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In Genesis 2 we see man at the centre of a network of relationships. These define the meaning of life. The relationships have three dimensions: to that which is below us, to that which is above us, and to that which is alongside us. Or, to put it another way, we have a vertical relationship to nature below, a vertical relationship to God above, and a horizontal relationship with other people and ourselves. Let us look more closely at these three dimensions.
Our relationship to nature. The first dimension is the relationship we have to the other creatures God has made. This relationship is one of subjugation – animals are given to serve mankind. This does not mean we have a licence to be cruel or to make them extinct, but it does mean that animals are further down the scale of value than human beings.
This is an important point to grasp in an age when more value seems to be placed on the protection of baby seals than on preserving the sanctity of the human foetus. Jesus was willing to sacrifice 2,000 pigs in order to save one man’s sanity and restore him to his family. In Genesis 9 we read that animals were given to provide food for mankind after the Flood. In relation to nature below us, therefore, we are to have dominion, to cultivate it and control it.
It is interesting to note also in this context that human beings need an environment that is both utilitarian and aesthetic, both useful and beautiful. God did not put man in the wilderness, but planted a garden for him, just as old cottage gardens in England were a mixture of pansies and potatoes – the useful and the beautiful alongside each other.
Our relationship to God. The second dimension is the relationship we have to God above. The nature of this relationship is partly seen in God’s command to man concerning two trees in the Garden of Eden: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. One made life longer and one made life shorter. These trees are not magical trees, but they are what we might call ‘sacramental’ trees. In the Bible God appoints physical channels to communicate spiritual blessings or curses to us. So eating bread and wine at communion is for our blessing, but eating bread and drinking wine incorrectly or to excess can lead us to be sick or even die. God has appointed physical channels of both grace and judgement. The tree of life tells us that Adam and Eve were not by nature immortal, but were capable of being immortal. They would not have lived forever by some inherent quality of their own, but only by having access to the tree of life.
No scientist has yet discovered why we die. They have discovered many causes of death, but no one knows why the clock inside us starts winding down. After all, the body is a wonderful machine. If it is supplied with food, fresh air and exercise it could theoretically continue to renew itself. But it does not and no one knows why. The secret is in the tree of life: God was making it possible for human beings to go on living forever by putting that tree in the garden for them. Man was not inherently immortal, but was given the opportunity to attain immortality by feeding on God’s constant supply of life.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil is very significant in relation to this. When we read the word ‘knowledge’, we need to substitute the word ‘experience’. The concept of knowledge in the Bible is really ‘personal experience’. This idea is present in older versions of the Bible which say, ‘Adam knew Eve and she conceived and bore a son’. ‘Knowledge’ in this sense is a personal experience of someone or something. God’s command not to touch this tree was given because he did not want them to know (experience) good and evil – he wanted them to retain their innocence. It is similar even today. Once we do a wrong thing we can never be the same as we were. We may be forgiven, but we have lost our innocence.
Why, then, did God put such a tree within their reach? It was his way of saying that he retained moral authority over them. They were not to decide for themselves what was right and wrong, but had to trust God to tell them. Furthermore, he was underlining the fact that they were not landlords on earth, but tenants. The landlord retains the right to set the rules.
The passage also underscores the importance of horizontal relationships, which we shall examine more closely below. Man not only needs to relate to those beneath him and God above him, but also to those alongside him. We are not fully human if we just relate to God and not to other people. We need a network. This understanding is reflected by the Hebrew word Shalom, which means ‘harmony’ – harmony with yourself, with God, with other people and with nature.
In Genesis 2 we have a picture of that harmony and God warns Adam that if he breaks this harmony he will have to die. This will not necessarily be with immediate effect, but his personal ‘clock’ will begin to wind down.
Some have questioned the severity of the penalty. Death seems a harsh punishment for one little sin. But God was saying that once man had experienced evil, he would have to limit the length of his life on earth, otherwise evil would become eternal. If God allowed rebellious people to live forever they would ruin his universe forever, so he put a time limit on those who would not accept his moral authority.
