The Fall of Man

I've never really understood the significance of the fact that the forbidden fruit in the Genesis came from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  This story is essentially my thinking out loud about this question.

Note, I did absolutely no research on early hominids before writing this.  If any of the anthropological, historical, or theological errors in this story bother you, just remember that it all takes place in an alternate universe.

The Fall of Man

Chapter 1. Alone

A physicist is the universe's way of understanding itself. Or at least of trying to understand itself. And so the computer continued to run the program he had spent months writing, tracking the path of one proton as it collided with another. It would be several more hours before it had finished its work, and yet the interaction it was tracking would take a fraction of a second to be completed in real life. It seemed that the universe didn't need any help understanding itself after all. The protons knew what they were to do without thinking. The myriad of particles spawned from their collision knew their roles as well. He thought he was smart. Smarter than a proton at any rate. A proton couldn't build a computer or write a program to simulate itself. And yet, the proton had a deeper understanding of the universe than he would ever have. He felt like an outsider looking in. He had studied so hard to learn the rules of the game, and yet all the other participants seemed to understand them effortlessly. How had man become so separated from the world?

It was not always so.

In the beginning was God. Or water. Or a field. All names are equally appropriate and inappropriate, for all were one. Then God created the universe. Or the water was divided into the waters above the firmament and the waters below the firmament. Or the symmetries of the field were spontaneously broken, causing it to separate out into the various fundamental particles. Again, all descriptions are equally appropriate and inappropriate. The separation continued -- sea from land, night from day, the living from the unliving, and at last, man from animal.

Perhaps that is a bit too simplistic. When exactly did man separate from animal? If you ask a modern anthropologist, he could tell you which species possessed what traits. Certainly there would be holes in her account, but even if we had access to the complete fossil record, she still would not be able to answer your question. It's a bit like asking what qualifies as a hot day versus a cold one. A thermometer can give you the temperature, but where to draw the line is a question that science cannot answer. We might all agree that ninety degrees is hot and zero is cold, but what about sixty-five or seventy? One might draw the line at seventy degrees and another at seventy-one, and neither would be able to prove his case against the other.

But enough of answerless questions. We shall draw a line at a particular individual and give him the name Man. During Man's life there were several hominid species. Some were more intelligent than his own, others less so. Some were bigger and stronger, and some smaller and weaker. There were some with which he could have interbred, if he had chosen, and others which had been separated by too many years of evolution to produce a successful match. The remains of some of them have been discovered in modern times -- a feat for which those species have been granted fancy Latin names. Others have been lost to us completely, but at the time of our story, there is no point in distinguishing between these groups. None of them knew their Latin names. Even if the Romans had discovered a way to extend their great empire into the distant past and teach these primitive ancestors of man their language, they would have seen little point in assigning themselves names. Intuitively they understood that they were all just aspects of the same primal cause, following the laws of its own nature. Some modern scientists would say following the laws of nature. Theologians might say they were all just thoughts of God following the divine will.

Man, however, was different. The laws governing the evolution of the species had conspired to give him a greater gift for abstraction than his brethren. He did not just participate in the dance, but he observed it. As the others did, he ate when he was hungry, drank when he was thirsty, and slept when he was tired, but he also watched the others as they did the same. You might say the difference between Man and the other hominids was that he possessed a soul that could be awed by the beauty he saw. He first noticed it in the spring as the snows began to recede.

The gentle hills had been worn almost completely bare of grass. The mammoth and bison herds would soon be moving north to their summer feeding grounds. Man's tribe of nearly fifty would follow them, but none of them thought of that now. When the time came to move, they would move. Now it was time to hunt, so they hunted. The pit had been covered and the spearmen were in place. Man and several others were following beside a mammoth herd, keeping out of sight behind the hills. When they had followed it as near to the pit as it was likely to come on its own, Man and his fellow hunters ran over the top of the hill and rushed toward them, whooping loudly and waving their spears. Startled, the herd began stampeding away from them toward the pit. The hunters continued their chase, unnoticed by their quarry. The stampede would continue for miles with or without their pursuers, but the hominids did not know this.

But then one of the mammoths stumbled. The resulting chaos was heard, but not seen, by the hunters until another of the mammoths shot back straight toward them. How many times had modern man attempted to emerge, only to be snuffed out by some freak accident? But as promised, Man would be the father of all mankind, and so he did not meet an early death here. It was through no skill of his own. They were too close to the herd, and the mammoth ran too fast for any of the hunters to move before it reached them. Whether by chance or by the divine natural laws that determine every outcome in our universe, Man was not one of the two trampled to death.

