I don't know if anyone is still reading this blog at all, but just in case, I thought maybe some might appreciate what's being discussed in another forum. Nate, I hope you don't mind...
1st post:
Here's a
slight variation on the creation story that I like:
There are two trees in the garden. One is the tree of the
declaration of good and evil, the tree of judgment,
judging one's self, judging others, declaring people,
things, and ideas to be good or bad, in or out. The other
tree is the tree of life. Every day we have a choice. Do
we choose to live life or do we choose to categorize? It
is impossible to do both. The story has come to be one of
a fall from grace with an angel keeping us out of Eden.
But I think the angel is implicit in the choice we make
when we categorize.
my response:
Hey Nate,
Is your version of the of the creation story a good
one? Is the choice for life a good choice and the
choice to categorize a bad choice? The knowledge from
the tree of good and evil is implicit in everything we do and
say. That's why I believe it makes most sense to understand
it in light of being aware of oneself.
The declaration of good and evil is an aesthetic declaration
as much as anything else. "This pan on the stove is hot! I
will therefore use a hot pad" is not that far from "stealing
my neighbor's things leads a whole host of problems, including
a nasty feeling inside. I will therefore be an honest,
trustworthy person." Judgement that causes and in and an
out, and us/them mentality comes from a slew of other
motivations separate from knowledge about what is good and
bad. Usually things like selfishness, insecurity, pride, and
greed.
When the fruit is tied to awareness, the angel is just as
effective as the impossibility of returning to the womb.
Nate:
I like that. Back to the original myth though, would you
agree that it seems to be talking more about the disequilibrium
that comes from a judgmental orientation than about the danger
of disobedience? There's nothing in there about God's purity
and the filth of sin as cause for expulsion from Eden.
me:
...But as for the Genesis story, I don't think you can read the story
'as it is written' without seeing a theme of disobedience and
punishment. The Lord is pretty pissed and curses all parties
involved. By the time you get to the cherubim with a flaming sword,
the story really breaks down. The Lord and whoever he's hanging
around with at the time, whether the trinity or some angel pals,
feel threatened by the self-awareness of the humans. Gen. 3:22
"The Lord God said, 'The man has now become like one of us, knowing
good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and
take also from the tree of life and live forever.'" Same sort of
threatened god you sense in Genesis 11 with the tower of Babel.
"The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were
building. The Lord said, 'If as one people speaking the same
language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do
will be impossible for them.'"
I suspect, like Daniel Quinn, (author of Ishmael) that the genesis
story (like the tower of Babel) was not originally Jewish and was
tweaked and stuffed with extras to account for so many of the
problems men seemed to be faced with. I would not be the first to
see blatant parallels to the Greek stories surrounding Prometheus,
whose actual name means forethought or foreknowledge. A Titan,
credited with creating man from clay, Prometheus is most known for
his gift of fire to humankind. Along with this he is credited with
gifting us with civilization and science (even animal sacrifice for
the gods); basically those things which involve knowledge of the
analytical type which requires self-awareness. Zeus, of course, is
pissed and has Prometheus tortured eternally. In some versions,
Zeus not only tries to keep fire away from humans, but withholds
"the means of life", which would enable humans to get all there work
done without effort. No toiling in the fields by the sweat of one's
brow if we had been allowed such gifts. On top of all that, Zeus
sends down Pandora with her jar/box of evils. Here is the source of
disease and pain.
The best explanation that I've read that takes in the nuances of the
genesis story without spinning off into weird conclusions came from
C. S. Lewis book Perelandra. In the book there is another version
of Adam and Eve on Venus. On the planet covered almost completely
by water, 'Eve' lives on a floating island. It is forbidden for her
to spend overnight on any fixed land. After she resists temptations
from the 'devil' she ends up establishing her home with 'Adam' on
the fixed the land. The earthling human involved is appalled until
it is explained that the prohibition was simply a matter of timing.
This fits well with the concept of evil beginning as a privation of
good. Any 'sin' in such a context as the genesis story would have
to be a warped virtue (knowledge in and of itself is a virtue).
