Genesis 3:1-7 “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden?”’ The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,’ but God did say, “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.”’ ‘You will not surely die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”
In this passage we see several things. First, we see the Fall that took place and why this world is in the mess that it is in. Secondly, we also see the battle lines that are being drawn that we are faced with today.
We see this type of human reasoning coming out in the Garden of Eden with Satan’s philosophy called “DiaPrax.” This philosophy comes from two Latin words dia: to dialogue to reach agreement and prax: to practice.
There are three parts to this philosophy:
1. Thesis: what God says
2. Anti-thesis: human reasoning
3. Synthesis: result, which one of these two do we choose?
This to me is where the real battle is being fought today, especially here in the West. Our battle is not over homosexuality, abortion, humanism, postmodernism, socialism, etc., but whether we choose to go with God’s revelation or man’s reasoning.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s philosophy, we will look at in later weeklies, probably did more damage to what we faced in the 20th century than any other set of ideas. If we examine his philosophy of the FALL, or why we are in the mess that we are in, he would say that the source of oppression and suffering (the Fall) is the society or civilization itself. His philosophy was to revolt and with revolution overthrow the entire social order and build a new one from scratch and create the “THE NEW MAN!” This is what led to some of the ‘isms’ today where millions were killed including the bloody French Revolution which France today is still recovering from.
His philosophy was that we are autonomous beings with no social contract including families. In his opinion, the reason we are in the mess we are in is because of oppressive relationships not of our choice. So all moral bonds of families, spiritual bonds of church and even genetic bonds of clan and race are the reasons why we are in such a mess. So the only bond for Rousseau is where the people choose for themselves the bonds they want, or do not want.
This is why we have the values we have today: Our values used to be: SACRIFICE, LOYALTY, MORALITY, ACCOUNTABILITY, but they have changed to INDEPENDENCE, PERSONAL HAPPINESS, TOLERANCE, COMFORT, INSTANT GRATIFICATION, RIGHT TO MAKE ONE’S CHOICES. We see in our society today the result of the choices.
So when we compare Rousseau’s worldview of the FALL with the biblical worldview of man through his own human reasoning choosing to go his own way – we need to ask ourselves which one is right and which one is wrong?