The need to disobey — this thought came to me while listening to a new book, The Quantum Revelation.
It’s not part of the book but I got a random reflection — we have to disobey to reach a higher level of being. Religion preaches obedience. Above all else, obey. The strange thing is that Eve did not obey God and consequently got the ball rolling to become like God. Without the Fall, could we really progress? It seems to me that coming down to the mortal earth is the only way to become like God. And if you came here already at that higher level, you could still progress or regress. There must be opposition in all things. I know, this is a paradox. And since I am only familiar with the LDS Christian religion, my perspective comes from those books (though I am coloring outside the lines now.)
As the story goes, Satan as the serpent sets out to thwart God by getting Eve to eat the fruit. But Satan didn’t know God’s mind or plan, and by suggesting to Eve that she eat the fruit, Satan was fulfilling the necessary Fall:
And Satan put it into the heart of the serpent, (for he had drawn away many after him,) and he sought also to beguile Eve, for he knew not the mind of God, wherefore he sought to destroy the world. And he said unto the woman: Yea, hath God said—Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? (And he spake by the mouth of the serpent.)
And the woman said unto the serpent: We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; But of the fruit of the tree which thou beholdest in the midst of the garden, God hath said—Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
The serpent mixes truth and error, saying that she will not die but she shall be like the Gods.:
And the serpent said unto the woman: Ye shall not surely die; For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your aeyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Eve recognizes that this is the way to become like the Gods:
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it became pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make her wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and also gave unto her husband with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they had been naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.
And I, the Lord God, said unto mine Only Begotten: Behold, the man is become as one of us to know good and evil… (Moses 4)
Maybe Eve was a higher being when she landed in the garden and knew what had to be done. Sometimes we need help from someone more experienced. Sometimes we need someone to show us the way. But the interesting thing is that this someone — Eve in this case — chose to be disobedient. That was the example. Of course, the whole Adam and Eve story could have been manipulated by men showing Eve as the transgressor and Adam as merely the innocent one — he blamed her for the whole thing:
And I, the Lord God, said unto Adam: Who told thee thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, if so thou shouldst surely adie?
And the man said: The woman thou gavest me, and commandest that she should remain with me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree and I did eat.
It’s an interesting theory.
