by Ray Caldwell
The Garden of Eden by German artist Lucas Cranach der Ältere (c. 1472 - 1553)
The Christian Explanation
It seems to me that too many people fail to comprehend the Adam and Eve account in the book of Genesis in the Bible. It is about God bestowing upon humans the gift of free-will. "Made in God's image" means, created to reflect God's nature and glory.
The conscience that God gave man, which differs from the animals, enables man to watch his own decision-making process, and offer it to his conscience (his conscious knowledge and awareness of what is right and what is wrong). This elevates mankind to an awareness level far higher than that of the animals.
Mankind was given freewill and a choice: to accept God's authority and to enjoy dwelling with God and all that God had provided forever, or to reject God for a life of independence from God, a life in which mankind would try to know everything that God knows and strive to become equal with God in knowledge.
In the Creation account, God created mankind as a human spirit to inhabit a physical human body. Mankind was made "in the image of God". Mankind was not God, but made in the image of God, by God.
At this point, I would like to offer an insight into this story told by David Icke, the well-known conspiracy theorist. David Ike is not a Christian, so this is really interesting.
'Adam and Eve are symbolic of first of all what humans were like before what came to be known as "the fall". What the hell was the fall? The way I'd seen this is that there was once not something that you call human: it was a state of consciousness that was experiencing a world, a frequency band, that was like the one we're experiencing but on a much higher level of awareness, consciousness frequency.
Put simply, we were created to be "temples" of God's Spirit and when God's Spirit is flowing through individuals fully they will be completely unaware of themselves because all their attention will be fully on God and heaven.
In fact, the fallen world would become a kind of opposite of heaven: in particular, human society would become an inverse hierarchy, with values almost totally inverted: material objects made by mankind - cars, aeroplanes, space rockets, yachts, cell-phones, laptops - being deemed as far more valuable than fresh air, fresh water, and healthy green foods). Inanimate objects of greater value than life itself.
God is love, but we mustn't forget that God is life as well. In fact, God is the Source of all life: the life in the clouds, water, green plants, air and oxygen, and of all life in the natural world. All life is sourced in God and given to us freely by God as planet Earth.
Rather than a heavenly hierarchy of love, service, submission as described by Paul the apostle in "the body with many parts" (1 Corinthians 12:12), humans would be manipulated, put on the horns of terrible dilemmas, forced, deprived and coerced.
Before I leave the Garden of Eden, I would like to challenge a viewpoint that some people have: that God was some kind of nasty, restricting Father who put something irresistible before Adam and Eve (humanity?) and said you can't have it.
Mankind was given freewill and a choice: to accept God's authority and to enjoy dwelling with God and all that God had provided forever, or to reject God for a life of independence from God, a life in which mankind would try to know everything that God knows and strive to become equal with God in knowledge.
In the Creation account, God created mankind as a human spirit to inhabit a physical human body. Mankind was made "in the image of God". Mankind was not God, but made in the image of God, by God.
At this point, I would like to offer an insight into this story told by David Icke, the well-known conspiracy theorist. David Ike is not a Christian, so this is really interesting.
David Icke, a non-Christian, although he wanders, seems to have nailed this story. It seems that some Christians may be missing the point entirely. I offer a partial transcript from his YouTube video "This Will Absolutely Blow Your Mind" (click on the picture below to watch the 8 minute 11 second long video).
'Adam and Eve are symbolic of first of all what humans were like before what came to be known as "the fall". What the hell was the fall? The way I'd seen this is that there was once not something that you call human: it was a state of consciousness that was experiencing a world, a frequency band, that was like the one we're experiencing but on a much higher level of awareness, consciousness frequency.
'So, things weren't happening in dense matter and low slow frequencies. They were happening in a high frequency. Things were much more ethereal. And that, I think, is what's described as this paradise that went before. So Adam and Eve were cast out of paradise. What does that mean? I would suggest they left that frequency level where what we now call humans were experiencing a world of love, of joy and happiness, all the things that happen when you get into high frequency states where so much more is possible. And they fell. 'The fall was down the frequencies, into dense matter.'
Icke goes on:
...and they fell down the frequencies, Adam and Eve - symbolic of what is now humanity - because they gained the knowledge of good and evil. What is good and evil?...It's the polarity that we see in our reality, now. That level that we fell from was oneness, it was unity, and we fell into the knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge of polarity, which is what this world is.
The profound understanding here is that we do not live or operate in the consciousness we were created for. We choose to evaluate or intellectualize our world and universe without realizing we are in the wrong reality. We should be living in love, joy and happiness in an infinite and unmeasurable paradise.
What David Icke describes as oneness and unity, is man's unbroken fellowship with God. "The fall down the frequencies" is a very perceptive description of Adam and Eve having "their eyes opened" and falling away from this initial union with the Creator God.
What David Icke describes as oneness and unity, is man's unbroken fellowship with God. "The fall down the frequencies" is a very perceptive description of Adam and Eve having "their eyes opened" and falling away from this initial union with the Creator God.
Clearly, the consciousness experienced before their eyes were opened, was completely different from the one we are experiencing in our transient existence "down" here, in dense matter and low frequencies.
Put simply, we were created to be "temples" of God's Spirit and when God's Spirit is flowing through individuals fully they will be completely unaware of themselves because all their attention will be fully on God and heaven.
