12 - Mistakes were made

Mistakes were made

Imagine a person who has never experienced hostility or deception, only benevolent service and love. This is Eve in the garden encountering the serpent, she had no reason to distrust it. Creation was created good and that was her experience of it. Up to this point there was no reason or experience to contradict this. Additionally, the serpent offered her something good, the imitation of God. However this good is paired with the first bit of information that ever conflicted something she knew to be true: that God could be deceptive. This is a falsehood, snuck in disguised in the trojan horse of genuine pure desire.

Now faced with the image of God presented by the serpent, Eve is faced with cognitive dissonance, conflicting desires; to imitate God by trusting the serpent or trusting that God does not deceive us. For the first time she has a choice of consequence, a choice between right and wrong, choice between God and something that is not God. Under pressure (and not knowing better) she trusts the serpent in front of her. She makes a mistake

Mistakes are unavoidable in the created world. No part of creation is unlimited. No part of creation has all the knowledge for perfect choices, nor is it even empowered to make them. This is not a great fall from the sky, it is a small trip on the rug. Eve offers the fruit to Adam and he trips on the same rug. Like all trips, it can either become a painful fall, or one can catch themself and get right back up.

God created us with these limitations knowing full well that we were going to make mistakes. God created a safe environment for Adam and Eve to learn that there are choices out there other than God, by harmlessly eating the wrong fruit. This mistake enables them to be truly free, in that they know other than God and can now even desire other than God. They have become adult individuals who now have a will outside of their creator. Individuals that can freely choose to imitate that creator with their own wills knowing full well that it is not the only choice available. This is in stark contrast to their state before eating the fruit, knowing and desiring God without consciously knowing the existence of choice. The eating of the fruit is simply a mistake, which God knew would happen. This is likely to be a controversial statement, however the “fall” is NOT the eating of the forbidden fruit.