The lone mammoth continued running away, ignoring the hominids, while the rest of the herd had reorganized itself and pressed on with its stampede. Soon the triumphant shouts of the rest of the tribe could be heard, indicating that one of the mammoths had fallen into their pit. The surviving hunters ran to rejoin them. All of them, that is, except for Man. He stood staring at the two fallen bodies. If Man were a modern man, it would be reasonable to assume that he was lost in grief. Grief, however, had not yet arisen in these early times. No, Man was overwhelmed by the beauty of scene before him.

The brown earth beneath them had lost the green of life. But the herds would soon move north, and the grass would return. The northern feeding grounds would likewise fade away, but then the snows would come, and they would be revived. The grass, in its passing, gave life to the mammoths, and the mammoths, in their passing, gave life to the tribe. Each animal, each plant, and even each stone on the ground played its role perfectly according to invisible laws too complicated for any of them to understand. What if some, like the two tribesmen now at his feet, were to die young? What if there was no obvious purpose to their life -- no genes passed on to a new generation, no nutrients passed on to a starving predator? What role could they play? And yet all were connected, and so none could exist for even the briefest instant of time without profoundly affecting the universe. His fellow hunters had played their part in the universe perfectly, and the universe was beautiful.

Man was the first to wonder at this, so Man was the first to give it a name. He called it God.

God was the interaction of all things, and He was the oneness that was before all things. He was as impersonal as the laws of nature, dispassionately guiding all things, and He was as personal as each individual who was a part of Him. Yes, He was personal, and Man wanted to know Him better.

Man was still standing deep in thought after the hunt had ended and the others had come to bury the bodies. Mechanically he partook in the ceremony -- adorning the fallen with jewelry before covering them with a small mound of earth -- but his mind was always on God. He wanted to explain this sudden wonder to his tribesmen, but how could he? Man and his tribe had a language, but it was woefully inadequate for such a task. It didn't even have words to differentiate between the various species of animals they hunted. How could he begin to use it describe God?

Beyond the simple ceremony, there was nothing further to mark the passing of the hunters. It never occurred to any of them that such occasions should be a cause for sadness. Man was beginning to be able to describe what he and the others had known all their lives. They were all one, so if any lived, they all lived.

Why did he suddenly feel a need to describe such things? Man could not answer this, but he knew he had to in the same way that he knew that he had to breathe and eat. Increasingly his participation in the hunts diminished as he watched and thought. When they followed the herds north, he did not go with them. He was no longer like them. He was a new species.

So he sat, and watched, and waited. Several tribes came north, also following the herds. Man attempted to speak to each of them. With some he was successful. Some had languages that were too dissimilar from his own. Some were barely capable of speech. He began categorizing them based on both physical characteristics and mental development, and to each group he gave a name. They were all beautiful in their own way, each allowing him to see different aspects of God's character. None, however, were capable of comprehending the ideas which Man wished to share. None of them were like him.

After many days, Man grew restless and began his journey south.

Chapter 2. The Search

There was no shelter -- just the river to his left and endless hills stretching to meet the sky in all directions. Far off to his right, Man could see darkness stabbed intermittently with bursts of light. The storm would reach him before sunset, and there was no shelter.

With a gust of cold wind, the darkness enveloped him and the rain began to fall. Man stopped to look at the sky above him. Each slash of lightning illuminated the otherwise invisible clouds towering high above him. He could feel the power of those giants and it thrilled him. Their power was his power. The forces of nature that fueled them were the same forces that sustained him and controlled his every action. Eventually the concentrated energy of the storm would be dissipated throughout the atmosphere, leaving no trace of its current character. Eventually all traces of Man's current character would be lost as well, his constituent parts scattered throughout the universe. Perhaps Man would outlive the storm. Perhaps the storm would outlive Man. It made no difference, for they were both driven by the same will.

Man looked back down toward the path ahead and continued walking with the power of God beating down upon him. At times the wind turned against him, bringing him to a near stop. At others it turned into his back, driving him to run on. Always he continued his journey south.

By the time the storm had passed and the sky above had cleared, nighttime had fallen. Man lay down on the top of a hill, with nothing but a thin layer of atmosphere between himself and the rest of the universe, and there he slept. He awoke well before dawn. The stars that had been overhead when he had first gone to sleep had made their way to the horizon, and new ones had risen in the east to take their place. Man knew how many hours it was until dawn by their pattern. They were eternal markers, serving as unchanging guides to Man's people for generations past and generations to come. And yet they were not eternal. The light they spewed forth into the void came from their self-consumption. Some were larger and more powerful, burning themselves at such a furious rate that they would live only a fraction as long as their smaller brethren. Even these would continue to shine long beyond the time when Man was no longer Man, but in the eyes of eternity, all lives are short. They were fleeting condensates of gas, briefly coming together before exploding back into space.

