Back to the Garden?

St. John sees the New Jerusalem

My good friend Darius wants to argue that the goal of creation is to return to the Garden of Eden.

I disagree. I think there is a fundamental conceptual flaw here. The Garden is Eden is simply a state without sin. Being without sin is not the goal. No one is without sin. The goal is to demonstrate virtue.

Heaven is described in the last book of the Bible. It is not a garden. It is a city. It is not a return to nature, but a triumph of culture.

Darius argues that salvation is salvation from sin, and so it implies a return to the time before sin.

“Salvation means being restored to a position before having been needed to be saved.”

This sounds reasonable; but is it true?

Consider this analogy: you are booked on the Titanic. The Titanic hits an iceberg and goes down at sea. You, unlike Leonardo di Caprio, are saved.

Does this salvation mean you are taken back to Belfast, the point at which you embarked? Does it mean you are back in your stateroom on the Titanic, as it was before it hit the iceberg?

No; that would have been less desirable than to be dropped safely off in New York harbour.

Your house is on fire. To save you, is it necessary for the fire department to reconstruct the house to the condition it was in before the fire, and put you back in? Is it even a good idea? Wouldn’t it be better to rebuild on a firmer basis?

Would you reconstruct a bridge that has fallen down, exactly as it was before it fell?

Salvation rarely involves being restored to the position before having been needed to be saved. If it does, this is irrelevant to salvation.

But another analogy is better for speaking of the Fall. It is the classic situation of a hero legend.

An innocent maiden is about to be eaten by a dragon. Call her Eve. A brave knight appears, slays the serpent, and saves the maiden. They marry and live happily ever after.

You might argue that both knight and maiden would have been better off had the dragon never existed. But if it had never existed, they also would never have met. The brave knight would never have been able to prove his virtue, his valour, and his love.

These are the positive virtues the Fall allows us to express; and it allows both us and God to demonstrate our love for one another.

Would the world be better without brave knights, fair maidens, heroism, heroic virtue, legends and stories, and true love? Would the world be better without art?

If the issue was merely avoiding sin, then animals and small children are the ideal. Neither, after all, are capable of sin. And God could have easily left the world in Edenic happiness, simply by not allowing free will. As soon as he allowed free will, it was a statistical certainty that man would eventually sin. And not just a statistical certainty: God is omniscient. He knew man would sin, and could have prevented it in this way.

But do any of us think it is best to remain a child forever? Does anyone believe that a random water buffalo is morally superior to Mother Teresa? Do any of us think God made a mistake?

Arguing that there is free will without sin in heaven, Darius raises a good and interesting point: “This can be proven logically if we agree on the following axiom: when we proceed into the heavenly realm after this time on earth, we can expect to continue to be capable of exercising free will.”

But consider the angels.

Like us, they have free will. However, the angels chose once and forever for or against God, and, having done so, their thoughts and actions are consistent. It is unthinkable for Gabriel to tell lies.

It seems we each face this same angelic choice, confirmed at death. I imagine it is especially meaningful to sin in the divine presence. Adam and Eve sinned when God was not apparent, and felt shame when he reappeared. We each face the divine presence at death.

Why is an earthly life necessary? Why not just have us all born into heaven? Our earthly life must be a triage, separating out those who, given free will, will choose evil, from those who, given free will, will choose good, when in the divine presence and aware unambiguously of the significance of their choice. Without this time of trial, it is impossible to have a heaven in which we are all allowed free will.