specificity to His design, encouraging one course of events even if not necessarily enforcing it.
Mankind was created in the Image of YHVH. YHVH has many attributes, one of those being sovereign free will. For mankind to be authentic "Imagers" of the Creator, we also must exhibit certain attributes. If mankind could not exhibit free will, then we would not be the "image" of the Creator.
Foreknowledge does NOT necessitate predestination. For example in 1 Samuel 23 it details the foreknowledge of an event God knew of, yet this event did not occur. Just because God is all knowing simply means He has full knowledge of all possible outcomes, but that does not mean He predestines everything that does happen. Some events God has predestined, some events He has not predestined.
To question if God would manufacture a test to discover whether or not His creations were pure would be to assume that God has to experiment to make discoveries about his creations. A test like this would mean the God of the Bible is not omniscient and omnipotent as He describes Himself. It would also mean the God of the Bible is a liar. If this was the case, there would be no point any heeding anything that is written in scripture.
These questions often form part of what is referred to as
The Problem Of Evil. For me, reconciling the existence of God with the existence of 'evil' represents no problem at all. The Adam and Eve story is not about a fall, but a spiritual awakening into awareness of the duality and consubstantiality of 'good' and 'bad' in the fabric of existence. In literal terms, God intended Adam and Eve to meet the serpent, eat from the fruit and free themselves. By understanding suffering, they later ascended through Jesus into a new kind of freedom, both self-aware and within God's grace, rising above Satan, whose own fall only deepened his spite and sense of unjust persecution.
With God's foreknowledge, He deemed it preferable for mankind to have free will than simply be non-sentient automatons. Freedom and being a Imager of God are inseparably linked. To lack free will would remove our very likeness of our own Creator. Mankind was created to be God's viceroy over creation, to be good stewards and partake in overseeing creation with our Creator. Mankind must exhibit the attributes of our Creator to fulfill this role and maintain that status. Even with Sin entering into the world, God still uses it for good and for His glory. Through our separation from God, mankind is able to learn of forgiveness, judgement, and redemption.
If God created and knows everything, He created the 'bad' as well as the 'good'. If humans were created in His image, we are creators too, but unlike our Creator, unshackled from the burdens of absolutism and all-knowledge. God's existence is pure by nature of His totality, immortal and unchanging. He is perfect, but in his perfection, unfree. If it is the ambition of any parent to give their children a better life than they had, God graced us with the one thing He could never know: the liberation of uncertainty, ambiguity, growth and potential.
Once again, God in His foreknowledge deemed it preferable to grant His creation free will. Satan made a choice to turn against God as well as the angels that would joined him. Adam and Eve though lied and deceived to, made a choice.
To describe God as being unfree, burdened with absolutism and knowledge is a sentiment that the Bible simply does not share. If God is unfree, than He is not sovereign, for God to be "burdened" would insinuate He has a struggle to contend with.
It is true there are things cannot do. He cannot lie, He cannot learn. Yet this does not mean He cannot comprehend what mankind experiences. Jesus Himself came to earth to redeem all of humanity. In doing this He had to contend with all the flaws and shortcomings of humanity. To say God could not "know" the issues that mankind has to contend with does not match the Biblical narrative. That He graced us with the gift of unique human experiences, when it is simply just a reality of mankind's state of entropy. You seem sincere in your expression, but I would disagree.
The moral characteristics that Blake and Milton attributed to Satan were correctly interpreted but misapplied. Satan, symbolising the revolutionary defiance of authority, is not a moral force in and of himself, but rather a means by which we are freed to forge our own futures. As individuals and as a human race, we are as flawed as we are beautiful, as capricious as we are constant and as kind as we are cruel. In the most divine of existential contradictions, our imperfections are what make us perfect.
Once again don't take this as a personal apprehension of your statement, but as a my attempt to address this ideology at large.
Going all the way from Saul Alinsky to Albert Pike, this is nothing more than a wicked perversion of the Biblical Narrative. The idea that Satan was the first glorious entity to rebel against the establishment. That serpent is not a representation of evil, sin, and wickedness but a symbol of freedom. That Lucifer the great liberator who freed humanity from the captivity from a vindictive God that kept mankind captive in the garden of Eden. Is such a absolute crock of shit.
Isaiah 14:12-16
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms
Ezekiel 28:12-19
Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
Satan rebelled against God out of the wickedness of his own heart. Satan in his hatred of God and all of his creation desperately seeks to corrupt and destroy all. Thou he be the once great annointed cherub that coverth, he will be crushed and brought low before all creation. Satan is the ultimate foe of humanity. Not symbolically, literally.
Defiance of authority may be the popular thing in the context of recent events. The Bible tells us "For rebellion
is as the sin of witchcraft ". Order, Governance, Authority, Law are the very core of the Kingdom of God. They are what give righteousness structure. Though the wickedness of mans heart can corrupt a system or government of a nation, the idea of authority exist is to reward the righteous and punish the wicked. If a system of authority has become evil, than it is mans duty to obey God and resist that tyranny.
Lastly I would argue if there is any beauty to be found in mankind, it is because we are still able to reflect the beauty of our Creator despite our flaws. The Bible does not paint a picture of self-glorification that people like to think of themselves. People like Steven Pinker would like to convince that humanity isn't so bad, and we are slowly evolving to a superior state of consciousnesses and virtue. Yet the Bible says the exact opposite. Mankind was perfect in the day we were created, but have fallen into a state of entropy. Physically, Spiritually, and morally mankind is devolving into a more and more dire state. And mankind is desperately in need of a redeemer to save us.
I hope I was able to properly understand your sentiment, and properly give you a accurate Biblical Narrative to what your essays discusses.
EDIT: Fixing Typos
DunDunDunpachi Luke chapter 1 is a good starting point. Sort of confusing though, is this correct?
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