Although he had no knowledge of what they actually were, Man looked upon the stars as God looked upon them. He knew that their lives and deaths shaped the world around them, just as those of men did. Each one had a role to play, laid out for it in the very earliest days of the universe -- laid out by the same divine will that drove the storm and that drove Man. To obey the laws of nature was their noblest aim, and it was their only aim. How could they do anything else? And so the purpose of the stars, of the storm, and of Man was the same. A single breath taken by Man was no less important than the spewing forth of the building blocks of planets by a dying star. Their glory was his glory.

Then Man heard voices. The language was not familiar, but the speakers were definitely hominids. Man followed the sounds through the darkness until he could see the glow of firelight leaking over the next hill. Creeping to the top and looking over, he could see a half dozen of them gathered around a fire sheltered on all sides by hills. They were enjoying the spoils of a night-time hunt. It was too dark for them to see him, but in the light of their bonfire he could see them clearly, as well as what they were eating. They were cannibals.

Man had been watching them for only a moment when he heard rustling behind him. There must have been four or five of them closing in unseen in a half circle. Man was afraid, but his fear was altogether different from the fear felt by modern man. Of course, Man did not have time at this moment to dwell on his emotions. He did not have to, for he felt what he felt. But let me pause for a moment to describe the fear of the first human.

Man did not fear death because it was unknown. Certainly death was unknown to Man, but this was not why he feared it. Death was no different than life -- not in any way that mattered. Perhaps he would continue to be self-aware, and perhaps he would not. Either way, he would continue to obey the One whom he had always obeyed. His purpose would not have changed.

No, he feared death because God had commanded him to. One day death would come, but it was Man's duty to avoid it as long as it was within his power. This is what millennia of evolution had taught him to do.

And so fear caused Man's mind to generate possible actions at such a frenzied pace that he was nearly immobilized by panic. But one thought stuck -- the cannibals behind him knew that he was there, while the ones in front of him did not. So he charged down the hill toward the fire. Those behind began to run after him, while those in front jumped up and stared. They were unsure whether to run toward or away from this frantic stranger. It was not until after Man had run right through their midst and the other cannibals had reached them that they joined the chase.

Man had already reached the top of the next hill by the time they had all taken up the chase. He ran down the other side just far enough to be hidden from their view and then turned ninety degrees. After dashing twenty or so feet away from his original path, he dove into the tall grass. He had been lying there for only a moment when the cannibals came charging over the crest of the hill. When they did not see him, they assumed that he had already made it over the next hill, so they pressed on even faster straight ahead. Even after they had disappeared into the darkness and Man could no longer hear them, he waited several minutes before beginning to crawl cautiously around the top of the hill. He continued on his hands and knees until he was far enough away that they would not be able to see him if they suddenly returned along the same path on which they had left. Then he stood and began walking east toward the river.

By the time he reached the water again the sun had risen. Man continued his journey south along the river's bank. It was several hours before he had recovered enough from his adventure to stop periodically checking over his shoulder for pursuers. It was noticeably warmer than when he had started his journey. That, combined with the interruption to his sleep on the previous night, made man quite drowsy by the time the sun had reached its highest point in the sky. So he found the shaded side of a hill and lay down to rest.

It seemed that his eyes had only just closed when he was awoken by a sudden noise. The grogginess of sleep relinquished his mind instantly upon the sight of a hominid standing over him with a heavy rock lifted high above his head. One of the cannibals must have been following him, waiting for him to go to sleep before striking.

Again, let me freeze this moment to explore the feelings that Man felt instantly. Or rather, let me explore the feelings which he did not feel. If modern man were to come face to face with a fellow man who wanted to kill him, his mind would instinctively create a narrative of good versus evil. His death at the hands of an unprovoked killer would not just be a loss to himself, but an affront to the overall justice of the universe. One being asserting its will against another is so against the rules of the universe that any modern man would be angered by it.

And yet the universe allows it to happen all the time.

No, man had no sense of good or evil. He simply saw another being obeying the same God whom he obeyed. It was not his place to judge the laws of nature. How could he judge that which controlled his every thought? If the cannibal were to kill him, it would not be one individual triumphing over another. It would be one aspect of God interacting with another, and God still being God before, during, and after.

But before the rock was released, a spear struck his assailant in the chest hard enough to knock him over backward. He died instantly. Man looked up in the direction from which the spear had come. There he saw a lone female looking back at him with an understanding in her eyes that he had never seen before. Perhaps his quest for one who would understand him really was over. Perhaps it was just his admiration for one who had saved his life. Regardless, he decided to call her Woman.

