Free Will
It is not surprising that the creation stories in the Torah and Bible begin with seduction and sin. Eve represents the fall from innocence by being tempted by the serpent as he slyly slithers his words into her passive mind, “you surely will NOT die.” Eve has reached puberty, one of the most dangerous times for young women if they don’t have a male protector. At the onset of puberty, she is still innocent, but weak willed. What she doesn’t know becomes an easy trap. In the New Testament is the admonishment, “Be as innocent as the dove (of wrong doing), but as wise as the serpent.” Understand the Tempter, understand his ways, understand that under the guise of being charming is a ferocious wolf.
Adam has also reached puberty and he is looking at Eve with a different set of eyes. He will do anything for her to obtain what he wants, even to disobeying God for he is spellbound. He isn’t charmed by the seductive, evil whisper of the serpent, but is experiencing a sexual awakening. It is Eve he wants, she is the only thing on his mind. A single focus that doesn’t include the command of God not to eat of this fruit. But eat of the fruit he does, and when God appears they both instantly understand that they have sinned by disobeying God. They are forever banished from the garden of innocence and are thrown into the cruel world of physicality.
Why is it that in every account in the Bible of cities being destroyed for corruption is unrepentant overt, crass, sin that at its core is extreme disobedience to God. Not just the innocent adolescents unable to contain a yearning that needs to be fulfilled, but sin that is characterized by a complete profaning of the act of lovemaking between two people who love one another and who are committed to each other in the sanctity of marriage; “the marriage bed is sacred.” Was it just homosexuality as the more legalistic scholars write? No, it was a slow burn — these cities were already burning before their great destruction. It is using the body of another created being for self satisfaction. It is accumulated wealth causing over satiation that leads to using humans for self-stimulation characterized by orgies of all types, including using animals, and murder during the sex act. It is debauchery of the worst sort as if Satan himself had risen out of the dark depths of hell to party.
The use of God’s created beings who were meant to be sanctified as if they are nothing but objects to be used for pleasure and then thrown away is pure evil. When a society begins to objectify one another in a sadistic way leading to collective psychopathy then you will know the end is near. Any act in whatever domain that seeks self and not the benefit of the collective and good of humanity derives from evil. In political economies it is a government that oppresses people for its own benefit as in extractive economies. Well known theologian, Walter Brueggemann, refers to this as the kingdom of the Pharoah, in which the only escape from the yoke of oppression is through submission and obeyance to God.
According to Brueggemann, the Prophets delivered people from the suffering of slavery and oppression by creating an alternative reality which is the opposing force against selfish extraction. It is full submission to God, and then compassion for others. It is taking care of the needy, orphans, widows, and providing hospitality. It is a chosen people of God who are to set themselves apart in their behavior by modesty, who exemplify courtesy, kindness, empathy, and generosity. Who take care of one another and even provide for the needy outsider. When humans are deeply understood as not profaned objects, but as beloveds of God, and to have their dignity be greatly respected this is the will of our loving God.
You see, in its simplest terms, it is being a protector of created life no matter what form, it is a matter of building rather than destroying, raising up rather than lowering, fulfillment of God’s great mercy and love for us instead of debasing into a form worse than the beasts of the fields. Look around you my friends and what do you see? Travel back into time to Sodom and Gomorrah — travelers are warned not to sleep in the courtyard because they will be raped to death. Lot provides two strangers safety within his home, but the dark beasts inhabited by demons swarm around his house to demand the strangers so they may play with them — new meat that they may spew their profane acts upon. This is the lowest form of humanity that is designated for destruction.
Once a man begins disobeying laws that were meant to protect us, as well as ignoring his conscience he begins a descent into hell when disobedience opens his mind and soul to possession by evil. He will slowly be desensitized to evil acts until demonic evil becomes the norm. Then it becomes a poison that can spread throughout a community, a city, a nation, civilization. Gog and Magog are unleashed which becomes a spiritual fire that destroys souls, and then the fire from heaven is unleashed to destroy evil with a remnant saved so that new seeds will be planted to resurrect a broken humanity which used its free will to reject and mock God, the most Merciful, the always Merciful.