Eve and God's Utopia

The story of Eve in Genesis is but a small paragraph and yet!

If Eve was happy in the Garden of Eden, why did she eat the apple that brought about the end of God’s Utopia

Introduction

If you were to ask a hundred random people to define happiness, a good chance is that you would get hundred different definitions. So what is it that defines happiness? Winning the cross lotto? Buying a new car?  How can it be that despite our westernised affluence, people still find themselves allusively searching for the holy grail of happiness, while, according to researchers, people living in some of the most appalling circumstances in other parts of the world, manage to smile and find happiness within their daily life?

A psychologist might describe happiness as an emotional consequence to a behavioural response of one’s environment. Science might describe happiness as a neurological mechanism in which dopamine released from neurons in the brain, activate action potentials through the intermediary of neural transmitters, which come in contact with target receptors. Neither of these examples, however, gives a satisfactory explanation of the conscious awareness of happiness. What act, or thought process, leads to that precise moment, in which one is consciously aware of happiness?

What does the bible say?

Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden, a biblical utopia created by God. And yet Eve tempted by the tree of knowledge risked all, destroying the sanctity of God's garden of Eden for the sack of wisdom by indulging in the forbidden fruit and consequentially bringing about the end of Gods Utopia.

Despite its alluring abundance, the garden conjures visions of a faultless habitat in which humans and animals live together in total security and harmony. The lesser creatures in this garden were deprived of conscious and emotional inquisition and thrived in passive acceptance of their condition. Lacking the ability of perspective contemplation, their subsistence was neither questioned nor reflected upon. The human inhabitants, on the other hand, endowed with consciousness and free will are conscious of their existence. Adam and Eve have never experienced anything other than the perfection of the garden. Never had any cause to question, to be scared or challenged in any way, both physically or more importantly emotionally. This emotional challenging (challenging of their emotions) I will refer to as emotional referencing, in which one defines and cognitively organises emotions through their extrinsic experiences and challenges of life.

Therefore because of the emotionally sterilized nature of Eden, and due to its righteous and purist manner, Adam and Eve are unable to definitively affirm any kind of positive or negative emotions and therefore they are unable to construct any sort of emotional referencing. If such is the case how can one truly assert that Adam and Eve were happy in this God constructed utopia?

What is happiness and Utopia?

Happiness is in the conscious awareness of the beholder and Utopia can therefore only be created by one individual and can only assure happiness for its creator’s eye. It could not necessarily promise happiness for all those who live in it. If we look back in time to previous renditions of an ideal community.  It would be fair to say that when Sir Thomas Moore wrote his book, Utopia, the author would have heavily been influenced by the social and political incongruence of his time. For example the disparities between the upper nobility, its peasantry, the judicial system which ostracised the underprivileged. Moore's Utopia was, in fact, an answer to his non-fictional society. One must, therefore, ask, could this manufactured society, truly bring conscious happiness all. After all is but one man’s vision. Also, what If its inhabitants, the Utopians, had never experienced emotional referencing what would be, their, version of happiness? Without a perspective social comparison of a dysfunctional society, we could argue that it would be impossible to confirm the existence of conscious happiness in a Utopia constructed through a third party creator. For example, in Plato's The Republic, Socrates compares two autocratic societies, one ruled by a philosophical king and the other by an autocratic tyrant. Using Plato's example, it is fair to say that just on the onset of Plato’s proposition, few today would entertain any kind of autocratic society as being Utopian. Why? History has demonstrated to us time and time again the abusive power of autocrats (Stalin, Hitler, and Pol pot just to name a few recent ones) and therefore we have a retrospective view of the consequences of autocratic societies in comparison to a democratic one. We could, therefore, conclude that a Utopia in which its inhabitants experience conscious happiness could only exist in a society which has, at some point experienced some sort of emotional referencing and has, through the process, been able to emancipate itself.  

In the same way, God’s emotionally sterilised garden cannot be affirmed as an environment of conscious happiness for its human inhabitants. It is our cognitive ability to seek for a higher state of mind to question our emotional state that imparts consciousness. Without these emotional indicators, our consciousness would be adrift in an ocean deprived of function.

Emancipation creating emotional referencing.

Therefore, if we were to accept the premise that Adam and Eve may have never truly consciously experienced happiness or any kind of positive or negative emotions. The discovery of the forbidden tree would have conflicted with the natural order of the garden. And for the first time, the two humans experienced emotional dissonances and emotional referencing. Like a newborn who suddenly discovers its ability to crawl. It is inexplicably drawn to the unknown possibilities of its existences. The child strips away the shackles of its once fulfilling and secure environment to emancipate itself and absurdly ventures into a new world. Similarly, for the first time in her life Eve is attracted to a certain insecurity, which with it offers new unexplored emotions which interact with her phenomenal consciousness. She, therefore, becomes aware of new  emotions which she previously was unconscious of. Jung would classify this as her shadow. Eve’s Shadow now realises a challenge in the beliefs of who she is. This, in turn, makes her realise that her life in the garden, from this moment on can only be one of an actor wearing a mask, playing a role in God’s production of Utopia. Her life a mere persona, as Jung would describe it.  Could it be that the presence of the tree of knowledge unleashed an emotional conflict between her unconscious shadow and her now conscious persona? This would mean that for the first time in her life, Eve is experiencing emotional referencing.

The omnipotence of God

Considering the omnipotence of God, Eve is well aware of the absurdity of her thoughts as she contemplates the alluringness of the forbidden fruit. So why does she even contemplate this pointless act of the mortal sin? The absurdity of this act could be because of its sudden realisation that, approaching this new situation would bring about the creation of newly found mixed emotions. Knowing that their manifestation may change her originally emotionless state forever. However, she chooses to take the gamble, as something inside of her craves the emotional stimulus of uncertainty. She finds serenity and excitement in the quest for the unknown.

So despite the absurdity of the act Eve abandons herself to the intimacy of her consciousness and makes that final decision, emancipating conscious awareness and therefore, hesitantly at first, takes a bit of the apple. In that single act her consciousness has taken stock of her emotions and for the first time, she experiences conscious happiness. A tangible happiness that belongs to her, created by her and of which she has full awareness. However, it is an absurd condition as there is no escape from the omnipotent God who has indirectly set the moral conditions upon Eve, and which contributed to her cognitive discourse.

Omnipotent betrayal?

But! If God is truly omnipotent, who is it that commits the ultimate betrayal? Is it Eve or God? Through the very fact that he allows the existence of such temptation, one could only surmise that he had knowledge of the inevitable conclusion of the scenario, as he is all-knowing. It is the omnipotent God who is responsible for the creation of the tree and the accordance of free will to the garden’s inhabitants.

Utopia through absurd actions.

Therefore, it would be rational, based on the above thesis that one could construct either of the following conclusions: the Genesis story is one of deception of humanity by God. By according free will, humanity is to seek knowledge through sometimes absurd actions with a goal of attaining conscious happiness through enlightenment. Or, God’s action was a way of cutting the umbilical cord which humanity clung to and therefore liberating it to a quest for enlightened happiness despite the absurdity of its actions. As Camus described it, “happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth”.  Whichever the view one might adopt, Utopia can only be forged through the tempest battles of human history in which humanity is challenged in its emotional awareness through the absurdity of its actions, therefore producing emotional referencing from which conscious happiness is to emerge.

By Patrick J Sorrentino(2014), BSC, MMET. Teacher at Youth Education Centre, Adelaide SA.