The Garden of Eden

(Reprinted from The Asian Journal)


Sometimes I wonder how far we, human beings, should go. How deeply should we venture into the mysteries of the universe? Does the One Infinite Intelligence want us to discover and unravel all of the intricacies of the created world? Or does God – whatever our finite minds can conceive the Eternal Being to be – want us to just go along for the ride?

Does God want us to go into stem cell research, into genetic engineering, into cloning? Or does He/She want us to simply enjoy the fruits of creation, without dismantling its delicate clockwork or messing things up?

The church, a fount of wisdom enshrined through centuries of experience in human affairs, cautions us against pushing the envelope. Yet, we now realize the error of suppressing Galileo Galilei’s heliocentric explorations into the universe. No less than the great Pope John Paul II apologized for that shortsightedness. Three and a half centuries later, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the brilliant Jesuit paleontologist, probed20this issue. The Vatican has yet to put de Chardin on the pedestal he deserves.

Is stem cell research in our day and age a parallel dilemma? Or does caution in tinkering with the seeds of creation – and being aware of the logical principle that the end does not justify the means – endow us with the wisdom to uncover an ethical solution to the problem of regenerating beneficial cells?

The author of Genesis struggled with this issue, around 900 BC. The Israeli writer(s) came up with a simple story of the Garden of Eden (literally, “The Garden of Delights”). Stay here, Adam and Eve. Live well and enjoy the fruits that have been provided for you gratis. But, stay away and do not touch “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Curious and undisciplined as human beings were in the beginning of time -- and still are to this present age -- Eve ate the apple and gave the residual to Adham (Hebrew word for “man or humankind” or “a creature made from dust”). And Adam did not even have the courage to admit that he had succumbed to the temptation; he blamed Eve (Hebrew word for “mother of all living”)!

Thus, God banished man and woman from the Garden of Eden and let them out into the world, to bear the pain of childbearing, to raise food from thorns and thistles, to labor for their daily bread “east of Eden”. Yet, as history unfolded, mankind multipl ied and prospered. Human beings discovered fire and harnessed the energies of the earth. Man learned to utilize water, oil, and the planet’s essential resources. Our ancestors conquered the mountains and the seas. They planted and they built. The frenzy of uncontrolled building led to the Tower of Babel. At that point, God said enough is enough. I let you free to roam and discover the earth, but you now think you are the masters of the universe. You will speak in different tongues and realize the errors of your ways.

The genius in this tale of the Garden of Eden is that it is a human being’s effort (or the Jewish community’s effort) to make sense of the complex mystery of God’s creation. It is an attempt to make sense of man and woman’s relationship with the Being from whose creative hands they originated.

The Garden of Eden is more than a prescientific explanation of cosmology. It is an effort to make sense of how far we, human beings, can venture to develop the earth and the skies and the resources God has bequeathed us, and how careful we need to be so that we are not blinded by our brilliance and think we know it all.

I am amazed at the haughtiness of people who regard the Garden of Eden as a simpleton’s story, or Scripture a bunch of fables. Naïve comments on this subject, such as those from prominent media personalities, only reveal them to be intellectually nimble perhaps, but essentially cerebral lightweights. & nbsp;

In 399 BC, Socrates was forced to drink a poisonous concoction of hemlock for railing against pseudo-intellectualism. The great Greek philosopher had insisted that people who think they know it all are dangerous. People who think they know, when in fact they do not, are pathetic. Unfortunately, these pseudo-intellectuals can be outright disastrous for they often are the ones who, by sheer chutzpah and a deluded sense of greatness, run our governments, our churches, and our many institutions. In other words, they run our lives!

One can examine the stimulus package and spending bill that the United States Congress just passed and note how on target Socrates was.

It takes wisdom to acknowledge that we know that we know nothing – or, at least, that there are many things we do not know. Yet, while Socrates and Plato and Aristotle made us aware of this simple fact, many have yet to learn this truth.

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