West Of Eden
How Western Society is Recreating the Sinful Fall Of Adam and Eve
Introduction:
The Western world is much like a bully on the playground. We are bigger than everyone else so we get to set the rules, right? The problem arises when we forget size doesn’t equal health. It, oftentimes, exposes a lack of health.
Our title is obviously a play on the great work of John Steinbeck “East of Eden”. Yet the purpose of this post is to highlight how Westernized society is repeating the sin of Adam and Eve in the garden. While Adam and Eve were cast out East of Eden, we have used our identify as Westerns to cast ourselves farther and farther away from Eden. Thus, we are going farther and farther from the presence, protection, and provision of God.
Before we get too far into this journey together, I would like to stop to define what I mean by “Western world”. This is without a doubt more than an American problem, but it is not less than an American problem.
The facets of the Western world I want focus in on are four-folded: 1) Post-Modern 2) Enlightened 3) Educated 4) Industrialized. These aren’t fully evil, but they come with difficulties and challenges. The problem is we have extended these concepts into a disenchanted and disillusioned mess.1
We are post-modern in our removal of truth and skepticism towards anything concrete especially in regards to things existential, religious, or authoritative. Those who are well versed in this topic will understand the historical roots of this movement are in the era referred to as the “Enlightenment”. The Enlightenment was a historical time period around 1700s where thinkers began to disenchant themselves with religion and focused specifically on reason, logic, and science. The Enlightenment began a shift away from the church (i.e. authority) into individualism and autonomy.2 Experience became King while faith became the jester’s toy.
As a result, people began to weaponized knowledge as the guide for truth and the enemy of religion.3 Our current world is more educated than ever. We have more information at the touch of our fingers than ever before. Modern medicine is saving lives daily.4 We are richer than ever. We are smarter than ever. We have created a world and reality where we no longer need the protection, provision, and presence of God.
God is dead because we created an existence where we no longer need Him to be real. The only logical conclusion is for us to realize we have always been our own God. We are individual gods walking on this earth serving, pleasing, and worshipping ourselves. We are the individual no longer attached to anything beyond ourselves.5 We are divine.
We no longer have truth, friendship, authority, religion, or meaning. It may seem like this is an exclusive Western world problem. I believe this exposes an important Biblical truth: Humans don’t change neither does our sin. We may be richer, healthier, sexier, and more educated than ever before. But we are just like Adam and Eve. We are trying to be the God of our own lives, and it will never lead to authentic goodness, beauty, or truth. It will only lead to personal, cultural, and systematic destruction.
Problem Presented:
In Genesis three, Adam and Eve sin. They chose to honor Satan, their flesh, and invite brokenness into the world. I am here to make this argument: Today, we are recreating the fall of Adam and Eve. It is deeply rooted in our human nature and exposed in our Western societal structures.
Because we are educated, rich, and healthy, we leave God behind as an ancient opium that was for the lesser human. As we exposit Genesis three, our journey will highlight just how similar we are. We are easily deceived, manipulated, blinded, and corrupted just like Adam and Eve.
Exposition:
The story of Adam and Eve is a simple tale of history, purpose, and reality. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God on the mission of God in the presence of God. They were to steward the land and animals - God’s creation - for eternity while enjoying access to the presence of God for eternity.
There was one rule: Don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Man was never meant to know evil. Man was never meant to comprehend our coming death. We were only meant to enjoy the goodness of God. Naturally, when the Deceiver6 comes on the stage, he goes straight to his character.
He convinced Eve that God was not telling the truth. The liar accused God of lying. Eve took the bait because of three things according to Genesis 3:6 - “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate”.
It is so subtle - She saw the tree was good, it was delightful to the eyes, and it held wisdom. She was tempted. She saw the reward. She convinced herself God was wrong. So, she ate. She must have been a dang good saleswoman because she convinced Adam to eat also.
The sad end result was they obtained what they desired. They became wise to good and evil, but what they didn’t expect was they realized they were the evil. They became separated from God. They became alone.
It is easy to write this as a historical narrative or biblical myth. But not so fast. When we compare our lives to Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden, we are left with a haunting reality. We are the same. Here let me use to evidence to drive my point home.
Evidence:
Like Adam and Eve, we take matters into our own hands to define what is good. This is the challenging part of cultural analysis. Good is a very common word with various meanings. For this post, good is describing “morally acceptable and/or desired behavior that benefits society.”7 For Christians, God’s word has established laws, covenants, and rules to clarify what is “good”. In the garden, God created the rule to protect Adam and Eve. Our society has a basic misunderstanding of God’s word - It is not to keep us from joy. It is to protect us from pain and suffering. Like Adam and Eve, our culture runs to what we think will make us powerful, successful, rich, famous…. good. Yet at the end of this journey, it will all reveal itself as a wasted trip. We can never truly make ourselves good. Adam and Eve sought wisdom. What is the core of the Enlightenment, our educated society, and individualism? Finding wisdom. In our pursuit of wisdom, we have become just like Adam and Eve. Genesis tells us something very important: we are the problem, and we can’t fix it ourselves.