Chapter 3. Paradise

There was much about this place that Man did not understand. He did not understand the language. He did not understand how so many people could live together. He did not understand why they were not following the herds north. He did not understand where their food came from if they did not hunt. And yet, his only real interest was Woman.

Since he had left his tribe, Man had been searching for one like himself -- someone who could observe and analyze the universe rather than simply be a part of it. And every day, Man became increasingly hopeful that he had found her. To be sure, any meaningful conversations were still several months away. Even though Woman was already fluent in Man's language, it was too simple to convey ideas of any depth. Woman's language offered more hope, but as of yet, Man was still faltering his way through the simplest of its phrases.

Still, although discussions of beauty and wonder were not yet possible, they at least had a language in which Woman could explain life in her village. She explained how their village did not move, but rather lived in permanent houses built from wood. This was why she had been forced to kill the cannibal. When hostile tribes came through, they could not simply stay out of their way, but had to drive them off.

As for food, they did hunt when the herds were nearby, but their nourishment came mostly from plants. Man wondered at how they could gather enough to support so many, for although his own tribe would occasionally gather roots and berries to supplement their meat, they never found enough for it to be really worth their time. Woman tried to explain the process of planting and harvesting, but again she ran into the limitations of Man's language. Why would a tribe of hunters and gatherers have any words suitable for describing agriculture? Eventually she realized that it would be easier simply to take him to the garden.

The winters were mild enough here that many plants grew year-round. So although the garden would not reach its full splendor until the heart of the summer, the greenery of early spring was enough to dazzle one who was so unfamiliar with such things. This was not the densely packed prairie grass stretching indefinitely in all directions. Nor was it the impassable tangle of vines and leaves taking shelter amongst the mighty trees of a great forest. No, the scene now before Man lacked the overwhelming sense of strength that these natural displays possessed, but it had a strength nonetheless.

Its strength came from order. Shrubs, trees, and vines were separated out into neat rows by their various kinds. Modern man might say that the power of nature had been tamed or subdued, but such thoughts did not occur to the first man. To him there was no distinction between Man and Nature, so one could not overpower the other. The plants still grew according to their nature, in the only way that they ever could. No power could change this. But these had been planted and cared for by hands that clearly understood them and the principles they obeyed, which had allowed them to grow healthier than they ever could have otherwise. If anything, cultivation had increased their strength, not subdued it. So Man was not the only one observing and analyzing. Perhaps Woman and her fellow villagers were like him, or at the very least, might become like him.

Man was eager for Woman to show him the secrets of the garden, and so she taught him how to care for it. They spent all their daylight hours working there -- preparing the soil, planting seeds, maintaining the irrigation channels from the river, and weeding. Without modern tools, their efforts were certainly no less physically taxing than those of today's farmers, but this was not work in the modern sense. There was no fear. There was no fear that the weather would turn bad and destroy their crops, because the weather was always perfect. Certainly there were times when it rained too much or too little. And likewise there were times when it was too hot or too cold, but still the weather was always perfect for it was exactly what it had to be. Neither Man nor Woman understood the subtle interplay of sunlight, air pressure, planetary rotation, and the myriad of other factors that determined the weather, but they knew that those laws existed, and that was enough. The weather was always exactly what God wanted it to be, and whether their crops thrived of failed, it was perfect.

There was no fear of their work being judged in any way inadequate by the other villagers, for like the weather, their work was always perfect. Shaped by physical laws even more subtle than those guiding the weather, both their talents and their work ethics were exactly what they should be. Every mistake they made had been set in the mind of God since before the creation of the universe. How could they ever feel shame?

There was no fear that they were wasting their lives. No fear that they were missing their true purpose or not using their talents to their fullest extent. Whatever they chose to do at that particular moment was exactly what had been foreordained for them to do from the beginning of the universe. They could not fail to fulfill their purpose. No, their work in the garden was in no way onerous -- it was a daily walk with God.

Gradually Man learned the language of the village, and he and Woman were able to discuss all these things. They rejoiced together in the beauty of the garden and the part they played in it. Man praised Woman as she developed new techniques for planting, irrigating, and harvesting, and he rejoiced in the wisdom of God. Woman praised Man as he tirelessly worked one hour after another and she rejoiced in the strength of God. For the power of each was the power of God and, therefore, the power of the other. And when the strength of Man or the wisdom of Woman should fail, still each praised the other, for the limitations of God were how he loved himself. By restricting one part of himself, he allowed another part to grow and interact with it, giving of himself to strengthen himself.

