Act II: The Fall

The biblical account of The Fall is found in Genesis 3, where we find strange language about a Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil and a talking snake and the shame of nakedness. Like Genesis 1-2, peeling through the layers of symbolism, veiled meaning, metaphor, polemic, and apologetic is tricky business. At the heart of this story is the temptation presented to mankind: “Become like God!” (Gen 3.4) This temptation to “become like God” lies at the heart of rebellion, the heart of idolatry. God’s image-bearers decided that rather than bearing their Creator’s image, they would bear their own. The result was expulsion from the Garden and becoming not “like God” but subject to decay and death. This great act of rebellion, this first act of idolatry, when man decided to serve himself rather than his Creator, to be his own king and master rather than an agent of God’s kingdom, is the moment when evil plunged into all of creation. 

Our first question is often, How did evil infect God’s good creation? but a prior question must be asked: What, exactly, IS evil? We must distinguish between genuine evil and apparent evil. There are things that may appear to us to be evil but which are not evil at all. Just because something is aesthetically unpleasing doesn’t mean it’s evil. This isn’t to say, of course, that there is no such thing as evil. Genuine evil does exist, and it seems to prosper. Theologians have spoken of evil in all sorts of categories, the prominent ones as of late being moral evil (that which is rebellion against God) and natural evil (the evil we find in earthquakes, tsunamis, and tornadoes). Categorizing evil can be a tricky game, and why are we to assume that natural events that affect us negatively are necessarily evil? Suffice it to say, evil is real, it causes pain, and it can be seen all over our world, from liars to genocidal megalomaniacs, from those who bully their peers on the playground to those who exterminate entire people groups. Evil can’t be reduced simply to “things that we do,” nor can it be reduced to mere “aspects of the heart.” Evil is both inward and outward. Injustice is done to the reality of evil by exterminating any supra-spiritual connections; an equal injustice is committed by centering evil upon “Satan” and “his minions,” making everything evil demonic by default. Evil is real, and though we may not be able to define it to a “T”, its affects are still felt in our world, on a global, communal, local, and individual scale. Like porn, we may not be able to define it, but we know it when we see it.

The Apostle Paul said, "For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." (Rom 8.20-21) The Christian worldview adheres to the belief that creation itself was affected by the curse due to mankind’s rebellion in the Garden. At the Fall, evil rippled throughout the entire universe. Like gangrene spreading through wounded flesh, evil spread through the created order, affecting everything from the subatomic level to the organization of galaxy clusters. As Paul said, creation will be set free from its bondage to corruption: it will be set free from the effects of evil set upon it. This liberation isn’t a present reality but a future one. Creation is presently in bondage, balking against the chains of that bondage, sweating and huffing and puffing and crying out for deliverance; as St. Paul put it, "We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now." (Rom 8.22) The created world in which we live, while resplendent with great beauties and adventures and mysteries, is but a shadow of the original, and a day is coming when the Creator God will renew and restore creation to its rightful intended status. But we are getting ahead of ourselves; that’s not until Act Six.

Mankind’s rebellion in the Garden of Eden set off a dynamite explosion that created an avalanche of ever-increasing evil within human beings themselves. The original “sin,” that first act of idolatry, set off a chain-reaction that rivals anything experienced in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Evil infected human beings, and not just in the things that we do (as if legalism could purge us of evil); nor did evil affect us just by the corruption of our minds (as if philosophy or psycho-babble could cure us). Evil has infected our behaviors, our actions, our thoughts, our feelings, our dispositions, motivations, and inclinations. Evil has infected us in our hearts, in our spirits, in the core of our beings. The Apostle Paul says that we are enslaved to sin and even indwelt by sin in Romans 6-7. Because of our rebellion, we are infected by evil to our cores, and we are unable (and unwilling) to serve God as His image-bearers. 

God created us to be His image-bearers, but we have become our own image-bearers. God created us to advance His kingdom and agenda, but we seek to advance our own kingdoms and agendas. God created us as humans, and in the forsaking of our identities as image-bearers, we have slipped into subhuman status. We are still Homo sapiens, and we’re still endowed with the “tools” God gave us to do His will, but now we use those tools in coercion and manipulation to have our own ways rather than God’s ways. We have become subhuman, or dehumanized, because we are failing to live as we were created to live. 

The eight chapters of Genesis following the account of the Fall showcase how sin’s effects within man escalates. First there is escalation into murder, followed by a strange account of Nephilim and “sons of God." In Genesis 6 we find the double-statement regarding the widespread rippling of evil and its affects on the world: "YHWH saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of men’s hearts were evil, evil, evil! and The earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on earth." (Gen 6.5, 11-12) Genesis 6-10 recounts the story of the Flood: God regretted creating mankind and decided to wipe them out, but His love for mankind won out and He landed on a different approach in dealing with the problem (an approach launched in Genesis 12, beginning with Act 3). The whole series of the wretchedness, wickedness, and evil of the world comes to a head in Genesis 11, the story of the Tower of Babel: all the evil people come together to build a tower that reaches into heaven, for the sole purposes of exalting themselves over all creation. In a word, they hoped to usurp YHWH from his throne. The story ends with God quite literally confusing their efforts, and they fail to accomplish their goals. The Tower of Babel symbolizes what has already become a reality in men’s hearts: they love themselves rather than God, and they’re devoted to their kingdoms rather than His.

The end of Genesis 11 finds the world embroiled in a sour mess. Evil courses through the veins of every living human being, and the creation itself is spoiled. God is angry, upset, and saddened by the state of things, and He decides to launch a rescue operation. He will deal with the evil infecting creation, not least the evil infecting His image-bearing creatures whom He loves. He will renew the entire cosmos, He will flood the world with peace and justice. In a world that has become a wasteland, God will act and return it to its rightful place of beauty. He will do this not with a simple declaration or a snap of His fingers, but through a very peculiar people: the descendants of a desert pagan who had a wife with a barren womb and failed hopes for sons to carry on his legacy.