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When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up …. then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil….. The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2: 1-17 |
In July 1969, at a home in St Lawrence, the crackling voice of Neil Armstrong came into the room through the black and white TV as he stepped onto the moon. “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
But what exactly IS man? And what, corporately, IS mankind? The cat which lives our home in Trinity – Smokey – is a very friendly character and relates well to us humans. But if I were to ask him, “What is a cat?” he would neither understand the question nor be able to provide an answer.
Therein lies a major difference between man and a cat – man does understand the question.
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‘I am greater than the stars, for I know that they are up there, and they do not know that I am down here.' (William Temple, teacher and writer, 1881-1944)
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But what about the answer? Can man formulate the correct and complete answer to, “What IS man?” We turn to the anthropologists (anthropology = the study of man and his origins) for an answer. The answer is principally one of origins, of bio-genesis (bio = life; genesis = origins). Early man was homo erectus (upright man). After that came homo sapiens (intelligent man).
Back around 1350 BC, a man named Moses committed to writing the origin of man which had been passed down in his family, the family of Israel, the people of the LORD God. From that same family Jesus Christ came in AD Zero. Some sentences from his written record are set out in bold above.
The LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
Using anthropological terms, this is homo divines (man in the image of the divine, in the image of God). Interestingly, man still cannot create the life which is in him. Nor can he create the life which is in Smokey – nor even the life which is in tomatoes, flowers or trees.
What do you think of man – of homo divines, in particular? In many men on the news there is little sight of anything truly godly. Instead there are many instances of self-seeking arrogance, extremely harmful to others and man in general…..
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‘Whatever else is or is not true, this one thing is certain – man is not what he was meant to be." (G K Chesterton, journalist and philosopher, 1874-1936)
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That’s where this ancient writer comes again to the fore. The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
It’s clear from this instruction that the man here in Genesis did not at that very time know good and evil. Man was being instructed that he would come to know good and evil only if and when he disobeyed the LORD God.
What reason could man have for disobeying this relatively trivial instruction of the LORD God? The reason could not have been a decision to do evil - or to do good for that matter.
It could only have been a decision taken in favour of self rather than in favour of the LORD God. It seems to have been, in fact, a self-seeking decision, a decision based on ambition and desire to rule with freedom from any vertical (or even horizontal) authority.
That explains a lot, doesn’t it?
What IS man? What do you think? Is man homo divines historically but homo ambitiose (self-seeking man) by his own choices? There’s a great deal of good in man, but there’s also evil, small and great, when I put my desires ahead of everything else.
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