[Sinful Eden Download Setup
Sharif Garmon
Also, there is true pleasure in the business God calls us to, andemploys us in. Adam could not have been happy if he had been idle: itis still God's law, He that will not work has no right to eat, 2Th3:10.
Having prepared the garden for man's reception, the Lord God took theman. "Not physically lifting him up and putting him down in thegarden, but simply exerting an influence upon him which induced him,in the exercise of his free agency, to go. He went in consequence of asecret impulse or an open command of his Maker" (Bush). And put himinto the garden; literally, caused him to rest in it as an abode ofhappiness and peace. To dress it. I.e. to till, cultivate, and workit. This would almost seem to hint that the aurea aetas of classicalpoetry was but a dream - a reminiscence of Eden, perhaps, butidealized. Even the plants, flowers, and trees of Eden stood in needof cultivation from the hand of man, and would speedily havedegenerated without his attention. And to keep it. Neither were theanimals all so peaceful and domesticated that Adam did not need tofence his garden against their depredations. Doubtless there is heretoo an ominous hint of the existence of that greater adversary againstwhom he was appointed to watch.
This suggests to me that Lucifer may have already been cast down to the earth prior to the creation of man as I cannot see what relevance degradation would have to a perfect creation? Even tilling the soil does not seem at all consistent with the reason why we do it today. We till the soil today because it serves the purpose of keeping weeds at bay and ensuring adequite aeration of the soil, however, surely in a perfect creation, the many animals and creatures that dig would have served this purpose in the biocycle of the garden?
If the above is true, then this would seem to me to indicate that the universal impact of Lucifer's rebellion had far greater consequences than just the sin of Adam and Eve...it [evil] had already begun to exert his influence even over creation before man sinned...Adam was in fact tending the garden to guard against it.
So this seems to suggest to me that the early Eden biocycle may have been at risk of infection by sin outside that of the sin of man. Does this mean the biocycle was a sinful process...it would seem that if Adam needed to tend to the garden (pruning, cultivating, dressing etc), there was in fact a less than adequite cycle of life at the time of his creation.
God first prepared a garden, in the east of an area called Eden, and then placed the man in it. He was commissioned with spreading that garden outside and beyond the existing area of the garden. This is a simple, straightforward explanation as to why Adam needed to get involved in horticulture. Here is what the account states in chapter 2:
"When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens - and no shrub ofthe field had yet appeared on the field and no plant of the field hadyet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth andthere was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from theearth and watered the whole surface of the ground - the Lord Godformed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into hisnostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Now, the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and therehe put the man he had formed... The Lord God took the man and put himin the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." (Genesis2:1-15)
Further, the matter of food for what would, in time become a family of humans, required paying attention to the seeds that had not yet become the plants that grow in a field. Grain, for example, would need to be cultivated, to eat alongside the fruit and vegetables already in situ.
The biocycle, as created by God at the beginning, was perfectly balanced to do what it was designed to do - give food in season. Winter was one of the seasons decreed by God, even before man was created, and that is when we see biological changes with plants that require the decay of, for example, apples and blackberries, so that their seed can start to grow into fresh plants. This also calls for worms and micro-organisms to enable leaf-drop to change into nutrient that goes back into the soil. There is nothing sinful about any of that! Consider too the droppings from animals eating grass and other plants - their dung has to be 'dealt with' naturally, so as to keep the biocycle going properly. As the plants are eaten, so they die, go through the alimentary canal and get dropped on to the soil. Plants were designed to be eaten as food for animals and humans. They died, giving strength to the creatures that ate them.
As for Satan being cast down to the earth; Jesus spoke of that thousands of years after Adam. The disciples reported demons fleeing at the name of Jesus, and he exclaimed: "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." (Luke 10:17-18)
The trouble we have is that, for thousands of years, the creation has been subjected to futility (until a certain time when it will be restored). See Romans 8:19-23. But the way it was before Adam sinned was gloriously perfect. You are asking about a matter prior to Adam sinning, so there was nothing sinful about the biocycle then; the death of plants was a perfect system, and cultivating seeds of the field would play its part in feeding humanity, especially after they had been cast out of Eden.