Thus the 'punishment' for disobedience can be seen as much as simple
built-in cause and effect for misuse or mistiming. Timing fits in
well with the idea of self-awareness. We all spent the first chunk
of our lives being oblivious to ourselves being an entity is a
specific context, with specific connections with specific people and
specific cultures etc... We simply lived and took everything that
came our way for granted. Within this stage there are plenty of
things completely inappropriate to be involved in that will later be
good things. Things like lofty thoughts of philosophy and
theology. Sciences. Political activism. Or the obvious, like
sex. I think it telling that when God confronts Adam and Eve about
eating the fruit, their first reaction is to realize they are
naked. And instead of reacting by saying "Awesome, dude! Look at
me and what these dangling things between my legs do!"--instead they
felt shame; not unlike a sexually abuse child who struggles with
having healthy sex for the rest of his or her life.
I think the concept of timing with knowledge is quite central and
relevant to our species. Particularly in our technological world we
live in today. We can send people to the moon, talk on Skype clear
across the globe, build cities Babel couldn't even dream about, and
a gazillion other utterly impressive things, but we do it without
much thought to consequences to each other or the earth we live on.
More personally, too, religious families often never learn this
lesson. Churches spend so much time shoving theological concepts
down children's throats way before they are at an age to
appropriately handle or comprehend them. I grew up since before I
can remember being told that my sins had been nailed to the cross.
Even as an adult I have very little idea what that actually is
suppose to mean. As a kid I had weird visuals of squiggly things
leaving my body, going back in time some 2000 years and somehow
being skewered on the wooden beam with a bloodied Jesus hanging and
breathing heavily as he watches these squigglies descend on him.
So now I can answer a 'yes' to the disequilibrium that comes from a
judgmental orientation, because such an orientation is an example of
having knowledge without the maturity to handle it properly.
However, with the genesis story as it is written, it is hard to get
away from disobedience, punishment, and even God and company
expelling from Eden because they feel threatened. I guess at that
point it depends on your view of how you read Scripture.
I'm still reading, Samuel.
ReplyDelete"Do justice, love mercy..." Does doing justice require judgement?
Absolutely. Of course, I think English could use another word for the different types of judging. We tell kids to make good decisions, to use good judgement, but on the other hand we tell them not to be too quick to judge in the sense of pigeon holing and categorizing. Do other languages have words that get at the nuances better?
DeleteI'm back. Gonna read and reflect now.
DeleteI've been mulling this over in the background for a while now. I suppose I was baiting you a little, when I said "as it was written," because I assume as you do, that the story was a derivation of older myths, with layers added over time. I expect we've talked enough that you know that about me. However, I do think that it's an interesting derivation with implications that invert and go beyond the Near Eastern myths. Of course, there will be aspects that carry over and suggest counter-narratives with a more primitive understanding of God and humanity. I choose to read those as the "filler" which adds a little drama to the telling, a little bogeyman layer to scare kids into obeying Mommy and Daddy, and all that. But all those caveats and qualifications aside, like C.S. Lewis I find it fascinating that the story seems to clearly say that the choice we face is between Life and Knowledge. Sure, maybe there's a place for Knowledge in the broader meta-physic and I've no doubt that the story could be expanded the way you've done with an idea of maturity and awareness. But as it was written, the message seems more circumscribed. It says to me: Nate, if you want to live the fullness of life, choose Life. The abstraction of Knowledge is nothing but a curse. It is empty. It leads to the infinite regression of self-consciousness, fear, and shame. Let go.
DeleteBoth Catholic and Reformed theology seems to skip over that altogether. All they see in the Creation myth is the children's bogeyman tale. And I don't think that's a fair reading of how it was actually written. I think it's much more hopeful than that. The Hebrews, who wrote that story, had a totally different understanding of Satan and the Fall, than what I was raised to read into it. Once the Greeks got into the Bible game, everything got turned upside down and inside out.
Just saw this. Been crazy busy. Haven't thought about it long enough, but a couple questions would help clarify things for me. CAN we live without abstraction of knowledge? Is Neshama fully realized if we don't have an abstraction of knowledge?
