I would like to know what you think of non-literal interpretation of some parts of scripture. Take, for example, the account of the creation of man in Genesis. Literalism would hold that there was a literal first man who was created by God personally and individually. But a non-literal interpretation of this account could be that what is described here is the creation of MANKIND, not of a single man. This opens up all kinds of interesting consequences. For example, the account of what happened in Eden could be about how man developed over the bounds of a mere animalistic nature. We were facing our first real choices, about what is good and what is evil. The whole concept of good and evil came up, and our God with whom we lived in close communion up to then, told us to leave such decisions to Him and instead to enjoy and devote ourselves to the "tree of life". A tree is something huge which develops from a small seed. It has many branches. It is something which can be climbed. Good and evil, and life, are things which branch out very far, it's always going on and on with these things. But the tree of good and evil was a dangerous path, it gave man a quality our Maker did not intend for us, a divine quality for which we had not been meant. Or perhaps, a quality that we were supposed to get to later, after we had gained more maturity. Instead of sticking with the tree of life which would have satisfied us indefinetly, we chose the tree of good and evil. Also, the tree of life could have meant our life with God. So when we were punished for eating from the good and evil tree, we also lost our life with God. God became distant to us. Or maybe the Eden account is about one single choice ... would we obey God and reap everlasting life? Or would we disobey and become mortal like all the other animals? Some christians believe that before we sinned in Eden, there was no death, not even in the animal kingdom. But that is hard to believe for me, because life with birth and growing, on this Earth, requires that there is death. The Earth can only sustain a limited number of living beings, so there needs to be death. But given that we were special in God's eyes, being made in His image and all, being His own offspring, we were supposed to be safe from death. But instead we failed this test. Something happened. Mankind didn't develop as it was intended. Adam, mankind, ... failed an important test. Knowledge of good and evil, please think about it in terms of life. Does the good always sustain life? Does knowledge of evil really do good to life? The fear of evil, what does it do to us? The love for the good, isn't it kind of merciless? I mean, if God would not rule and only perfect goodness would be the measure, we'd all need to be like Mother Therese. The good would be a merciless killer. So I think what happened back then was that God offered us to handle the matters of good and evil for us. He would command and we would only need to obey. The tree of good and evil had to be in the garden, we were allowed to look at it. But to consume it, to actually gain this knowledge of good and evil, it meant our death. We probably simply said to God, please resign and let us be gods. And that's what happened, instead of being men, fully alive in God, we became a race of foolish and dying gods.
And that's what Jesus was going to remedy. In Him we shake off our godhood and gain Jesus-hood instead. We leave the good and evil decisions to God and care much more about life. It is better to let go of these decisions and instead to care much more for the difference of life and death, that we need to promote life over death, that we have the fullness of life in Christ instead of hunting after the matters of good and evil.
Imagine a Hitler who would have igored good and evil and simply cared about life, if that would be the habit of man. He could have hated the jews as much as he'd like, if he loved life the thought of killing them would have never occured to him. He would have been weird and eccentric, but the love of life would have kept him sane. I think a human cannot fully resist evil. Jesus actually tells us to let that go entirely and to turn the other cheek. We're supposed to follow the trace of life. And if we have the life of Christ, death cannot scare us, Jesus took care of this problem on the cross. Why trying to bind ourselves to our fear of death and then trying to protect life with the good and eradicating the danger posited by evil? God wants to solve this for us. Instead we can always, every day, simply enjoy life and follow the way of life in Christ. It's a whole other way of being in the world. We don't take refuge in the imitation of God's divinity, we take refuge in God's humanity in Christ. We can live with God fully, if we only fast from the good and evil thing and love life.
Love of life is what's lacking in this world, a true, juicy, warm, kind and patient love for life. Love for life must be the reason of why we oppose abortion, not the denounciation of aborters as evil people. They are not, they are usually distressed about it. They are not good either because they are killing, and that's sinful, but eye for an eye has been abolished, we shall forgive! And love for life doesn't leave things be with isolated things like abortion. Love for life also makes us support single or very young or very poor women, who then won't feel the need to abort babies. Love for life let's us support old people, the sick, just as well as letting us enjoy music, games, sports and the arts.
Life is our authentic concern. Good and evil, on the other hand, is a divine concern. But we can trust our God, He is love. None of the many deciders of good and evil in the world is such a lover as our God!
