Free will.
How could God allow selfless and charitable human beings die from cancer while murderers live full and privileged lives?
Free will.
Why doesn't God put an end to all the genocide taking place throughout the world?
Free will.
And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."
From the start, the Creator of the Universe, He who spoke our reality into existence, bestowed freedom upon the human race. Adam had permission to eat any of the fruit in the Garden of Eden, except that from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The fact that God told him not to eat from this tree implied that Adam had the ability to choose whether or not to obey. This cannot be emphasized enough; the All-Powerful Supreme Being created man to be free.
Enters Satan, stage-left (Genesis 3:1, NIV).
The Serpent convinces the woman, who convinces the man, to exercise their freedom to disobey God. The Serpent didn't make Adam and Eve do anything; they chose to do it.
Of course, God knew all, and He confronted His creation regarding its insubordination. Now think about that. Just a while before this episode, He willed all that we know into being: the trees, the water, the laws of physics, energy, matter, etc., etc. This same Power confronts the offenders. He didn't annihilate them. He didn't will them out of existence. He allowed them to disobey Him, continue to exist, and then took the time for dialogue with what He made.
Genesis 3:14-19 records God's judgment. There are two tenets of His pronouncement that must be examined here because they lay out the story line for the rest of the drama.
The first is in verse 19 when God says, "By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."
The ultimate punishment. Death. Adam is told that because of his choice, the protocol called for his demise, that he would "return to the ground." The grand opening was glorious. From nothing, the earth was created. The Master Composer conducted a symphony of light, of colors, of life. The overture was short-lived, however. After only a few pages into a massive script, the mood changes to darkness and mortality.
To get the second component, it is necessary to back up to verse 15: "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
This was the sentence given to the serpent, the antagonist in the story, the character whose opposition is introduced and of which will continue until nearly the script's end. In what seems to be a short story, a sad tragedy, the Protagonist adjusts the mood. He cues a "yellow wash", a glimmering light of hope, a way out. It is through the woman's seed, that the Messiah would come, the One that would pay the price for this Original Sin and all to come thereafter. It is this reference that shook the walls in the opening scene of The Passion of the Christ where Jesus crushes the detestable, slithering snake that creeps its way to His feet during prayer.
Why is the world "crazy"? This is why, "because it can be..." It made this choice long ago. The choice had consequences, but so that the descendants of the original man and woman have the opportunity to make the right choice, the ultimate judgment has yet to come. Because generations after generations have made the wrong choice, we continue to ask the question.
Read the previous posts in this series:
1) The World Is Crazy: Now What?
2) Cue The Lights
Read the next post in this series:
4) Sturm und Drang
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