The traditional interpretation of the Garden of Eden story sees it as a fall/redemption story. The fall from grace is an act of disobedience. Eve succumbs to the serpent’s temptation, by taking the forbidden fruit, thus over-reaching human limitations. She makes an incursion into the divine domain, blurring the boundaries between human and divine. The couple gain conscious awareness and understand the difference between good and evil—just like the immortal gods. As a result they are banished from the garden into a life of toil, painful childbirth, and are required to deal with mortality.
This interpretation has supported, among other unfortunate consequences, the oppression of women as temptresses of innocent men. In turn, traditional Christian interpretations “solve” the problem of the fall and original sin with the atoning death of Jesus. Through his blood we are “redeemed” back into a state of grace and granted eternal life. Just behave, know your place, believe the right things, and you’ll be given by a supreme Being the eternal life you so desperately want. This traditional understanding continues to serve many (actually most) Christians. It’s strength is in the way it speaks to an intuitive sense that the human condition is far from ideal, in need of redemption, and that we are indeed trying to “get back to the garden” as Joni Mitchell put it. As well, it speaks to the importance of limits and the ego’s need to be able to take direction.
But in a course I’m teaching on the Powers of the Universe and the Path of Christ, a different and rather startling interpretation came to me. (Startling because G_d represented fear of change and the serpent symbolized the impulse to evolve.) I saw the story of the Garden of Eden as subversive, concerning the power of conscious awareness to open our eyes (Genesis 3:4), liberating us from an unconscious identification with the various cultures that we are embedded within. The myth describes, rather than judges, the human dilemma. We gain the capacity through the light of conscious awareness to see with new eyes the very cultures with which we had previously identified with. This begins, naturally, with the emergence of conscious awareness in the first humans—distinguishing us from our animal kin. This original archaic culture represents an emergence from a naive (unconscious) unity with All That Is—and with this conscious awareness an intensification of suffering, awareness of mortality, the burden of moral choice. In psychological development, this first awakening occurs when it dawns on the baby that mother is not an extension of herself. Unconscious primal unity is lost.
To differentiate from this primal unity is quite literally to be “banished” from the garden (the culture of unconscious identification). To be clear, these garden cultures include our tribe, our nation, our religion, our family of origin, our workplace, the current state of our marriage and relationships, etc. The story of the Garden of Eden never happened, but it is always happening.
When our eyes are metaphorically opened (as the eyes of the primal couple are opened) we gain an objective relationship to that which was previously invisible and subjective. We have in that moment (or more likely, over a long period of time) transcended that particular culture. The gods of that culture (the voices we have internalized) will try to convince us that we will surely die, as a way of eliciting obedience wanting us to stay put. The snake got it right.
Conscious awareness, then, is a key driver of cultural evolution. Rarely is this eye-opening an unambiguously pleasant experience. It is disorienting, and often displeasing to the culture we have transcended. We undergo, in other words, banishment (3:24), as the myth points out. Suffering is both inevitable and also necessary to the process of the evolution of self, culture, and systems. So is death (a metaphorical death to the culture we have transcended).
And note that once we have gained this objective and conscious relationship with the self, culture, or system that we have transcended, it is as if there are cherubim with flaming swords (3:24) stationed at the gates of the Garden (name your culture)— meaning, there is no going back. Once you’ve individuated from your family of origin, for example, naive identification with the rules and roles of your family is over forever. The tree of life is available, but it lies up ahead in the future, not in the garden of some golden age of the past.
In this interpretation the serpent functions as the subversive agent of evolution, whispering to us that the gods (the forces that would have us remain unconscious) would like us to remain blissfully unaware and subservient. Temptation, in this interpretation, is not negative. It is toward the forbidden horizon of an unknown, yet beckoning future. Paradoxically, it is the voice of God, and not the serpent that represents the temptation to the “regressive alternative” (Walter Wink).
Think of these voices to stay unconsciously identified with the existing culture as The Matrix, willing to take care of our every need (bread and circus) in exchange for our blind cultural embeddedness and willingness to live in the trance of security and comfort. The serpent whispers, “don’t listen to that voice, these gods are just worried that your eyes will be opened and you’ll gain the divine powers of co-creation that come with conscious self-awareness.”