Our relationship to each other. Man needed a suitable companion. However valuable and valued a pet is, it cannot ever replace personal friendship with another human being. God therefore made Eve to be Adam’s companion. We are told in Genesis 1 that male and female are equal in dignity – and we shall see later that they are equal in depravity and in destiny too.
In Genesis 2 we learn that the functions of men and women are different. The Bible talks of the responsibilities of the man to provide and protect, and of the woman to assist and accept. There are three points to note in particular, which are all picked up in the New Testament.
1 Woman is made from man. She therefore derives her being from him. Indeed, as we have already seen, woman is named by man just as he named the animals.
2 Woman is made after man. He therefore carries the responsibility of the first-born. The significance of that will become clear in Genesis 3, where Adam is blamed for the sin not Eve, since he was responsible for her.
3 Woman is made for man. Adam had a job before he had a wife and man is made primarily for his work, while woman is made primarily for relationships. This does not mean that a man must not have relationships or that a woman must not go out to work, but rather that this is the primary purpose for which God made male and female. The fact that man named woman also shows how the partnership is to work: not as a democracy, but with the responsibility of leadership falling to the male. The emphasis is upon cooperation, not competition.
Genesis 2 also deals with other areas fundamental to human relationships. It is clear that sex is good – it is not spelt S-I-N. It is beautiful, indeed God said it was ‘very good’. Sex was created for partnership rather than parenthood (an important point which has a bearing on the use of contraception, which plans parenthood without proscribing partnership in intercourse.). Two verses, one in Chapter 1 and one in Chapter 2, are in poetry and both are about sex. God becomes poetic when he considers male and female created in his own image. Then Adam becomes poetic when he catches sight of this beautiful naked girl when he wakes up from the first surgery under anaesthetic. Our English translations of the Hebrew miss the impact. Adam literally exclaims, ‘Wow! This is it!’ Both little poems convey the delight of God and man in sexuality.
It is clear too that the pattern for sexual enjoyment is monogamy. Marriage is made up of two things, leaving and cleaving, so there is both a physical and a social aspect which together cement the union. One without the other is not a marriage. Sexual intercourse without social recognition is not marriage – it is fornication. Social recognition without consummation is not a marriage either and therefore should be annulled.
We are told that marriage takes precedence over all other relationships. There would be no jokes about parents-in-law if this had been observed throughout history! A person’s partner is their first priority before all other relationships, even before their children. Husband and wife are to put each other as absolutely top priority. The ideal painted here in Genesis 2 is of a couple with nothing to hide from each other, with no embarrassment and a total openness to each other. This is an amazing picture and one to which Jesus points centuries later.
Genesis 2 depicts the harmony that should exist in the three levels of relationship between human beings and the created world, God above and our fellow humans. There are, however, some scientific problems to do with the origin of man which must be considered.
Where do prehistoric men fit in?
Evolutionary theory has developed the argument that human beings are descended from the apes. Geological finds suggest that there were prehistoric men who seem to be related to the modern homo sapiens. Various remains have been found, specially by the Leakeys, both father and son, in the Orduvi Gorge in Kenya among other places. It is claimed that human life began in Africa, rather than in the Middle East where the Bible puts it.
What are we to make of this evidence? How are we to understand the relationship of modern man to prehistoric man? Is it possible to reconcile what Scripture and science say about the origin of man?
THE ORIGIN OF MAN
Let us look first at what the Bible says. Genesis tells us that man is made of the same material as the animals. The animals were made of the dust of the earth. We too are made of exactly the same minerals that are found in the crust of the earth. A recent estimate indicates that the minerals in a body are worth about 85p! In contrast to the animal world, however, Genesis 2 also tells us that God breathed into the dust and man became a ‘living soul’.
