The Bible is a fantastic story, but one thing we often miss reading it is that God is not some mystical being of magic who does things because He can. He's a logical being, a cosmic mathematician, and a loving father. Nothing about God is arbitrary. There is a reason and purpose behind everything He does, no matter how odd it might seem to us. The more you study the Bible, the more you realize that when it comes to God's commands, there's hardly any "because I said so" to His purpose. There's always an explanation, it's just sometimes not immediately apparent. 

Loyal readers will know I'm a student of C.S. Lewis. He had a profound impact on my thoughts about Christianity and Christian philosophy, and has since I was young. Lewis was also a man who approached things from a rational stance, and loved to peer into the mind of God where he could. He also loved to theorize about things that the Bible is often not very explanatory about, and being a fiction writer and a superb storyteller, he would fill in the blanks with theories when the mood struck him. I inherited this love of fictional writing based on Biblical truths from my teacher, and the theorizing that came with it. 

So I'm going to indulge on this with humanity's fall, because I think it's something we think about a lot, but rarely ever deeper than "we sinned and got kicked out of Eden, and we've been struggling ever since." 

This part of the story begins, not with Adam and Eve, but with Lucifer. He was God's "seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty," but Lucifer had an issue that would soon manifest once God announced the creation of man. According to God, man would be his children and rule over all creation, and eventually, the angels themselves. This didn't sit well with Lucifer in the least, and he set out to prove to God that these dirty little creatures are not worthy of being rulers, or inheriting His image. 

This indicates that Lucifer suffered from the most seductive of all sins, Pride. He fell before we did, and to prove to God He was mistaken about us, Lucifer set out to make us disobey God in an attempt to remove us from a position of eventual authority, including over himself. Lucifer had a desire to be like the most High, and you can't be that when you're under what he considered lowly creatures. 

At that point, Eden had been established and Adam and Eve dwelled there, conversing freely with God and the angels. God walked in the garden, conversing directly with Adam without a veil, indicating in our sinless forms we could interact with God without a barrier. God commanded Adam that he could eat from any tree but the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" which sat at the center of the garden. From here, you know what happened. Lucifer convinced Eve to eat from the tree, at which point she gave the fruit to Adam who also ate, and with sin established, Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden and into the wider world. 

After that, Lucifer took on the name "Satan" and a cosmic chess match has been ongoing between him and Christ ever since. That's its own article, I think. 

That part we all know, but let's look deeper into it and theorize about some things. 

Some people believe the trees were metaphors, but I'm not so sure. Revelation 2:7 mentions man being given the right to eat from the tree of life once again, and mentions it's "in the paradise of God," a likely reference to Eden, which is an established place. Revelation 22:1-2 even gives the tree's yield of fruit being "twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month," and even mentioning its leaves have healing properties. Oddly specific. 

So, if the Tree of Life is real, then we can take it that the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" is also real, especially since we got a placement for it at the center of the garden. The Tree of Life is pretty straightforward, but the Tree of Knowledge is infinitely more fascinating, and here is where we get into theoretical territory. 

Putting the Tree of Knowledge in the garden to serve no purpose but to tempt humanity and test the obedience of man doesn't make much sense. Again, God is not arbitrary, and while He is known to test people — Abraham and Isaac, for instance — creating a tree that contained knowledge that could make humanity "like us" feels more utilitarian. Knowing that humanity was eventually supposed to rule and judge, the tree feels purposeful and, dare I say, inevitable. 

We weren't supposed to eat from it... yet.

Humanity was in its beginning stages. We were learning at the feet of God about how to fulfill our purpose, and once we grew into our role, matured as a species, and were ready to ascend in mind, then it's likely that God would have given us the fruit Himself. However, Lucifer had us jump the gun and we ate before we were ready. 

This introduced sin into humanity, or knowing disobedience to God, but I also think it goes deeper than that. Sin isn't just disobedience, it's a form of madness or, to put it in more modern terms, psychological illness. It's a memetic dysfunction that we inherit both genetically, and environmentally.

What do I mean by that? Let's look at some examples we can see for ourselves about what premature knowledge can do to a person. 

Children who suffer traumatic experiences often display psychological and even physical abnormalities. The body and brain age faster, for instance. Psychiatric disorders develop, including depression and anxiety, and even impacts the body's autonomic nervous system, leading to dysfunctions in both physical and mental health. 

Upon gaining knowledge we weren't ready for yet, humanity suffered a severe, cosmic-level trauma that we as a species haven't been able to work through and won't without guidance. Our unprepared minds were subjected to something we couldn't understand and since then, humanity has been displaying that madness, first manifesting in Cain's murder of Able over simple jealousy. 

Despite all our intelligence, technology, and social advances, we are not so rational as we might believe. Our shared madness isn't recognized as such because it's so normalized in humanity. We all have it. Even some of the angels seem to have it. Sin isn't just disobedience to God, it's a memetic hazard. 

Not that you're not aware of it per se. Reading the front page of RedState alone, you've probably come across articles that made you think something along the lines of "these people are crazy." 

Yes. They are. So are you, but you might just be a little less crazy than them thanks to various factors. Still, the effects of sin weigh on all of us in some capacity, and that includes mentally. Murder, greed, lust, and hatred for your fellow man aren't normal behaviors, and definitely not qualities of a species made in God's image. 

Notice how sin is often a replacement or perversion for a good given from God. Greed is the replacement of dependence on God with material comforts. Lust is the distortion of God's love in relationships. Many of us commit these sins without understanding that we're trying to replace something God-given, and that the emptiness we feel from these sinful comforts is a result of not getting the real thing. Yet, we keep going back to the sin as if it will give us that completion we need, repeating the same mistake over and over again. 

Albert Einstein's definition of insanity applies here. 

Not that we don't get glimpses of what we could have been, or rather our true nature, from time to time. Selflessness, sacrifice, kindness, patience and good works is the real humanity, and these acts stand out in a sea of madness like lights in the dark. Perhaps if we had matured before we'd eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, we would see these good things shine all the brighter despite there being no sin. What would we have done with that knowledge, being made in His image? What could we have accomplished? 

We won't know for a while, but we will get there again thanks to Christ's sacrifice and teachings. Our story started with a tree, and it ends with one. At some point, those who side with Christ will be invited to eat from the Tree of Life, and humanity will pick up where it left off before the fall. 

Until that time, stay as sane as you can, my friends.