Eve (the feminine aspect of both men and women) becomes the heroine, reaching out 
to take the forbidden fruit (the erotic catalyst) that allows the power of abundant life (the fruit of the tree of life) to animate us. These powers are the sacred evolutionary impulse itself moving through us to transcend existing (unconscious) conditions and align ourselves with the sacred trajectory of a Spirit-infused universe yearning for an increase in beauty, truth, and goodness. This erotic impulse is in search of a more liberated culture to express its boundless creativity and love.
Eve represents the unconscious power of the feminine divine within cultures that have become too restrictive, rising up and reaching out in subversion of the voices that would prevent our natural evolution in and toward the alluring Heart of G_d—and ultimately, to realize consciously that all of this wondrous diversity is unfolding and converging within the One, Unified and Unifying Source. The goal of the spiritual life then is not about redemption from a fall, but rather consenting to be liberated from cultures that restrict the soul’s restless desire to fashion a world that our hearts know is possible. ( Charles Eisenstein). We’ll end up outside the gates of the Garden of Unconscious Unity, and in the realm of an unfolding history that involves suffering, yes, but we’ll find ourselves (actually) animated by a promise that is only for those who dare to reach out and take the forbidden fruit.
Excellent work on the ancient Eden tale. Particularly poignant in the reversals of the old narrative take. Thanks.
Thanks Bob
Superb Bruce. Super cool to be your student
Such a helpful way to understand suffering. It is quite subtle because my mind wants to then say, “God is the cause of our suffering in order to make us evolve” but it’s more like systems and cultures, of which we are a part and player, contribute to our own suffering and therefore, we have the responsibility to step out of our suffering and don’t have to wait for God, jet meet God at a deeper conscious once we step up. I love that last picture in the post, where did you find this one?
I had that image in my library from a long time ago. Yes, there is suffering associated with refusing to differentiate as well. No escape from it, I’m afraid. It might even be more painful to stay put when evolution says it’s time to move. Super cool to be your “teacher”.
Even Einstein didn’t want to believe we lived in an expanding/evolving Universe so we can forgive ourselves for wanting to remain in a static unchanging culture and world!
What jumped out for me is “do we really have a choice?”. The Universe is evolving in its time developmental way with or without us! The Eden story is used to invoke the concept of “free will” among humans, but I think that is an obsolete interpretation, too.
Andrew Cohen’s “evolutionary impulse” will not be denied so it’s not really a choice but an awareness that this is the case. What fascinates me is the “tug of war” between safety and security and creativity and newness which goes on inside each and every one of us every day! So much of what we do is routine, but “the tooth which nibbles at the soul”, to quote Emily Dickinson, is also always there…
Thanks for an evolutionary exegesis which gets away from sin, punishment, and all that other crap!
PS Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition…
Thanks Don,
Glad to hear I will escape the Spanish inquisition this time around. I like your point about this evo-impulse moving forward with or without us. de Chardin calls that a “passivity of growth”.
Why, in your worldview, is it always EITHER/OR? (EITHER the received traditional classic Christian interpretation OR the evolutionary one?)
Why not BOTH/AND?
Or, at least, why not consider the possibility of BOTH/AND?
Nils Bohr, the Danish Nobel physics laureate, wrote: “In a superficial truth, the opposite is false. In a deep truth, the opposite is also true.”
EVEN IF my traditional fundamentalist exegesis of the Eden story and your evolutionary interpretation are opposite, they can still be both true.
Hi Meguido,
Tricky one, huh. I said it works for most Christians, and if it works for you great. I think that it’s critical that we examine the implication of our interpretive frames though. A traditional interpretation is not the opposite of a modern, postmodern, or post-postmodern interpretation. It’s just earlier in the evolutionary emergence of worldviews. I have no need to trash the traditional worldview. It’s given us many important values that are the platform for the emergence of modernism, etc. But as an interpretive framework in a post-modern world it’s not up to the task. It’s not possible to read this as both a literal story of a fall into sin through disobedience to an external God, that took place in an actual ancient garden in Mesopotamia, and as a metaphor of human awakening. Gotta run, but it’s good to hear from you Meguido
Sorry, just to pick up the thread Meguido. I’d be interested in how to reconcile a traditional interpretation that God is the “good guy” who just wants obedience, (and the snake the bad guy), with my interpretation where God is the agent of status quo and the serpent is the evolutionary catalyst.
Now, I could be flat out wrong, and you might be right. But it would take more than a quantum physicist to make both true.
