February 28th, 2026
The story of the Fall in the Bible is read during the season of Lent in the Catholic Church. It has always irritated me. Before I start ranting, allow me to post an abbreviated version of the narrative.
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Genesis 2:15-17
“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’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 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.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 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. 7 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.” – Genesis 3:1-7
The story attempts to explain the effects of sin and the why there is evil in the world. To my mind, it explains very little, and it produces more questions than answers to the fundamental problems of life.
I am looking at the text as somebody who is responsible for raising a small child, namely our five-year-old grandson, Asher. As caregivers, my wife and I have to teach and protect our grandson. In the story God doesn’t really do much of that. Since, prior to eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve do not know good or evil. They essentially have the moral consciousness of toddlers. They know that “Daddy” told them not to eat the fruit of the tree because they will die if they do. However, at that point nobody in the world has ever died, so what does it mean to them when God talks about death? They apparently have adult bodies, but they are literally babes in the woods (or garden).
To phrase it modern terms, it is like God telling Adam ,
“Hey, Adam, go ahead and eat any fruit you like, but not from that tree in the center of the garden. Yeah, you know the beautiful tree with the really cool looking fruit. Leave that one alone! If you eat, you are going to die. Let Eve know too. Okay, I have go away for a while. I’ll be back in the cool of the evening. Be good! You hear me?”
That would be like me telling Asher not to play with the power saw in the garage while I go shopping. It’s a recipe for disaster. In the human world, God would be charged with gross negligence. Now, God’s instructions are exceedingly strange seeing as he already knows what will happen. He is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and a bunch of other omni things. This clearly a set up. God, for some reason, wants to get the kids out of the garden. We can blame the serpent or Eve or Adam, but God is still in charge.
Does any of this even matter? I guess it does if the Church insists on reading this story every year. The Church tells its followers that all humans tend to sin because of the disobedience of our first parents. How is fair to punish the children for the sins of the fathers? Why would God want to have endless generations of flawed people? Where is his quality control? The official answer to my questions is that it is all because of our gift of free will, which we continually abuse. Depending on who you read, be it St. Augustine or John Calvin, the basic Christian message seems to be that we all suck.
During the Easter Vigil Mass, the holiest liturgy on the calendar, the priest recalls the Fall and speaks of it as the “felix culpa”, the happy mistake. I find that remarkable and encouraging. The message is that God would not have fully entered the world without Adam and Eve disobeying the Lord. History did not start until the Fall.
Why did God allow the Fall to occur? Genesis doesn’t say. If the act of creation did not end after six days, if it continues even now, then maybe God wanted cocreators working with him. Maybe he wanted some apprentices that He could train. Maybe God is still working on the ultimate work of art, and he wants us to participate in it, even if we are like kindergarteners fumbling with our finger paints. Maybe it’s not such a terrible thing to struggle and suffer if we are helping to build the universe. Maybe it’s actually all okay.
Frank is Emptiness 