Genesis 3 tells the story of the Fall of mankind to the utterly sinful condition in which we find ourselves. Whether a literally true event, or an allegory explaining why we find ourselves in an evil world, it forms the basis of the Christian understanding of mankind.
After God had created man, and then made woman from man to be his perfect companion, they lived in the Garden with all of their needs provided for them. God had given Adam and Eve just one command, not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God warned them that eating of that tree, disobedience to God, would make them mortal. They were tempted to eat of the tree by Satan who first told Eve that God had lied when He said they would die if they ate of the tree. He went on to tell Eve that eating of the tree would provide mankind with the knowledge of good and evil making them "like God." This convinced her and she ate and also gave the fruit to Adam.
The consequences were immediate and Adam and Eve hid themselves from God thus beginning the estrangement of God and man. When God called to Adam, Adam began to make excuses, blaming his wife, that God had given him, for his sin. Eve, in turn, blamed Satan. God, almost in sadness and resignation pronounces the "curse" against first Satan and then the humans:
"To the woman he said, 'I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children,
yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.' And to Adam he said, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, You shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.'”
The Apostle Paul, writing by the Spirit, addressed the same issue in the first chapter of his letter to the Romans:
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature, namely, His eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. . . . And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct. They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them."
Thus, in both accounts it is the failure to acknowledge God as God, and in a sense to become gods in our own right, that causes the Fall. Even though they were both written millennia ago, it is hard to believe that anyone reading these two versions of the fall of mankind to our present, sinful state would not immediately sense the truth in them for us today. Looking back at the story of God's chosen Jewish people in the Hebrew Scriptures, we see a story of God's redemption of His people, followed by their promises to be faithful, followed in turn by their turning away from God, their falling upon hard times, their repentance and finally by God's next redemptive act. We can look back on the history of the last century and that all the utopian schemes of fascism, nazism, communism, socialism, Maoism ended in tyranny and oppression and see man's stubborn, sinful nature. And we can look around at the world, and even in our nation, today and see nothing but evil, no matter what civil arrangements are made or system people live under. As Winston Churchill once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
With this history in mind, how could a rational human being ever believe that it were possible for any government to create a utopian society, no matter what system is tried. Nor can we avoid Madison's conclusion in Federalist 51 (discussed in my last post), that no matter how virtuous a society, it will be necessary to closely limit government. It should be further obvious that the subjective judgments of men and women on questions involving their own interests, whether political, economic, cultural, moral or scientific, will be subject to suspicion. And finally, the corruption of mankind is so fundamental that no matter what system you place us in, we will almost always act in our own perceived self-interest, and that the more power anyone is given over others, the more danger there is from the self-interest of those in power.
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