The Garden, The "Fall of Man" and Civilization

[c0de]

"No, cOde,go back gently... Eden was a spiritual presence, not a physical dwelling that man was cast out of and then protected by two 'angels', effectively, time and space!

You seem pretty sure man... were u there?

all i have to go on is scriptural evidence, and that doesn't seem to say what you're sayin

Nothing has entered it since and will not as it is separated from our dimension by one split second of time. It is always that one microsecond in time and space apart from us. [Consider string theory here.] When time is altered we will meet it head on, and who will survive......

I'll wait for the word from CERN before considering it, thanks

 

[iBrian]

Hey, Victor, nice to see you around again.

Welcome to the forums as well, Aardvark01.

 

[Aardvark01]

... were u there?

all i have to go on is scriptural evidence, and that doesn't seem to say what you're sayin...

Not quite "all". In part we are all 'there'. When we see "beauty" in nature, be it a flower, a sunset or a mathematical discovery, it is "beautiful" because something in us desires that from which we are, for the large part, excluded:

"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world."
C.S.Lewis - Mere Christianity

Lewis develops this idea in The Last Battle where, in Aslan's land, the essence of all lands is preserved: The real England, the real Narnia...
The same theme can be found also in his Out of the Silent Planet trilogy where it is not only lands but entire worlds which correspond to Eden.

J.R.R. Tolkein creates a different analogy in his homeland of the Elves, 'Valinor'. These 'Undying Lands' were removed from earth so that Men could not reach them and only the Elves could go there by the Straight Road and in ships capable of passing out of the Spheres of the earth.

Both writers were building on a tradition from G.K.Chesterton's "The Man Who Was Thursday" back to St. Agustine's "City of God", but this tradition itself is drawing on longings common to all humanity, and this has the same source that the authors of the Eden story drew upon. I use the plural (authors) because Eden is not confined to Genesis:

...2through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Revelation 22:2

In Genesis mankind is not expelled from Eden per ce, but from the place where the Tree of Life grew (or rather, "grows"):

22Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—" Genesis 3:22

However, we were left with the knowledge that causes us to know "good" and "beauty" when we see it. This sense of beauty and justice is the one thing that can turn us back to He-Who-Is-Goodness. However, the way is blocked by fire:

24He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

by water:
For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Genesis 6:17

and by confusion:
7Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech." Genesis 11:7

If we are to do as the song suggests and "get ourselves back to the garden", or even "to some semblance of a garden" (Joni Mitchel ~ Woodstock) then we must start by making sense of what we mean by words we use (in any given language or subculture within a language, otherwise we will always be misunderstanding one another), and we must pass through the water (which symbolises cleansing and death to the world) and the fire of the refiner:

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. Isaiah 48:10

Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts:"Behold, I will refine them and test them, ... Jeremiah 9:7

Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand. Daniel 12:10

Given that "the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations", I cannot help but agree with Victor that Eden is, in some almost tangible way, very close.

 

[c0de]

Not quite "all". In part we are all 'there'. When we see "beauty" in nature, be it a flower, a sunset or a mathematical discovery, it is "beautiful" because something in us desires that from which we are, for the large part, excluded:

I would like to reply your post, but I can't get past this first paragraph...

Nothing personal against you Aardvaark, but its a little too romantic-sentimental for me, sorry...

im sure most others will find your post "beautiful" and such... (that Twilight book was a bestseller, im told) and you can have a discussion with them about these views of yours. You are free to use this thread if you wish. I won't complain.