I find this interpretation of the Garden of Eden story insightful, intriguing and liberating. The myth is seen to contain ancient, innate and relevant wisdom, despite its original cultural context with its apparent primitive and currently irrelevant message. It normalizes and legitimizes the experience of those who have responded to the impulse of the evolutionary dynamic which has led them out of the garden of pseudo security into the freedom of the uncertainty of a more abundant life.
Thanks Jim. You nailed it.
Dear Bruce,
I love the story as Adam is made in our image to tend and care for creation, while asleep receives his companion as not to be solitary yet of the same flesh. Naked, unadorned and in natural communion with their father, eternal life their birthright. Wanting to understand, eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil opened their eyes to distinctions, for better or worse, and they had to live apart from their original abode yet never separated from God who follows their destiny with close scrutiny. Wanting to know, a curse and a promise, we are given the keys, that God held for us. Learning to walk can be painful at times yet we never choose not to if given a choice. Walking out of Eden for an unknown future, serves mankind with a blueprint of this life giving creative principle; time never turns back. Jesus did come to redeem Adam, to become the man of the earth to all people, a living example of this lost paradise of original man. The old story works, yet its interpretation evolves without loosing any of its old significance. I find what I do not yet understand out of the Bible in the the spiritual sense I have yet to uncover and distinguish through personal experience. Fluid and flexible, God works in mysterious ways
God Bless,
Bjorn
Thanks Bjorn,
For your respectful reply. While we clearly differ on our interpretations, your heart comes through. We can agree that G_d works in mysterious ways.
Hi Bruce,
Your interpretation might differ but I agree with it wholeheartedly. I never saw anything wrong with eating of the fruit of knowledge
yet much insight must be digested over time. So coming full circle, we leave Eden yet never loose touch with our original abode, that which we came from.
Bjorn, I think you display the graciousness that my friend Meguido above is looking for. Thanks for your balance and maturity. It is true that we carry, wherever we wander, the Absolute Heart and Mind of the Holy, and (I believe) that the Absolute in the relative world of becoming evolves. In that sense Paradise (in the Absolute, Formless Heart of the Divine) is an unchanging Unity that we never lost, and Paradise (in the relative world of this adventure of becoming) lies ahead.
Hey Bruce,
Does God represent “homeostasis” and the serpent represents “emergence” in this interpretation? We have been reflecting on these 2 powers in light of some current circumstances in our life. I began to see the shadow side of ‘homeostasis’” as remaining stuck, not wanting to upset the apple cart of embeddedness of certain relationships, and this sounds like what you are talking about. Brian Swimme defines homeostasis as preserving and protecting evolutions accomplishments. But it seems inevitable that we will be banished out of status quo at some point. I suppose this speaks to what Andrew Cohen talked about re: the 3rd stage of faith – to keep questioning and not remain stuck in a self- satisfied level of consciousness.
Toni, you are right. In this interpretation G_d represents the shadow side of the homeostatic function, not merely preserving the best of the universe’s achievements, but actually impeding emergence. When homeostasis and emergence are working synergistically, the former provides the platform (necessary conditions) for the emergence of the new. It’s like a mother refusing to let go of a toddler when it’s time. Remember how Kegan (The Evolution of Self) talks about an adequate holding environment, one that cradles, lets go, and then stays put. Staying put is different from holding back.
When Jesus said that he came not to remove one jot or tittle from the Law (in Matthew’s gospel) he was saying in effect, that the new thing he was announcing required the platform of the Law so that the new thing would could flourish. It would be the constraining force for entropy. And as long as these forces are adequately constrained, the creative processes of the cosmos (Trinity in action) will do what they do, and keep bringing forth more fruit. Whereas prior to this the Law was the end of the religious life, now it was instrumental, serving a higher emergence. It became a whole, that was merely a part of a larger whole. That process is happening for existing iteration of the Christian faith as well.
The “banishment” is inevitable only if our soul becomes unsatisfied and restless with the evolutionary truces we’ve made in our lives. A restlessness will return if the existing conditions of our relationships/community/culture are not spacious enough for the “zest” to animate our lives. At the point, the only choice is to start to die prematurely, because the soul will exit, (and this will lead to physical deterioration) or to open up the pipeline of the evolutionary impulse, and allow this sacred energy to have its way in re-shaping your life—creating a more capacious life.
And yes, the unending inquiry is critical to living a “zesty” life.
Thanks Toni