We live in that world outside of Eden – the world of floods and earthquakes. The Garden of Eden was a place of order within a world of chance and catastrophe. The Garden cannot be fully understood from our vantage point anymore than someone living in only two dimensions could understand life in three.
The universe itself must be extremely finely tuned for any world to be possible. Change the charge of an electron, the mass of the sun, the tilt of the earth or any of a thousand other factors and life could not exist. Many constants must be exactly as they are for life to exist. There is great precision in the way the universe was made – it was made so that life could exist. But now consider how badly life itself is made to fit into our universe. Consider the massive waste of life that happens everyday all around us. Countless seeds may fall from one tree and none of them grow to be another tree.
The universe is exceedingly large. Just as large is the amount of life that ‘could be’. It would appear that life from earth alone could fill the entire universe if allowed to. But the space for life is exceedingly small. As far as we know its just a small part of one planet in a sea of countless others.
On one hand the universe was painstakingly and spaciously made so that there could be life. But on the other hand life on earth finds itself without room to grow and manifest itself in full. If the universe is designed for life then life should also be as precisely designed to fit into the space that is available. That is, unless there really is something wrong.
In the enclave we call the Garden of Eden, death did not exist; no living thing was eaten, people did not grow old nor did they suffer injury from accidents. Today one only needs to read a newspaper - old people dying and disasters are a fact of life. But reading through the thousands of years of history in the Bible, one finds few references to accidents- perhaps less than six, certainly less than a dozen. The word “accident†itself does not occur in the Bible.
In ancient times people lived longer. The Bible notes that after leaving the Garden, people at first lived to ages near to a thousand years but over several generations this declined. It would appear that in the Garden, life was protected from decay and injury. Since leaving, that protection has weakened, leaving us more and more exposed to the destructive forces around us.
After eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil Adam and Eve saw that they were naked and covered themselves. That is, they felt the loss of what protected them and they felt exposed to the world around them. In making clothes they were attempting to do more than cover their nakedness. There is more to wearing clothing than just feeling sexual shame. In wearing clothing we unconsciously attempt to recapture the protection humanity once had. Perhaps the formal crown and the cloth of royalty is a good example of this urge when given full reign.
Disobedience to God is a sin and the reality of sin is death. Sin is something that causes disorder just as eating the forbidden fruit brought disorder into human society. Disorder destroys life and ends with death. Having disobeyed God, Adam and Eve found themselves exposed to destructive forces. God sheltered Adam and Eve by clothing them with animal skins – the clothing they made of leaves would not protect them. Sin must end in the loss of life and in this case the life of an animal was given in place of theirs. But the blood shed by an innocent animal was only a partial measure.
The death of an animal to clothe Adam and Eve was the first sacrificial death. The disorder of sin will always result in the loss of life. Adam and Eve atoned for this disorder through the death of an animal. The loss of life caused by sin is almost always random and unpredictable. Sacrifice for the atonement of sin was a means of directing the loss of life onto an innocent animal, thereby restoring the balance between life and chaos.
The word sacrifice today has the connotation of wasting something for the sake of something else. For example, a mother sacrifices her life to save a child. But in the ancient world sacrifice never had the meaning of wasting something. Sacrifice simply meant to give something to God, as one might give a present to someone at Christmas.
In the ancient world people often sacrificed animals as a gift to God. They did this willingly and without hesitation. While many today may view this as a bloodthirsty waste, people then felt certain that God had actually accepted the life of the animal. Today it would be like giving an animal to a friend and at the same time having it as food. Perhaps sacrifice gave people a holiday from what they saw as simply killing something for food.
Sacrifice was a temporary channel to God. While used and abused in many ways, sacrifice was made for one main purpose – a way for God to receive the life of his own Son. With the advent of Christianity this channel was closed and people no longer felt certain that their offerings were being accepted. It was then that the word for sacrifice took on its modern meaning of wasting. Throughout the world the practice of animal sacrifice began to die.
The fall of Adam and Eve was something that would affect everyone. Original sin is like a genetic disorder that is passed on to all of one’s offspring. From Adam and Eve onwards, all people began to age and die. People became exposed to the natural evils of the world. And everyone needed to kill to live.
The taking of life to live is a necessary evil outside the Garden. Despite this, evil is evil and the taking of life is a sin. Other living things have a right to life and extinguishing a life will always be a trespass. What this means is no matter how pious our lives are there will always be this one area that is not perfect. We cannot live in this world without being injured and causing injury because the light that once clothed us and protected us is gone (Rom 13:12). This is the sin that we are born into and can never escape. It is why we will always be tainted and can never be reconciled to God through our own works.
We are in a dilemma; we must take life to live but in using death to live we are pushing ourselves further and further from God. Surely, there is no future in this. For me, the core issue is the question: what is the value of an individual? Do we really matter at all? Life may be cheap but isn’t it the case that to be individual to be something special?
We are surrounded with the illusion of individual things. But can any thing really be truly individual? A small stone may look individual but it was once part of a larger rock that was part of an even larger formation. So it is with everything if you take the time to think it through. Things look individual, but in reality one cannot find where to draw the line. One cannot even draw a circle around an atom and say, “here is an individualâ€. Quantum uncertainty is nature’s law against elemental things being individual. The universe is really just one thing with many parts of which none are truly individual.
Now, are not living things different? Living things are truly individual. The qualities that make life individual cannot be melted back into the primordial fireball. Nor can they be squeezed by gravity into a dimensionless speck. Because life is individual every living thing is on a par with the universe itself. In the architecture of creation life counts.