Consciousness and the Garden of Eden: The First Trauma

In my first blog post on this topic I address the underlying subconscious frame work for the fallen condition of humanity in the garden of Eden. In this blog post I want to frame the fall in the language of incidental trauma and the continuance of sin and its residual effects in the language of complex trauma. My belief is that framing the Genesis 3 narrative in the language of trauma connects us with the healing power of the good news of Jesus. My belief is that the gospel is a declaration of our dignity restored and the undoing of the first lie of separation and forsakenness by God.

Trauma is defined in the dictionary as follows:

“a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.”

“emotional shock following a stressful event or a physical injury, which may be associated with physical shock and sometimes leads to long-term neurosis.”

“Injury”

In cognitive behavioral therapy thoughts lead to emotions lead to behaviors lead to outcomes. We all know that some behaviors are destructive, even self destructive. The church as I have personally experienced it, and many others, have testified to me majors on changing behavior (behavior modification). Usually it is driven by a meritocratic social dynamic wherein we reduce people to what they do or don’t do “for God “ and not who they are (their being); what they think or what they feel. Meritocratic society develops from the consciousness derived from the tree of the knowledge of good & evil i.e the “I am not” tree; scarcity/lack consciousness.

In my personal exploration of psychology and cognitive behavior I saw it in Genesis 3. I saw it clear as day and I’d like to make the case for what the source of sin is (missing the mark of identity); false beliefs. Once ‘sin’ becomes behavior we have caught it too late; sorta like stage 4 cancer. We need to catch it at the cognitive stage. The stage where we are entertaining paradigms, beliefs, and perceptions that aren’t truth. Which is why theology is so important.

Let’s go to the text.

In Genesis 3 the first assault on the image of God is the invalidation of the image of God, and we see it first hand with the serpent’s lies.

The Cognitive behavioral context:

Thoughts

Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,

side comment: They were like God already. He lied to them. He marred their image of God through deception which in turn marred the image of themselves. Can you follow the flow of cognition? I am not/I don’t have consciousness leads to desiring what we perceive we “lack”. The early church fathers call these passions. Thats the tree of the knowledge of good & evil. Scarcity/lack perception.

Feelings

that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise.

side note: The eastern church describes our inner longings based on this idea of perceived lack as the passions.

Behavior

she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.

side note: This is a great apologetic for sins residual affects. One lie leads to feelings of lack that lead to behavior driven by a perception of lack which create the context for more of the same which we will see. She ate in hopes for getting in her own strength (law of works) what God already gave her by grace.

Outcome: The First Trauma

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

side note: They had an awareness of perceived lack which brought on shame, which lead to the behavior of covering themselves based on their own insecurity.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”

So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

side note: Notice why Adam hid himself. Because he saw his nakedness, not God. God MADE THEM NAKED! He was cool with it until their own nakedness became contextualized in the perception of lack. The fact that Adam and Eve hid themselves only proves they were traumatized by the lie of the serpent. Shame, hiding, and blame-shifting which is what Adam and Eve did when they were questioned by God are birthed out of trauma. They were injured by believing a lie about their dad and themselves. What do traumatized people do best? Self-destruct.

Sin wasn’t just the action of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good & evil. It was the false perception (which was really deception) that lead to them eating from the tree. Eating from the tree was the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

When God enters the narrative after their fall we often times see his declaration of the reality that they now created as his judgment or punishment. If we are framing the garden up in legal language we reduce God to nothing more than an arbitrary cosmic accountant who scrutinizes every misdeed as a penalty that we’ll have to pony up to when he unleashes his wrath.

To lessen the idea of an all hating psycho that drools over meeting out our just desserts, perhaps we may see the declaration of their post fall reality as merely his commentary on the situation. Perhaps them being exiled from the garden was an act of his love and protection from eating the tree of life in that descended state of consciousness wherein the world was a place in which the most pertinent thing to do was to survive.

The tree of the knowledge of good & evil brought forth a self deluded alienation from God that did not exist except in their minds. It birthed a fear that they then project onto the face of God, which is really a false god. The relationship between Adam & Eve is now marred because in their conversation with God about eating from the tree they play the blame game.

The garden experience was an injury to their mind, will, and emotions. Their soul was injured by being gaslit by the devil. Typically narcissists are the ones who use gaslighting to manipulate with ulterior selfish motives.

God is not pronouncing punishment on humanity he declares a promise to liberate humanity from the plight of sin, satan, and death. God isn’t the narcissist here, the accuser, the gas-lighter, the liar, the manipulator is.

God is the healer of our trauma, not the proponent of it.