No. The bible makes a clear distinction between organisms containing "the breath of life" (reference), which many Christians believe excludes insects, which at least still take in oxygen. Accordingly, it should be clear that plants, which give off oxygen, are certainly not in the same category. (Similarly, bacteria and viruses are generally regarded as not "alive" in the Biblical sense.)
Nature, perhaps even pre-Fall, does not tend to be neat and orderly, whereas there are strong indications that God likes orderly. Perhaps, pre-Fall, plants would have naturally grown in the manner of a Japanese garden, with "organic" shapes, and various kinds of plants all mixed together, but I would suppose that something like a European formal garden would require Man's intervention. Both can be beautiful. Both, perhaps, can supply adequate food. In that last sense, I suspect there was no "need" for cultivation.
However, Man was commanded to have "dominion" over Creation (Genesis 1:28). Creation was made for Mankind, with the intent that we would shape it to our usage and desires, carrying on in some sense the work of Creation which God started. Cultivating plants falls under this mandate.
Nor am I, in case the preceding references did not make that obvious. Theistic evolution is in blatant contradiction to Genesis 1-3, and indeed, to the very notion of the Fall. If there was death before Adam, nothing about Christian theology makes sense.
Fortunately, there is absolutely no reason to believe in theistic evolution. The available evidence strongly supports Creation and a Young Earth; it is only by excluding God a priori that other explanations of that evidence become necessary. Anyone that permits God to exist has absolutely no rational reason to believe in Evolutionism or Uniformitarianism. (That's not to say that Satan doesn't work very hard, and often successfully, to convince people to believe in these anti-Christian ideas anyway. "The lies of Satan are persuasive" is not a rational reason, however.)
Physical death was, and is the inevitable outcome of `getting multiplied in number 'so that one generation could leave their place for the future ones to fill in. With no death taking place, and new generations being born, say after each 20 years'gap, it would only take a few centuries for human beings to reach a catastrophic number. Remember that man was blessed to multiply, even before he thought of sinning. But then, it would be safe to say that the sin made life (and physical death) hard for Adam and Eve in that he was made to toil and sweat for bread, and she, to deliver her children in pain .
Pelagius famously taught that human nature is good in its essence and that original sin, as Augustine taught it, is a dangerous doctrine that leads people away from virtue and into despair of ever being good. This is something I discussed recently in another article The Gift of Hope. This teaching that humans are naturally good raises one serious question from those who defend original sin: if we are good by nature then why is human society full of evil? Anyone who studies history or current events knows that humans are capable of all sorts of evil, from slavery to genocide to environmental destruction (and much more). Our own history shows that sin is part of what it means to be human.
The message here is not that there is no issue with sin in the human condition but rather that we cannot pass the blame for our sinful ways off onto the abstract concept that we are sinful in our nature. We are not excused from doing good simply because we believe in the doctrine of original sin. As Pelagius rightly points out, why would Jesus and the writers of the bible give us so many teachings about avoiding sin if it were not possible to do so? Are we to assume that Jesus did not mean what he taught in the sermon on the mount?
Sin is not a part of who we are, rather it is something we have accumulated throughout our lives partially by our own choices but also largely from the people around us. Our families and cultures are the primary sources of our sin and we have the ability (as difficult as it may be) to overcome those influences. There is hope for every addict and every survivor of abuse, none of these things define who we are but rather they are piled on top of us and can be swept away.
Fog here is another way of trying to get at the idea of the subconscious. The person Pelagius is describing above has become so fully immersed in their habit of doing wrong that they believe the wrong they do is actually good. They thank God for helping them to do wrong. I bet you can think of many examples of that playing out in the world right now. Inter-generational trauma is a fog which clouds our vision and not only does it prevent us from seeing the error of our ways but it also prevents us from being open and receptive to divine inspiration. As Pelagius goes on to say,
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