What Did We Actually Lose in the Garden of Eden?
What Divine Revelation, not man-made religion, teaches us about the fall of humanity.
Many of us who were raised in a culture that was founded on “Western Christianity” may have been given the impression that what happened in the Garden of Eden was this:
God made a beautiful garden with trees, flowers and animals, then He made Adam, and then He made Eve from the rib of Adam. Then He told them not to eat of a certain tree, and if they did, He threatened them that they would die, as in “Do this or you will die!!” Then, as the story continues, they were disobedient, God got angry and kicked them out of Paradise.
You may have also been told that everyone is born with the guilt of this Original Sin.
You may have also been told, depending on which various group you were raised in, that what mankind lost was the ability to do good at all, that mankind become so rotten, so fallen that we are now totally depraved.
And again, depending on who was teaching you, you may have also been told that since humans became totally depraved and unable to do any good, then the only way anyone is saved is if God predestines that person for salvation. That, in fact, some are predestined to be saved, and some are predestined to be damned, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. (See the Calvinist acronym T.U.L.I.P.)
What if you found out today that almost everything written above, which is often taught as Christianity, is man-made? That these are not teachings that the early Church believed in?
Don’t get me wrong — the early Church, the Original Church, believed in Revelation. And they believed in the Scriptures — in Christ’s time, that meant the Old Testament (Septuagint). And the early Church wrote the New Testament as they were living it, which in its correct interpretation is central to Christianity. So they definitely did believe in the account of Genesis: That God made the heavens and the earth, that He made Paradise full of beautiful and lovely trees and flowers, that He created Adam in His image and likeness, and Eve, from Adams rib, also in His image and likeness. And He breathed into them the breath of Life.
However, most of what is written above earlier, after that common narrative, is based on false man-made interpretations.
So, what did the Early Church understand that we lost in Paradise? Did we lose our will to do any good at all, or was it something else?
It’s important to understand that the Early Christian Church did not believe in man-made doctrines, but rather in the truth revealed by Jesus Christ — God become man, the God-Man — when He walked on earth. They believed in, and lived their lives for, Divine Revelation, not religion. In fact, they understood that Truth is not philosophies, syllogisms or opinions, but Christ Himself is the Truth. So, when they knew in their hearts and believed in the Truth, even many times unto a martyric death, it wasn’t an idea, opinion, or slogan they were dying for, but their very real and tangible relationship with Christ, Who is the Source of all Life.
Here is how the Early Church understood what happened, as much as it is possible to put these things into words, right? because we only know so much. But still, what was given us by Divine Revelation is very different from the later man-made concepts.
God did gift Adam and Eve to dwell in a beautiful Paradisial place, such as we can’t even really imagine. There was no illness, no suffering, no harsh weather, no fear, no old age...There were trees, flowers, colors, scents, fruits that we have no idea of now. (We know this from various lives of Saints who have been taken to Paradise for a brief time in their earthly lives and later tried to describe it.)
Adam and Eve were made in God’s image. God is Uncreated Light. Therefore, they were also clad in light. God is Love, therefore they also had the capacity to love and grow in love. And God is free, therefore they were created with free will.
They were not created spiritually fully mature, but rather their free will had to have the ability to be exercised, so that it could become confirmed in the good. (We can relate to this because we experience something similar….we not only mature physically, but also emotionally and hopefully spiritually.)
Why didn’t God make them incapable of sinning? Then they would have been more like automatons than free will beings. In order to be able to freely love, they had to be free. And to be free means having the ability to choose to stay free.
It’s really as simple as that. We were not created angels, or animals, we were created human beings, in the image and likeness of God, with free will, and the potential to become God’s actual god-like children.
Adam and Eve had everything — peace, joy, harmony, God’s company, the fruits of the earth, work without labor, warmth, flowers, animals — but the enemy offered them something else. He offered them to be gods without God. And that idea tempted them.
When the devil through the serpent said to them that God had lied to them, that God had something that He didn’t want them to have and “that’s why” God said for them not to eat of the fruit, that was an outrageous slander. It was the complete opposite of the Truth.
If only Adam and Eve had put up the shields of love and gratitude, they could have answered the devil/serpent in many good ways, such as: Get behind us! We know our God and Creator loves us and has given us all good things. We don’t know who you are, so get away from us! We are going to tell our Father on you!
But that didn’t happen, then.
And here is where Adam and Eve lost something — they lost the garment of light they were wearing. For the very first time they saw themselves as naked, and they hid for shame.
And what did they receive from the enemy for trading in their beautiful garments of light?
The received the garments of corruption.
They turned their spiritual and noetic beings — their hearts, minds, souls, attention, wills, desires — away from God and stopped reflecting His light in all purity and goodness. In other words, they took off their garment of light, and put on the garment of corruption, just as God had tried to warn them not to do, while also providing for them multitudes of other trees and fruits to enjoy without any restriction.
That’s the simple, direct Christian teaching. God did not threaten them. He warned them, as a loving parent warns their child — “Do not put your hand in that flame, it will burn you.”
