God, Free Will And The Rebels

Where Christians and others got it wrong

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

So we all know the story. God creates the world, the land, seas, skies, stars, plants and animals. He sees that its good — not perfect, because there is some seriously weird stuff in there (Duck-Billed Platypus, anyone?) — but good. Then he creates intelligent beings, Adam and Eve, “in his own image”. He puts them in a garden where the living is easy, they don’t have to work and don’t even need clothes; also, they don’t get ill, don’t die and can have all the sex they want without worrying about pregnancy. So far, so good.

But then, God does something weird, or at least irresponsible. He puts a tree smack in the middle of the garden, loaded with scrumptious-looking fruit, then tells Adam and Eve that they must not eat the fruit or there will be dire consequences. Adam says, “Got it, big guy!”, and that’s supposed to be it.

Only it isn’t. Along comes a talking snake that tells Eve that if they eat the fruit, they’ll become more like God. She tells Adam. Adam says “Thought it was all too good to be true! Never really trusted the guy anyway! Let’s go eat!”

So they eat, and suddenly become self-conscious (‘ashamed’) or at least self-aware. God notices and asks if they ate the fruit. They say yes, because we wanted to be more like you. God has a meltdown…