23 February 2024
It's a common doctrine in many churches and denominations that sin can be defined as arguing with God. This can be stated in many different ways to get the same basic concept. It's anything except the one thing God said. Pageau's definition is consistent with this.
However, he uses the terminology and concepts he's already established earlier in the book, The Language of Creation. In this case, he emphasizes that when things work as they are designed by God, the breath of Heaven comes down, and is met by the earth responding properly. Earth organizes itself by the Word of God, a living and active response. Adam sinned in that he failed to play his part in this interaction. Pageau offers examples on the various levels we've already defined, but there's no surprises there. Failure to properly integrate Heaven and Earth inside our hearts, in our actions, and in our communities, all amount to sin.
Thus, eating the Forbidden Fruit was inconsistent with the integration design. Adam and Eve ate something that they were not designed to handle internally. The result was earth did not respond properly to heaven; they were defiled or poisoned by the consuming the inappropriate food. It would be like growing a mismatched limb. The body represents earth trying to generate a false response. The proximate cause was a contaminated spirit acting inappropriately.
The mind and body cannot come to terms; they are in conflict. This is why kosher, which appears to modern western minds as merely smart food sanitation for a primitive people, is a serious spiritual matter. It's not a mere health issue, as if there is no other consequence attached. God could not use His people if they ate the wrong food; they were denying His lordship and defiling themselves so that they could not perform the appointed mission. The kosher laws removed a lot of the guesswork, reducing the risks of making a mess of themselves.
Again, it all applies in various ways on different levels. The fundamental requirement to integrate heaven and earth takes no holidays. When Adam and Eve departed divine guidance, they were no longer able to integrate heaven and earth. They provoked a serious tug of war between time and space within themselves. The flesh did not stand firm for Heaven (they stumbled and fell), and Heaven could not cover their nakedness. These two ideas are closely related in Hebrew thinking. The body became mortal as the spirit and flesh were estranged and increasingly separated.
Adam was returned to dust, but the Serpent consumed the dust. The disintegration hit each one differently because of their different roles as assigned by God. And because the Serpent (a wavy creature) symbolized the floods of water disintegrating the land, Adam was washed away from his created position in the Garden. Humans were reduced to creatures of the same sort they previously managed from a higher position.
And here we see the universal necessity for humans to be covered. Nakedness is exposure to the corrosive forces of nature, now uncontrolled and dominated by the presence of the Serpent (who was confined to the earth). The only hope for humans to have a chance at redemption requires a covering of their nakedness, and on multiple levels. It helps to reduce the untamed appetites of a flesh now corrupted.
The symbolism of biting the heel points to making them fall again and again; they cannot stand firm. By the same token, the concept of crushing the head is to pin the Serpent down and stop the flow of chaos. This is part of the tug of war between time and space in human existence.
Previous to the Fall, the nudity of Adam and Eve was covered by the holiness of a life integrated as God designed. They did not suffer a fleshly body alienated from their heart to obey. After the Fall, their fleshly bodies were foreign to the heart. Now they must divide their days and nights by the necessity of balancing building space and sleeping time. They are under space and time, instead of living superior to it in their eternal forms.
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