Like Adam and Eve, we run and find comfort in what looks or feels delightful to our eyes. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” right? Our hearts are driven towards selfishness. Most likely if we desire something, it will benefit us over someone or something else. Yet, we don’t care! As long as we are happy, we can laugh and say, “To Hell with everyone else!” Adam and Eve looked upon the fruit and ate because of it’s appearance. It appeared to have more worth than everything God had promised them. So they ate! They feasted on their fleshly desire! Our society has abandoned everything God has promised us in pursuit of what looks good right now. We may not eat the apple, but we will give our lives to a lifestyle we can’t afford to look the nicest, seem put together and happy, or in hopes to trick ourselves into thinking we just might be okay. You would think it starts with seeing the object? No. It starts with a whole in our heart we are trying to fix. The house, job, marriage, kids, retirement, alcohol, etc could never fix you. Adam and Eve weren’t content, and reader, neither are we.
Like Adam and Eve, we seek wisdom in ourselves or other voices. Expressive individualism is the correct term. Culture is not satisfied with inward expression of who we are. The westernized world has to physically express this identify outward.8 We define what is good by what our feelings demand of us. The irony here is evident - as we seek to become our own God, we become slaves to our emotions and feelings. We can never stop listening to ourselves. Then, we find a talking head online to support our views. Here is a great pause moment: When was the last time you authentically changed your mind because of another’s evidence? I venture most of us it has been awhile. We have created a culture where we only listen to our feelings, emotions, and voices that agree with us. Like Adam and Eve, we stopped listening to God and only listen to our desires and outsiders who often times we don’t even know.
Like Adam and Eve, we look good on the outside, but we are decaying on the inside. From the moment they ate the apple, they realized they were naked. So naturally, they created clothes. They tried to cover the effect of their sin (nakedness) with leaves. The problem is ever present and clear: The decaying wasn’t on the outside. It was on the inside. No leaves could cover the death they introduced into their lives. See we, as humans, are expert leave weaves. We create all these things to make us look, feel, or seem less dead on the inside. We use makeup, clothes, money, status, jewelry, cars, sex, and the list goes on.9 These are all leaves we are trying to make us feel less shameful. We are shameful because we know something is wrong. We are dead yet we are trying to find life in things that only kill us more. From the outside (worldly perspective), the western world looks good. On the inside, we are decaying away, and we can’t find it when God shows us on the scene.
Solution:
The solution for Adam and Eve (and us) is found in Genesis 3:15. We need the Savior. Genesis begins with the beautiful creation that is broken by it’s own selfishness. Our culture is being broken in pieces because of our collective individual selfishness. We need a selfless Savior to come and save us. Philippians describes Jesus as “emptying Himself to take the form of a servant”. Jesus left Heaven to save us from ourselves, Satan, and the broken world we created.
This is the first step of the Gospel and often the hardest for our westernized world. We need a Savior. We aren’t that Savior. We can’t save ourselves. Three simple statements, but it shakes to the core of the Enlightened, educated, and individualized person. Like Adam and Eve, we don’t think we need saving. We just know something isn’t quite right.
So, Jesus left the throne of Heaven to live, serve, and die for us. Yes, the unrighteous evil, misinformed, prideful, and abandoned sinners. Romans 5 tells us “that while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us”. The leaves on Adam and Eve were a foreshadow to how humans would try to fix it ourselves. The animal slain to cover their nakedness was a shadow to Jesus who would be slain to cover our sin eternally.10
The solution is simple: We aren’t good. We aren’t okay. We can’t save ourselves. We need saving. We are like Adam and Eve. YET Jesus saves to the uttermost. Jesus saves to the innermost. Jesus saves to the outermost. Jesus simply saves.11
Conclusion:
How do we get back to right relationship with God? We go west back to Eden. The Old Testament is a story of how the people of God were cast out East because of their sin. The Old Testament traces us as we march farther and farther away from God’s presence - we go farther east.
The good news of Jesus Christ is He ascended down to show us the way back. We return home only through Jesus as He Himself states, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”12 Jesus made a way home.
Let us return through the Son who showed the heart of the Father by the power of His Holy Spirit. Let us return west back to the presence of God.
I use modern here with a different meaning than post-modern. Modern, at this point, is used to describe a place in time not the philosophical idea of modernity.
I wish I had more space to deeply evaluate this topic. The enlightenment is fascinating to me. It has deeply shaped our view of society, living, the good life, etc. It also set the stage for our Western world to disenfranchise religion. It was the ground zero for our post-modern world.
Ironic isn’t it? A quest to find and grasp truth led to a culture who no longer ascribes to truth.
Please don’t misinterpret - I love modern medicine. It is a gift from God.
Unapologetically, these viewpoints are deeply influenced by Charles Taylor, Carl Truman, RC Sproul, among others.
Satan has many names: Deceiver, Opposer, Tempter, Enemy of God. Here his full character is on display as he tempts, deceivers, and opposses God.
Rachels, James, and Stuart Rachels. "The Elements of Moral Philosophy." 9th ed., McGraw-Hill Education, 2017.
For more, look into Carl Truman’s book “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self”.
I owe much of this thought to the late Tim Keller. Keller was deeply formative for me on root idolatry, sin, and brokenness.
See Genesis 3:21.
Once again, a deep thank you to Tim Keller for this quote.
See John 14:6.
The article is not centered on paradigms that I assuage to. We are of God, not God himself. We are creator beings, and of Him.
Really cool stuff here man. Thanks for sharing.