So they spoke of nothing but their work. And they spoke of nothing but each other. And they spoke of nothing but God. And they spoke of nothing but themselves. And always their conversations seemed to come back to the one tree in the center of the garden from which they never ate.

Chapter 4. Knowledge

Everyone knew that to eat of the fruit from the tree in the center of the garden would bring immediate death. How they knew, they were not sure. Perhaps someone long ago had tried it. Perhaps they had simply noticed that none of the other creatures ever ate from it. Regardless, as surely as no one fell up, no one ate from the tree in the center of the garden.

Man and Woman were content. They took no pride in the fact that they had already risen above their fellow hominids. It was not from their efforts, but from millions of years of mutations and natural selection that they had evolved into a new species. They were a species that did not merely obey the laws of the universe, but studied and worshipped them. No, they were without pride and without ambition, and yet they were curious. What was the purpose of this tree?

A modern mind might attack such a question from many different angles. The scientific angle would ask what evolutionary advantages could have produced such a tree. The religious angle would ask why an infinitely intelligent, infinitely powerful, and infinitely loving God would have created a tree that apparently provided no benefit to any living creature. Man and Woman had no understanding of either modern science or modern religion, and so they would have been unable to distinguish between these two angles. They did not seek to create some elaborate theory about the tree that would support whatever view of the universe they had. They simply wanted to know how it fit.

They and everything they saw, felt, or imagined were nothing more than the thoughts of God -- all part of a single creation -- and here was something that seemingly stood alone. Nothing ate from it or took shelter in its trunk or branches. Neither did it seem to be affected by the seasons, weather, or any other organisms. If the universe had failed to produce such a tree, it was hard to imagine how that universe would be any different. Likewise, if the tree had been the only object created by the big bang, it seemed likely that the tree would have been exactly the same as it currently was for all eternity. Nothing else in their experience was so isolated. Even a child who died at the moment of her birth would leave an impression on her parents that would start a ripple of consequences spanning all of future time. There were many things that Man and Woman did not understand, but there was nothing that they did not understand so thoroughly. And yet they could not help but notice it every day as they worked in the garden.

And then one day there was a difference. As Man and Woman were walking together, Woman noticed a snake climbing in the branches of the tree. She pointed it out to Man, and they stopped to watch it. Slowly it coiled its way through the leaves, taking its time as if it knew it had an audience who could not turn away. It made its way out to a fruit hanging directly in front of the two humans. Its tongue flicked out to smell it tentatively before it finally took a bite. And it did not die. Man and Woman continued to watch the snake for many minutes, and still it did not die.

So it was not true that anyone eating of the fruit from the tree in the center of the garden would immediately die. The last barrier to her curiosity broken, Woman took some of the fruit and ate it. She also took some of the fruit and gave it to Man. He ate it as well.

It was the most wonderful fruit they had ever tasted.

It was so wonderful that Woman could not help but compare it to every piece of food she had ever eaten and deem it far superior. All those meals which at the time had served their purpose perfectly were now flawed. And then she noticed the sun shining on her in a way she had never done before. She had realized as she had been working earlier that it was a hot day and that she would not be able to push herself as hard as she usually did. But now, for the first time, she thought that the weather was not as pleasant as it had been the day before, when clouds and a cool breeze had tamed the sun's heat.

She thought of how the heat had affected Man and his work. He had seemed more bothered by it than she had been. He was from the north, after all, and more suited for colder climates. Perhaps she would have been better off working with one of the men who had spent his entire life at this latitude. And yet he was clearly more intelligent than any of them, and she enjoyed her conversations with him more than she did with any of the others. Did this compensate for his intolerance of the heat?

Then she noticed Man looking at her and became horrified. He was not her. They were not merely two aspects of the same creation, but individuals capable of both helping and hurting each other. And now she stood before his judging eyes, naked and exposed. How would she compare with every other person he had ever known? How could she compare favorably when judged against so many? She wanted to run. She wanted to hide. But where could she go? She had not just become separated from him, but from all of nature. Every animal, every plant, was not working together according to the same law, but each fighting for its own advancement. Some of their actions would be for her benefit, and some would not. Some would be good, and some would be evil. How could she survive in such a world?

Unable to breathe from the panic, Woman struggled to keep on her feet. Then she noticed Man stumble and caught him in her arms. The same panic that must have filled her eyes was staring back at her through his. It was horrific to see, but at the same time she understood it. Here, in a universe that had in an instant been transformed from a single, self-loving entity into myriad of combatants waging the war of good against evil, was something that she understood. It was a connection. Perhaps they could build more.