Soul
‘Soul’ is a misunderstood word. The exact phrase is also used of the animals in Genesis 1. They are called ‘living souls’ because in Hebrew the word ‘soul’ simply means a breathing body. Since animals and men are both described as ‘living souls’ they are both the same kind of beings. When we are in danger at sea we send out an SOS not an SOB – but what we want is for our breathing bodies to be saved.
Lord Soper was at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park one day when he was asked, ‘Where is the soul in the body?’ He replied, ‘Where the music is in the organ!’ You can take an organ or a piano to pieces and you will not find the music. It is only there when it is made into a living thing by somebody else.
A special creation
The word ‘soul’ in Genesis 2 has misled many people into thinking that what makes human beings unique is that we have souls. In fact, we are unique for a different reason. To believe that man and the anthropoid apes came from common stock seems to be in direct opposition to the biblical account. Man is without doubt a special creation. He is made in the image of God, direct from dust and not indirectly from another animal. The Hebrew word bara, to create something completely new, is used only three times – of matter, life and man. This implies that there is something unique about man.
The Genesis account emphasizes the unity of the human race too. The apostle Paul told the Athenians that God made us of ‘one blood’. Everything in history points to the unity of our human race in the present. I have studied agricultural archaeology a little and it is interesting to note that agricultural archaeology puts the origins of growing corn and domesticating animals exactly where the Bible puts the Garden of Eden, in north-east Turkey or southern Armenia.
SCIENTIFIC SPECULATION
What does science have to say on the matter? Many people would have us choose to accept one side and reject the other: either science has made false investigations into prehistoric man, or Scripture has given us false information.
There is no doubt that science has discovered remains that do look astonishingly like us. They have been given various names: Neanderthal Man, Peking Man, Java Man, Australian Man. The Leakeys claim to have found human remains which date back 4 million years. Among anthropologists it is almost wholly accepted that human origins are to be found in Africa, rather than in the Middle East.
Homo sapiens is said to go back 30,000 years; Neanderthal Man 40–150,000 years; Swanscombe Man 200,000 years; Homo erectus (China and Java Man) 300,000 years; Australian Man 500,000 years; and now African Man 4 million years. What are we to say about all this?
The first point which should be made very strongly is that nothing has yet been found that is half-ape and half-man. There are prehistoric human remains, but there is nothing half-and-half as yet.
The second point to note is that not all these groups are our direct ancestors. This is now acknowledged by scientists – anthropology is in a state of flux today.
The third point of importance is that the remains do not follow a progressive order. Charts have been produced supposedly showing the development of mankind, starting with the ape on the left-hand side of the chart and moving through successive species to the modern human being, homo sapiens, on the right. But these charts are inaccurate: some of the earliest human remains have larger brains than we do today and walked more upright than some of the later remains. The consensus of opinion now is that none of these groups is connected to ours.
There are three possible ways of resolving the conflict. Here they are in very brief outline.
1 Prehistoric man was biblical man. What we are digging up was the same as Adam, made in the image of God. It has even been suggested that Genesis 1 portrays ‘palaeolithic hunting man’, and Genesis 2 portrays ‘neolithic farming man’.
2 Prehistoric man at some point changed into biblical man. At some point in history this animal-like man or man-like animal became the image of God. Whether just one changed, or a few, or all of them changed at once is open to discussion.
3 Prehistoric man was not biblical man. Prehistoric man had a similar physical appearance and used tools, but there is no apparent trace of religion or prayer. He was a different creature, not made in the image of God.
It is unlikely that we need to plump for one explanation over another at this stage. Anthropology is itself in a state of change and development at present, and it is quite likely that the debate will raise other approaches in the future. It is sufficient for us to note the arguments and be aware that any conclusions we draw may well be provisional.
Evolution
Let us turn next to the question of evolution in general. Most people assume that evolution is Charles Darwin’s theory. It is not. It was first conceived by Aristotle (384–322 BC). In modern days it was Erasmus Darwin, Charles’ grandfather, who first propounded it. Charles picked it up from his atheist grandfather and made it popular.
