What Happened to Us in Eden? - Psychology of the Fallنموونە

NOT EVEN ONE

I hope you’re ready to keep asking yourself questions—questions that may change how you see God and yourself. But above all, may this not stay purely intellectual. My prayer is that it brings real transformation into your life. That’s why our focus here is devotional.

• Is it possible to read Eden’s story naturally, without starting from inherited interpretations?
• Could it be that the order of creation and other details have been read with assumptions in place—overlooking other things we might notice if we slow down?
• Was Adam’s and his wife’s responsibility different, not because of essence (male or female), but because of presence? That is:

1. Adam was there first and called to care for her as a gift.
2. She arrived in a place where she wasn’t alone, and so wasn’t meant to “go it alone.”

• Was Adam’s sin really listening to his wife—whom tradition says he was “meant to lead”? Or was it that, in listening to her, he ignored God’s voice—the true essence of the problem, since she too chose the serpent’s?
• Doesn’t it seem they were of the same “stuff”—different where they are indeed different, but not in every way tradition has assumed?

These are the kinds of questions we’ll consider slowly and carefully in this plan:

• without dogmatism, but without taboos,
• with respect and legitimacy, since we are called to think with the Spirit’s guidance,
• testing everything and holding on to what is good,
• seeking to grow as God’s people by imitating the Master.

A preview of what’s ahead—two “spoilers”:

#1. This is not a feminist manifesto.

#2. You won’t find good guys and bad guys either. We’re all in the same boat: sinners.

As it is written: “All have turned away; they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

So let’s sharpen our vision, tune our senses, and—most of all—open our hearts. We return to Eden…