PROLOGUE
The story of Adam and Eve is a myth about our transition from anthropoid apes to human beings.
Adam and Eve
According to the second biblical story of creation (Genesis 2:4b–3:24), Adam and Eve were expelled from paradise.
Adam and Eve were expelled from paradise because they ate fruit from the tree to see good and evil.
When Adam and Eve ate fruit from the tree to see good and evil, their eyes were opened, and they saw they were naked (Genesis 3:7).
When their eyes were opened, Adam and Eve could see sin.
To see sin is to categorize something as either good or evil.
Adam and Eve categorized nakedness as something evil.
When Adam and Eve categorized nakedness as something evil, nakedness was evil. No matter what God might have said.
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The story in Genesis 2:4b—3:24 is definitely a myth, but the myth has a point.
That point is the otherwise inexplicable transition from anthropoid apes to human beings.
- Genesis 2:4b—3:24 is not a story about our sin or our fall.
- Genesis 2:4b—3:24 is a story about our transition from anthropoid apes to human beings.
When Adam and Eve ate, they developed the ability to see sin.
Anthropoid apes cannot see sin.
Anthropoid apes can categorize something as either good or evil within predefined categories, but anthropoid apes cannot invent new categories.
With the ability to see sin, human beings can invent new categories and categorize something as either good or evil within those new categories.
The human race, which descends from Eve (Genesis 3:20), inherits the ability to see sin from Eve.
Immanuel Kant writes:
"From this depiction [Genesis 2:4b–3:24] of the first human history, it follows that the exit of the human being from that paradise, which reason presents to the human being as the first abode of the human race, was nothing other than the transition from the brutality of a pure animal creature to humanity, from the guidance of instincts to the guidance of reason, in other words, the transition from the guardianship of nature to the condition of freedom." (AA VIII:115)
The condition of freedom leads to the condition of war.
The condition of war
In the English version of De Cive, Thomas Hobbes writes:
"There are two kinds of cities: the one natural, such as is the paternal and despotical; the other institutive, which may be also called political. In the first, the lord acquires to himself such citizens as he will; in the other, the citizens by their own wills appoint a lord over themselves". (V.XII)
In a later famous quote, Kant writes:
"The human being is an animal, which, when it lives among other human beings, needs a lord. For it certainly abuses its freedom toward others of its kind; and although it, as a rational creature, wishes a law that sets limits to the freedom of all, yet it is tempted at every opportunity by its selfish animal inclination to exempt itself. Thus, it needs a lord who breaks its own will and compels it to obey a universally valid will whereby everyone can be free." (AA VIII:23)
If we just follow our own will, we will live in a condition of war. Therefore, we need a common way to peace.
Both Thomas Hobbes and Immanuel Kant saw a common way to peace, but they both missed the door.
- Hobbes saw a common way to peace through punishment and reward.
- Kant saw a common way to peace through practical reason.
Our common way to peace is not through punishment and reward. Our common way to peace is not through practical reason. Our common way to peace is through what Jesus Christ has done for us.
The Way
We know paradise from the Bible. The Bible is the revelation of our common way from paradise to paradise.
Paradise is the House of God in the Garden of God; The House of God in the Garden of God is peace: Paradise is peace.
Our common way from paradise to paradise is from the Garden of God to the House of God.
On the same day he rose from the dead, Jesus Christ gave the Holy Spirit to us. That is what Jesus Christ has done for us!
The Holy Spirit is our ticket to the House of God. The Holy Spirit is our ticket from outside paradise to inside paradise.
In a lecture from 1775/1776, Kant says:
"The motive to act in accordance with good principles could well be the idea that, if all would act so, then this earth would be a paradise. This motivates me to contribute something to this, and if it does not happen, then it is at least not on me. As I see it, I am then still a member of this paradise." (AA XXV:650)