If we are to grasp the basics of the theory, there are certain terms we need to know.
Variation is the belief that there have been small, gradual changes in form which are passed on to each successive generation. Each generation changes slightly and passes on that change.
From those variations there has been a natural selection. This simply means the survival of those most suited to their environment. Take the case of the speckled moth, for example. Against the coal heaps in north-east England the black moth was more suited in camouflage than the white. The birds were able to consume the white moths more easily and the black moths survived. Now that the slag heaps have gone in the area, the white moths are coming back again and the black moths are disappearing. Natural selection is the process whereby those species most adapted to their environment survive. This selection is ‘natural’ because it happens automatically within nature, with no help from outside.
The belief that there is only a slow, gradual process of variation and selection has now changed, however. A Frenchman called Lamarque said that instead of gradual changes there were sudden, large changes, known as mutations. In this situation, progression looks more like a staircase than an escalator.
The concept of micro-evolution is that there has been limited change within certain animal groups, e.g. the horse or dog group. Science has certainly proved that micro-evolution does take place.
Macro-evolution, by contrast, is the theory that all animals came from the same origin and that all are related. They all go back to the same simple form of life. This is not change within individual species, therefore, but a belief that all species developed from one another.
The final term to consider is struggle. In the context of evolution it refers to the ‘survival of the fittest’.
I am not going to argue the case for or against evolution, except to point out that evolution is still a theory. It has not been proven and, in fact, the more evidence we get from fossils the less it looks like being an adequate theory to account for the different forms of life which arose.
1 In the fossil evidence, groups classified separately under evolutionary theory actually appear simultaneously in the Cambrian period. They do not appear gradually over different ages, they appear almost together.
2 Complex and simple forms of life appear together. There is not a sequence from the simple to the complex.
3 There are very, very few ‘bridge’ fossils that are halfway between one species and another.
4 All life forms are very complicated: they have always had DNA.
5 Mutations, the sudden changes which are purported to account for the development from one species to the next, usually lead to deformities and cause creatures to die out.
6 Interbreeding usually leads to sterility.
7 Above all, when the statistical probabilities are analysed, quite apart from the other objections, there is not enough time for all the varieties of life form to have developed.
The theory of evolution is not merely of academic interest, of course. How we each understand our origins has an effect on how we view mankind as a whole. Leaders infected by evolutionist philosophy have had a considerable impact.
Basic to the evolutionist theory is the concept of the survival of the fittest and the struggle which all species face to survive. This is found in some of the philosophies which have shaped our civilized society, and it has caused untold suffering. American capitalists such as John D. Rockefeller have said, ‘Business is the survival of the fittest.’ A similar outlook is found in fascism: Adolf Hitler’s book was called Mein Kampf, ‘My Struggle’. He believed in the survival of the fittest, the ‘fittest’ being in his view the German Aryan race. It is also found in communism. Karl Marx wrote about the ‘struggle’ between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, which he believed must issue in revolution. The word ‘struggle’ could also be written across the early days of colonialism, when people were simply wiped out in the name of progress.
In short, the idea of the survival of the fittest when applied to human beings has caused more suffering than any other concept in modern times. But it has also faced us with two huge choices as to what we believe.
MENTAL CHOICE
It faces us first with a mental choice. If you believe in creation you believe in a father God. If you believe in evolution you tend to go for mother nature (a lady who does not exist). If you believe in creation you believe that this universe was the result of a personal choice. If you believe in evolution, you will argue that it was a random, impersonal chance. There was a designed purpose under creation, but under evolution only a random pattern. With creation the universe is a supernatural production, in evolution it is a natural process. Under creation the whole universe is an open situation, open to personal intervention by both God and man. In evolution we have nature as a closed system that operates itself. In creation we have the concept of providence, that God cares for his creation and provides for it and looks after it. But with evolution we simply have coincidence: if anything good happens it is merely the result of chance. With creation we have a faith based on fact, with evolution a faith based on fancy (for it is just a theory). If we accept creation then we accept that God is free to make something and to make man in his image. If we accept evolution we are left with the view that man is free to make God in whatever image he chooses out of his imagination. Accepting one or the other, therefore, has considerable ramifications.
