The Fruit of the Fall
How the Biblical Fall of Man Plays a Role in Today’s Problems
“They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide;
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.” — John Milton, Paradise Lost
The question, “what makes humans flawed?” is one for the ages. For nearly all of time, mankind has been desperate to discover the reason for the existence of evil and injustice in the world. Though there are many opinions and answers, I believe that the first introduction of evil into our world stemmed from the consumption of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. My biblical approach may not be the most common one in both my generation and the stage of life I am in, and it may be further unpopular to even mention the topic of religion in this American culture of ‘political correctness’, but I would be poorly demonstrating my faith in God and Jesus Christ if I were to value a grade or materialistic success over my eternal salvation. So, here I am to discuss the theme of my essays through the Biblical lense with with I constructed them.
Adam and Eve reside in a state of righteousness before God and fellowship with Him. They walk with Him in the Garden and feel no shame, for they are ‘upright’. The animals feed off of the vegetation and coexist in perfect peace. God’s creation of the world was ‘good’, and his creation of man was ‘very good’. When Satan, in serpent form, tempted Eve and she and Adam both ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (the only tree from which God had commanded mankind not to eat from) evil entered humanity. Adam and Eve felt shame, they were aware of their nakeness, and tried to solve the problem themselves, sewing leaves together in an attempt to preserve their modesty. They became afraid of the voice of God, feeling guilt and insufficiency. Blame and irresponsibilty entered the world as Adam blamed Eve for eating the fruit, and Eve blamed the serpent for tricking her. Their imminent expulsion from the Garden represented a relational distance from God and an introduction of the feelings isolation and fear.
According to an article authored by Simon Turpin, “the Bible teaches that our sin comes from the corrupt nature we have inherited from Adam (Romans 5:12–19; 1 Corinthians 15:21–22)”, not to imply that we carry the guilt from Adam’s specific sin, but instead we are born of a nature inherited through generations of a sinful inner being. The effects of sin have reverberated through the chasms of mankind and have sunk deeply into our cracked humanity. It is evident in the most obvious of evils such as murder, terrorism, or slavery. Yet there are more discreet ways that the tricks of the Devil has permeated our lives in both the visible and in invisible. He takes hold of our bodies through mental image problems, eating disorders, drug abuse. He takes hold of our minds in ways such as tendencies toward greed, pride, gluttony, or deceit. He lies in waiting to snatch the vulnerable with anxiety, depression, suicide.
Through my writing this semester I have attempted the task of exposing the weaknesses in humanity that walks hand-in-hand with the solutions the Devil offers. I first discussed the life of comedian Sam Kinison and how his comedic career was a type of mask for the preacher he was, and remained inside. I disucssed the ways that comedy resembled preaching, and how Sam Kinison’s background as a pastor influenced the way he created his comedy sketches. The religious aspect of my first essay is incredibly apparenent, and ties nicely to the idea that religion and the pitfalls of humanity are deeply intertwined. Sam Kinison was a comedian of the ghastly, a speaker of the unspeakable. In many ways, the unspeakable topics in life are the ones that display the faults of man due to sin. Kinison discussed divorce, failure, homosexuality, human relationships, and more, and he discussed the ways that these topics had failed not only him in life, but everyone else as well.
My second essay was a discourse on the rampant drug use/abuse increase in the United States. I discussed the facts, the stats, the basics, but I also discussed the who’s and the why’s of such an important and difficult matter. Not only did my essay discuss the failure of humanity to withstand the desire to refrain from synthetic joy (when we were indeed created to naturally feel it), but the essay also highlights my personal experiences related to drugs and suicide — for me, the ultimate encounter with the power of the Devil to take the thing we hold most precious — life.
Lastly, my third essay focused on the career and personal life of famed comedian and award-winning actor Robin Williams. Robin Williams’ suicide rocked the world. While my second essay cracked opened the metaphorical can of worms regarding the fight between Heaven and Hell for the precious gem of life itself, my third essay blew it open wide. Robin struggled with drugs and alcohol throughout his entire (all too brief) stint on Earth, and he ultimately lost his life to a suicide motivated by the capture of his physical and mental capabilities. Drugs, alcohol, mental incapacitation, and suicide. Satan came at Robin with everything he had.
What Satan did in the Garden is what he still does today, with incredible success. He lied. What Eve did in the Garden, like so many of us do on such a regular basis today, was believe Satan’s word over God’s. We choose to believe that we are not good enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough, that we are a disappointment, unloved, or unworthy. So many of the world’s greatest sadnesses and pain are caused by believing these things. Perhaps Sam Kinison’s internal warfare stemmed from feelings of inadequacy from the failure of his marriages. Perhaps the Devil whispered in his ear daily that he would end up just like his parents — divorced. Kinison may have even fallen prey to the temptation to believe that his life was inconsequential. There are a multitude of reasons that people become addicted to drugs, but the reasons that they try them in the first place is because they search for something: acceptance, escape, relief, happiness. Satan has convinced the world that these deadly pills and powders can solve our problems, while they simply serve to amplify and create problems. It is a nasty and cyclical weapon. Perhaps the serpent wrapped himself around Robin Williams and told him that he could not matter to the world without a body that functioned (as Williams believed he was developing Parkinson’s in the weeks before his death) or that he was simply too weak to overcome his dependency on alcohol. He is a tricky snake.
Whether it be through struggles leading to a questionable morality, to the idea of human nature presented in the gospel itself, all the way to the reason humans become addicts, I have managed to highlight, with subtlety and inadvertency, the idea that human nature is riddled with the aftershocks of Adam’s sinful earthquake. We struggle and strive to overcome what only the Lord Himself may bury for us. Whether or not you choose to believe it is entirely up to you, and I fully stand behind your autonomous choices. However, I believe that all of sin’s echoes throughout our troubled world have ultimately been defeated and placed in the grave by Jesus Christ himself. The words of these essays came easily to me and I can only hope that they exist to both educate and inspire.
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