August 14, 2024 – Genesis 2:9-25
Man is meant to develop. His beingness is in motion toward or away from God.
Adam in his state of original blessedness, is placed by God into The Garden of Eden, which will be used as a school for his development. Recall that Adam is created from dust (physical corporeality) and the in-breathed spirit of God (spirituality), both elements which were created and acknowledged by God as “good”. This miraculous unity of flesh and spirit is intended by God’s will to both function and learn (during our origin and temporal journey) through the physical limits of corporeality, as well as to reach beyond those limits to higher union with God as we mature and are reborn in Christ in preparation for that union.
In Eden, God provides curricula for man’s improvement in the form of trees to both delight his spiritual sense and satisfy his physical need for food. It is important to understand that while Eden is provided to Adam by God as a tabernacle for close and clear spiritual encounter, the garden is intended for Adam to leave his own mark upon it. In this way, Adam learns that his labor in the garden can serve his needs, at the same time that it glorifies God and aids his spiritual development. Interestingly, for the duration of man’s blessedness and residence in Eden, he will have no need for food. The purpose of his education in Eden is to set a memory in the historical, fallen, descendants of Adam of God’s freely available abundance in Eden. His will is to drive future generations of exiled man toward returning to Eden and restoration to God.
The Tree of Life is also provided to instruct Adam’s awareness that abundant, everlasting life has been designed into his humanity by God, and will develop if man continues moving in God’s direction. Its presence also in the New Jerusalem, when God’s will has been fully revealed and judgement has been passed, instructs us that our memories of Eden will guide our path to redemption and presence in the New Jerusalem.
God’s final exam is provided in the form of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, to test Adam’s commitment to God’s command not to eat of the fruit of this tree. Adam in his early state of blessedness knows only good and is ignorant of evil. Adam’s pride to know as God knows prepares him to later be tempted. As God has promised that he will die if he eats of the tree, this original sin defiles Adam and all of creation, with death as the wage to be paid him. As tragic as this choice appears to be, it was necessary for the education and perfection of Adam’s moral development.
God created man with potential moral faculties so that the action of his free will self-generates the maturation of his moral character. This is man’s contribution to God’s glorious creation. Solitude and isolation is seen by God as not good for Adam. His development and maturation is intended by God to happen in the context of relationship to God and to others here on temporal earth (as in our summary of the law), so God begins creating other animal beings to see which might be suitable help for Adam’s development. Note that God’s agency here requires reference to man’s preference of what will be suitable for him. God then allows Adam his first act of agency in relationship by bringing the animals He created to Adam to see what he names them.
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