I am currently in the process of re-reading Rob Bell’s book ‘Velvet Elvis’. It has been a number of years since I last read it but even now, re-reading it, I am virtually unable to put it down. However as I am reading, some of what Bell says has reminded me of a discussion I had on one of my flights on my round the world trip. From the USA to England I found myself sitting next to a young guy, about 19 years old. He was tall, still had a very child-like face but he was absolutely a very deep thinker. We spent most of the trip talking deeply about matters of life, faith, spirituality and God. Though he has not grown up in the church he has obviously had a bit to do with it at some stage because he was actually pretty knowlegable about the Christian faith. He however was more interested in New Age beliefs and scientific understanding. As the conversation progressed something struck me, this obsession with New Age beliefs and scientific understanding that exists in the world today is nothing more than a continuation in eating the fruit from the tree in the garden of Eden. Let me explain.
The relevant biblical passage can be found in Genesis 3:1-7
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”
4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
The key verse for me is verse 6. Eve realises the fruit is not only good for food but ‘good for gaining wisdom’. Now the first question I always have when I read this verse is why is wisdom appealing to eve?’ For now though I am going to put that question aside and just focus on the knowledge aspect. Eve is attracted, for whatever reason, to knowlege. She wants to be ‘like God’. She wants to be able to comprehend God, least that is what it seems like to me.
In Velvet Elvis Bell talks about how everyone has faith, it is just a matter of what a person places their faith in. Some people believe in a God far outside our understanding and they believe he is the reason for our being. Some believe in many God’s who each have determined roles and they mould and shape our life based on their whim. Some believe that we exist purely due to random chance. There are many more ‘beliefs’ but they are ALL belief systems. They all rely on a level of faith.
Bell talks about how in Moses time, people honoured their God’s by making statues or carvings of them, such as the Israelites Golden Calf. These were God’s they could grasp, they could understand, they could…be like or at least comprehend. This sounds an aweful lot like what I said before about Eve in the garden.
One of the biggest debates that is raging these days in creation vs intelligent design vs evolution vs other varied beliefs about the beginning of our existence. Each of these is based on one desire though, the quest for knowlege. The desire to be able understand and comprehend all that is around us. It is all a quest for knowlege, just like Eve way back in the beginning.
Now don’t read this and hear me saying ‘knowlege is bad’ because I am not saying that. Many have come and gone in the past 2000 years and have made a big deal about this. I am not arguing that knowlege in and of itself is bad, for it is what God HAS. But it is making knowlege our GOD that becomes an issue. Eve’s desire for knowlege was greater than her desire to honour God’s commands. New Age religion, scientific reason, many of these beliefs seek to put God (or the lack of a God) in a box. New Age God’s all play defined roles, they are almost always fully comprehendable. We can ‘explain’ what the God of fertility does. We can ‘know’ exactly how to appease her. In fact in some New Age beliefs we can ‘become like God’ through ascension or enlightenment. It is all the same as Eve. It is all based on still being stuck eating the fruit in Eden.
The answer to all this is not to shun knowlege. To say that scientific discovery is bad. To say believing in any of the creation philosophies is bad. It is simply to realise that God is above our understanding. Whether or not creation or evolution is true, God is real and God created the heavens and the earth. Whether or not we believe in God or not does not make his existence any less real. We cannot define God. We cannot say ‘this is who God is’. The name we have for God, being ‘I am’ tells us all we can know and all we need to know. He is. He was, he is and he always will be.
Our task as Christians in my opinion is to not continue to get caught up in the quest for knowlege, but point people in the direction of the God who created knowlege. Now, we may USE knowlege to do this. We may USE discussion and understanding on the different New Age philosophies to do this. We may USE discussions on creation, evolution, intelligent design or whatever to do this but at the end of the day Christians say ‘you will not be able to say ‘i definitively know God’ and people who choose to follow God have to be ok with this! Because if we are still living in the Garden of Eden eating the fruit, we are in trouble.