What was the next thing that happened after Adam and Eve decided to forego their garments of light for the false hope that the serpent was extending? They realized their nakedness, they hid and then God “sought for them.” He asked them questions that He already knew the answers to, to make it easy for them to admit what had happened and to repent. But unfortunately, that’s not what happened either. They blamed the serpent, one another, and even God.
So now we have a dilemma. In the Garden was this tree of knowledge, that they were supposed to wait until they were ready for it and for the time when God said it was okay for them to eat of it, and there was also another Tree that we know its name — the Tree of Life.
They were told not to eat of the tree of knowledge, and they did. They were lovingly questioned so that they would repent, but they didn’t. Obviously it wasn’t going to work to say “Now don’t go and eat of the Tree of Life, lest you become immortal in this state of corruption you are in now.”
What could possibly be worse than endlessly getting older, weaker, sicker, darker, in more pain, more sin, potentially more hateful, selfish, and angry, and there never being an end to it? An immortal state of suffering and decay. (So much for the promises and offerings of the enemy.)
The early Church understood that God is unchanging, that He never gets angry at us, and when in the Old Testament this type of language and imagery is used, it’s used anthropomorphically. And in addition to that, it doesn’t say in Scripture that God banished them from Paradise out of anger.
What does it actually say in the Book of Genesis? “And God said, Behold, Adam is become as one of us, to know good and evil, and now lest at any time he stretch forth his hand, and take of the Tree of Life, and eat, and so he shall live forever — So the Lord God sent him forth out of the garden of Delight to cultivate the ground out of which he was taken.”
And again “And He cast out Adam and caused him to dwell over against the garden of Delight, and stationed the cherubs and the fiery sword that turns about to keep the way of the Tree of Life.” (Genesis III:23–25 LXX).
It was not about God’s anger, it was all about the Tree of Life…it was about God protecting them, and us, out of love.
We see this so easily and clearly in our own lives as parents — We also protect our children, even when they have made poor choices and won’t listen. And sometimes they have to “move out of the house” to be humbled and learn the hard way, because otherwise we know that they will turn into spoiled monsters, which would be a worse fate for them than having to move out and go to work.
So now we have two very different understandings between the Divine Revelation that Christ came to give us, and later religions.
A.) Man-made religion often teaches that God threatened Adam and Eve and then became angry when they disobeyed Him.
B.) The Divine Revelation teaches that God warned Adam and Eve out of love, and then sought them out to draw them to repentance.
A.) Man-made religion teaches that God cast Adam and Eve out of Paradise in anger.
B.) The Divine Revelation teaches that God sent them away out of love and protection, lest they become immortal in a state of corruption by partaking of the Tree of Life. (And also that through being humbled they would not become incorrigible.)
Scripture supports, of course, the interpretation of Divine Revelation, not man-made religion.
And what about the idea of Original Sin?
Original sin was first spoken of by a writer and bishop in the West, called Augustine of Hippo. Although he wrote many nice things, he also “philosophized” his way into some errors. Certain individuals, such as Charlemagne, got very enthused about “our very own Western Saint Augustine”, and along with Augustine’s good writings, came the errors.
It should be understood that in the East, and also in the West, were many Church Fathers and Saints who did not accept these ideas, but who held to the Divine Revelation.
Augustine wrote that everyone is born with the taint of the Original Sin, and that this guilt is passed on through the act of procreation.* In other words, everyone is born guilty, of someone else’s sin, and there’s no way around being born that way. (Except one…The doctrine of original sin was why the Papacy had to invent the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception [1854], so that they could say that the Mother of God was born without the taint of original sin. And this is also how the dogma of Papal Infallibility came to be [1870], to support what was done in 1854. But the early Church never taught that anyone was…that is, conceived in original sin or infallible.)
This is a strange idea, that everyone is born with Adam and Eve’s guilt, and yet “Western Christianity”, both the Papacy and the Reformers, for the most part seem to hold to it.
But what does Divine Revelation teach about this?
The Early Church did not believe that everyone is born with the guilt of Adam and Eve (actually, Adam and Eve are considered Saints, since they repented when our Saviour descended into Hades), but rather, we are all born into this fallen state, into this fallen world.
That’s it.
The Divine Revelation does not teach predestination (another strange idea of Augustine’s) but rather that God wills everyone to be saved, and invites everyone, but will not overrule our free will.
So now we have a third difference:
A.) Man-made religion often teaches that every person is born guilty of the sin of Adam and Eve.
B.) Divine Revelation teaches that we are not born guilty of Adam and Eve’s sin, but rather since they fell, and creation also fell, we too are born in a mortal fallen state.
And Divine Revelation also teaches how God became a man to rescue us from this fallen state! We look forward to writing about that as well!
Dear fellow writers and readers on Medium, These are tough topics to write about…It’s hard to even know where to begin. I would so appreciate your honest input and observations. I am hoping to do a series along these lines, that I hope to someday put together into a book, if God blesses that project.
*Augustine, De Peccato Originali, 44, 402.