MORAL CHOICE
There is also a moral choice behind accepting creation or evolution. Why is it that people seize on the theory of evolution and hold onto it so fanatically? The answer is that it is the only real alternative if you want to believe that there is no God over us. Under creation God is Lord, under evolution man is Lord. With creation we are under divine authority, but if there is no God we are autonomous as humans and can decide things for ourselves. If we accept God as creator we accept that there are absolute standards of right and wrong. But with no God under evolution, we only have relative situations. With God’s world we talk of duty and responsibility, with evolution we talk of demands and rights. Under God we have an infinite dependence, we become as little children and speak to the heavenly father. With evolution we are proud of our independence, we speak of coming of age, of no longer ‘needing’ God. According to the Bible, man is a fallen creature. According to evolution he is rising and progressing all the time. In the Bible we have salvation for the weak. In evolutionary philosophy we have the survival of the strong.
Nietzsche, the philosopher behind the thought in Hitler’s Germany, said he hated Christianity because it kept weak people going and looked after the sick and dying. The Bible teaches that you are powerful when you do what is right, but evolutionary philosophy leads to a ‘might is right’ outlook. One leads to peace, the other to war. Where evolutionism says you should indulge yourself, look after number one, the Bible says that faith, hope and love are the three main virtues in life. Ultimately the Bible leads us to heaven, whereas evolution promises little – fatalism, helplessness and luck – and leads to hell.
The Fall
When God finished creating our world he said that it was very good. Few today would say that it is a very good world now. Something went wrong. Genesis 3 describes for us what the problem is and how it arose.
There are three undeniable facts about our existence today:
1 Birth is painful.
2 Life is hard.
3 Death is certain.
Why is this? Why is birth painful? Why is life hard? Why is death certain?
Philosophy gives us many different answers. Some philosophers say there must be a bad God as well as a good one. More frequently, they say that the good God made a bad job of it and try to find in that some explanation for the origin of evil. Genesis 3 gives us four vital insights into this problem.
1 Evil was not always in the world.
2 Evil did not start with human beings.
3 Evil is not something physical, it is something moral. Some philosophers have said that it is the material part of the universe that is the source of evil, or in personal terms it is your body that is the source of temptation.
4 Evil is not a thing that exists on its own. It is an adjective rather than a noun. Evil as such does not exist, it is only persons who can be or become evil.
So what does Genesis 3 have to teach us on the subject? It is worth reminding ourselves that this is a real event in real history: we are given both the place and the time of it. At the dawn of human history a gigantic moral catastrophe took place.
The problem starts with a speaking reptile (more a lizard than a snake because it had legs, despite conventional wisdom; it was only later that God made the serpent slither on its belly). How are we to understand this extraordinary story of the snake speaking to Eve? There are three possibilities:
1 The serpent was the devil in disguise; he can appear as an angel or an animal.
2 God enabled an animal to talk, as he did with Balaam’s ass.
3 The animal was possessed by an evil spirit. Just as Jesus sent the demons tormenting a man down the Gadarene cliffs into the bodies of 2,000 pigs, so it is perfectly possible for Satan to take over an animal. This would fool Adam and Eve, because Satan was putting himself below them. In fact Satan is a fallen angel, just as real as human beings, more intelligent and stronger than we are.
It is significant that Satan went for Eve. In very general terms, women tend to be more trusting than men, who are notoriously distrustful. Capitalizing on this, Satan subverts God’s order and treats Eve as if she were the head of the house. Although it is clear that Adam is there with Eve, he says nothing. He should be protecting her, arguing with Satan. After all, it was Adam who had heard God’s words of prohibition.
