Eyes Opened

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the LORD God had made. The serpent asked the woman, "Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?" The woman answered the serpent: "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, 'You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.'" But the serpent said to the woman: "You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is evil." 

The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and 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 that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

When they heard the sound of the LORD God moving about in the garden at the breezy time of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. (Genesis 3:1-8)

Ah, yes.  The serpent representing the devil [bad rap for snakes] knew it was important for men and women to know good versus evil.  Once the difference is recognized, temptation to do the latter becomes possible.  No more naivete.  Conscious choice to do evil things becomes possible, and the devil knows we humans are easily led down dark roads and are capable of grotesque evil.

Many of us believe we are godlike, and we believe we are better than we truly are.  We godlike creatures scapegoat others and blame others for our mistakes.  Not all of us to be sure, but too many of us refuse to admit our mistakes and forgive others’ trespasses against us.  We are high and mighty.  

William Blake wrote the book: “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" (1868).  C.S. Lewis disagreed with Blake’s premise and countered with his book the “The Great Divorce” (1945). Blake's theory of contraries "was not a belief in opposites but rather a belief that each person reflects the contrary nature of God, and that progression in life is impossible without contraries. Moreover, he explores the contrary nature of reason and of energy, believing that two types of people existed: the 'energetic creators' and the 'rational organizers', or, as he calls them in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, the 'devils' and 'angels". Both are necessary to life according to Blake. 

According to Lewis, “Evil cannot be magically erased by the passage of time and turned into good; it must be wholly rejected for Heaven to be embraced. While Heaven and Hell are so closely related, paradoxically they cannot exist at all together: total acceptance of Heaven implies the total rejection of Hell. Earth operates between Heaven and Hell, according to Lewis, in a kind of purgatory-type state because it is not distinctly separate from either Heaven or Hell.”  Furthermore, Lewis “does not believe in the idea of eternal damnation being a fate; rather, he describes it as the sum of a total of error and rejection of God’s mercy and goodness.”

I appreciate both Blake’s and Lewis’ perspectives.  However, I prefer to think of the marriage of heaven and hell as more of a cohabitation.  It’s important for us to recognize evil, and we are better able to do that when we understand the good, especially in ourselves.  In a curious way, evil helps motivate the good that resides in all of us.

Within each of us good and evil cohabitate.  It’s a sort of “shotgun marriage” with our having no choice but to live with the good and the bad while trying to minimize the latter.  Divorce is impossible especially because we ate of the fruit and our eyes were opened.

Deacon David Pierce