To illustrate, mankind was designed to be like the moon when its light side is illuminated by our glorious sun. The moon has a dark side, but there is no need for the moon to be aware that it has a dark side. All that is of concern is the side that receives the light of our glorious sun. In like manner, when mankind is illuminated with the glory of God, he is oblivious of himself.
We can even have moments like this now, when something momentarily happens and captures our full attention.
If we go back to the first choice and test of free-will, we see that if Adam and Eve had rather eaten from the Tree of Life, they would have been totally free of fear and guilt.
In fact, they would have been so totally "innocent" that God would have flowed in them and through them with no resistance or obstruction, enabling Adam and Eve to enjoy the eternal heaven with God in God's creation. They would have permanently existed in a state of free-flow with God. There would have been zero stress and zero friction in their existence. Anything that could operate with zero stress and friction could theoretically go on forever: it would not wear out.
Consequences of the first sin
However, having sought the knowledge of the universe, how the physical universe was created (knowledge of everything) they were bound to reap the consequences. Fear of death, pain and guilt and death entered alongside the desire to access what God knows.
This meant that mankind would not now be able to experience the free flow of God's Holy Spirit in their souls. At least, God would allow them partial access to God's Holy Spirit - mankind would not be totally cut off - but full immersion would be unattainable until he repented, was baptized and accepted salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, the final and complete restoration only being possible through transcending death with Jesus Christ, and returning back to the paradise garden. "Death is swallowed up in victory" (1 Corinthians 15:54).
The fallen world would be full of fear, guilt, distrust, one man pitted against the other as the first story of Cain and Abel demonstrate. This would not have been the way of heaven.
If we go back to the first choice and test of free-will, we see that if Adam and Eve had rather eaten from the Tree of Life, they would have been totally free of fear and guilt.
In fact, they would have been so totally "innocent" that God would have flowed in them and through them with no resistance or obstruction, enabling Adam and Eve to enjoy the eternal heaven with God in God's creation. They would have permanently existed in a state of free-flow with God. There would have been zero stress and zero friction in their existence. Anything that could operate with zero stress and friction could theoretically go on forever: it would not wear out.
Consequences of the first sin
Banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden by an artist of 'the English School'.
However, having sought the knowledge of the universe, how the physical universe was created (knowledge of everything) they were bound to reap the consequences. Fear of death, pain and guilt and death entered alongside the desire to access what God knows.
This meant that mankind would not now be able to experience the free flow of God's Holy Spirit in their souls. At least, God would allow them partial access to God's Holy Spirit - mankind would not be totally cut off - but full immersion would be unattainable until he repented, was baptized and accepted salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, the final and complete restoration only being possible through transcending death with Jesus Christ, and returning back to the paradise garden. "Death is swallowed up in victory" (1 Corinthians 15:54).
The fallen world would be full of fear, guilt, distrust, one man pitted against the other as the first story of Cain and Abel demonstrate. This would not have been the way of heaven.
In fact, the fallen world would become a kind of opposite of heaven: in particular, human society would become an inverse hierarchy, with values almost totally inverted: material objects made by mankind - cars, aeroplanes, space rockets, yachts, cell-phones, laptops - being deemed as far more valuable than fresh air, fresh water, and healthy green foods). Inanimate objects of greater value than life itself.
God is love, but we mustn't forget that God is life as well. In fact, God is the Source of all life: the life in the clouds, water, green plants, air and oxygen, and of all life in the natural world. All life is sourced in God and given to us freely by God as planet Earth.
Rather than a heavenly hierarchy of love, service, submission as described by Paul the apostle in "the body with many parts" (1 Corinthians 12:12), humans would be manipulated, put on the horns of terrible dilemmas, forced, deprived and coerced.
Before I leave the Garden of Eden, I would like to challenge a viewpoint that some people have: that God was some kind of nasty, restricting Father who put something irresistible before Adam and Eve (humanity?) and said you can't have it.
The fact is, that Adam and Eve were in a consciousness of infinite possibilities. There was a vast variety of everything to choose from in the garden. Within the all-possibilities they could have enjoyed and chosen from, was a single possibility of losing the whole plot, as it were. Everything and everything is possible in infinite possibilities. Heaven is a vast, infinite realm of all-possibilities, not some restrictive, boring realm where you have to behave in a certain way and things are labeled "hands off".
Alternative spiritual paths to the New Testament Son of God spiritual path seem very attractive as they contain spiritual substance often not demonstrated by actual professing Christians. These alternative spiritualities appear even more attractive when compared to Christianity, from which some who strayed, perpetrated atrocities, supposedly in the name and authority of Jesus Christ.
In Part 4 I will attempt to whittle down the ideas of authors writing in this field of what has been called New Age and compare it with genuine Christian faith.
Part 4 (a brief look at one or two leading New Age authors, their writings and beliefs) to follow.
Alternative spiritual paths to the New Testament Son of God spiritual path seem very attractive as they contain spiritual substance often not demonstrated by actual professing Christians. These alternative spiritualities appear even more attractive when compared to Christianity, from which some who strayed, perpetrated atrocities, supposedly in the name and authority of Jesus Christ.
In Part 4 I will attempt to whittle down the ideas of authors writing in this field of what has been called New Age and compare it with genuine Christian faith.
Part 4 (a brief look at one or two leading New Age authors, their writings and beliefs) to follow.
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