All told, there are three ways of misquoting the Word of God. One is to add something to it, another is to take something away, and a third is to change what is there. If you read the text carefully, you will find that Satan did all three. Satan knows his Bible very well, but he can misquote it and manipulate it too. Adam, however, who knew exactly what God had said, kept silent when he should have spoken up. In the New Testament he is clearly blamed for allowing sin to enter the world.
It is useful to note the strategy which Satan adopts in his approach to Eve. First he encourages doubt with the mind, second desire with the heart, and third disobedience with the will. This is always his strategy in all his dealings with humans. He encourages wrong thinking first, usually by misinterpreting God’s Word. Next he entices us to desire evil in our hearts. After that the circumstances are right for us to disobey with our wills.
What is the outcome of sin? When God questions Adam he seeks to blame both Eve and God. He speaks of ‘that woman you gave me’, or ‘the woman you put here with me’. He ceased to fulfil his role as a man by denying his responsibility to look after his wife.
God responds in judgement. This side of his character is seen for the first time: God hates sin and he must deal with it. If he is really a good God, then he cannot let people get away with badness. This is the message of Genesis 3. The punishment is given in poetic form. When God speaks in prose he is communicating his thoughts, from his mind to your mind, but when he speaks poetically he is communicating his feelings, from his heart to yours.
In Genesis 3 the poems reveal God’s angry emotions (the wrath of God, in theological terms). God feels so deeply that Eden has been ruined – and he knows too where this will lead. The following paraphrase of Genesis 1–3 sheds a fresh light on this story.
A long time ago, when nothing else existed, the God who had always been there brought the entire universe into being, the whole of outer space and this planet earth.
At first the earth was just a mass of fluid matter, quite uninhabitable and indeed uninhabited. It was shrouded in darkness and engulfed in water; but God’s own spirit was hovering just above the flood.
Then God commanded: ‘Let the light in!’ And there it was. It looked just right to God, but he decided to alternate light with darkness, giving them different names: ‘day’ and ‘night’. The original darkness and the new light were the evening and the morning of God’s first working day.
Then God spoke again: ‘Let there be two reservoirs of water, with an expanse between them’. So he separated the water on the surface from the moisture in the atmosphere. That’s how the ‘sky’, as God called it, came to be. This ended his second day’s work.
The next thing God said was: ‘Let the surface water be concentrated in one area, so that the rest may dry out.’ Sure enough, it happened! From then on, God referred to ‘sea’ and ‘land’ separately. He liked what he saw and added: ‘Now let the land sprout vegetation, plants with seed and trees with fruit, all able to reproduce themselves’. And they appeared – all kinds of plant and tree, each able to propagate its own type. Everything fitted into God’s plan. His third day’s work was over.
Now God declared: ‘Let different sources of light appear in the sky. They will distinguish days from nights and make it possible to measure seasons, special days and years; though their main purpose will be to provide illumination.’ And so it is, just as he said. The two brightest lights are the larger ‘sun’ that dominates the day and the lesser ‘moon’ which predominates at night, surrounded by twinkling stars. God put them all there for earth’s sake – to light it, regulate it and maintain the alternating pattern of light and darkness. God was pleased that his fourth day’s work had turned out so well.
The next order God issued was: ‘Let the sea and the sky teem with living creatures, with shoals of swimming fish and flocks of flying birds.’ So God brought into being all the animated things that inhabit the oceans, from huge monsters of the deep to the tiny organisms floating in the waves, and all the variety of birds and insects on the wing in the wind above. To God it was a wonderful sight and he encouraged them to breed and increase in numbers, so that every part of sea and sky might swarm with life. That ended his fifth day.
Then God announced: ‘Now let the land also teem with living creatures – mammals, reptiles and wildlife of every sort.’ As before, no sooner was it said than done! He made all kinds of wildlife, including mammals and reptiles, each as a distinct type. And they all gave him pleasure.
At this point God reached a momentous decision: ‘Now let’s make some quite different creatures, more our kind – beings, just like us. They can be in charge of all the others – the fish in the sea, the birds of the air and the animals on the land.