DeleteAs for leaving the garden simply a consequence rather than a punishment, I think that's almost a given. We read all of mythology as a personification of what has happened to us as a species. Whether it's Chronos being shattered into a thousand pieces, (Time and Life would be a great discussion as well) or God striking the people of Babel, we are trying to explain something that happened. Religion is all part of distinguishing ourselves from the animals or even the environment around us and trying to establish a conscious stance towards it, so I see genesis as thinkers trying to figure out how we got so f---ed up when you would expect our powers of abstraction to put us above the animals. Still thinking...
When I wrote that disobedience can't be avoided when we take genesis "as it is written", I was making a comment on our stance towards Scripture and less what I thought personally about genesis story. I'm sure I've made myself clear as mud by now...
DeleteSeems like we're on the same page. The genesis story (as I read it) resonate with me, because I have a disposition towards abstraction, and quagmire that goes along with abstraction. When I hear the message: "Let go," it seems right. I don't take it as an absolutist statement of Knowledge=Bad in some universal sense; rather as a guide for how to live day-to-day, on this side of Kiergegaard's leap. Cause we're always on this side of that leap. So let go. When faced with a choice between Knowledge and Life, always pick Life, whether you're a scientist, soldier, policy maker, philosopher, or farmer. Whenever we wake up in the morning, we have that choice to make. And there's a right choice and a wrong choice.
DeleteBut no, in a universal sense, I don't think it's possible to live without the abstraction of knowledge. But I don't think that's what the story is about.
P.P.S: If there is a broader application, though, I expect the writers of Genesis would find it twisted for pastors and parents to divide the world into the theologically "correct" and "incorrect" with all the cosmic implications that go along with such.
DeleteNate, I remember very distinctly a conversation with you and Glen in a car. I think we were coming back from one of our reading nights from the bar. I was trying to explain my Nash trees more and I was saying some things along similar lines. Somehow things got related to music and art and how modern stuff can get so self introspective that it caves in on itself. For some reason I remember bringing up Celine Dion, out of all people, and defending her simplicity. Beautiful voice, feel good lyrics about love... I remember asking does that have to be something we hold against her, or are people who think about stuff doomed to only enjoy the angst of Nirvana before he commits suicide. Somehow, that seems related to your choice of Life over Knowledge.
DeleteBut what I remember most was Glen's response. He said something to the effect that I was all about waiting for the proper time for knowledge and what not, but what if it was the time to eat the fruit and Adam and Eve had refused or were too scared to take that leap. He asked if that wasn't a worse path to take than to eat the fruit of knowledge too early. I remember being totally floored. He was so right and I loved his perspective.
In other words, I think there is danger in championing either tree at the expense of the other. I'm with you that when things are grey and you gotta pick between one or the other your default should be Life. Just when I think when things are grey and you are confronted between following what is normally the law and what seems the kinder thing to do, then sin boldy. Choose Love. But much of our life is mundane and straight forward. That's why it works to teach our kids not to steal, not to lie etc... Life is dynamic and is essential in creating and loving, but Knowledge is the static force that maintains and sustains. We notice the times when they are in juxtaposition or in conflict and in such times I agree with which tree, which force, which virtue to choose. But most of the time these two forces of nature are relating and intertwining, if not well, then at least in a functional way, and we don't notice them. Just like any good system (or program in the matrix) they are invisible when working properly.
The way I read the story, humans are predisposed toward Knowledge. That is our bent. We build towers, weapons, alphabets, systems, infrastructure. To such a People, it would make sense to say: choose Life. There would be more danger in saying both trees are important; they interact in a harmonic interrelationship, even though it's true.
DeleteLastly: I think what I was saying is that Adam and Eve didn't have to leave Eden because they were disobedient. They had to leave Eden because of the fruit of knowledge. I was raised to believe that the problem was the disobedience. I don't think that interpretation is anywhere in the text. And I find that realization refreshing for some reason.
ReplyDelete