Remembering Eden
The Fall of humanity did irreparable damage to reality, breaking our one-on-one relationship with God and introducing an alienation that we cannot resolve in our own power. We are dependent on the mercy of God for resolution and He demonstrated His intent to resolve it in the person and work of Christ.
However, there is something odd about the brokenness and alienation. Notice that despite the fallenness flaw, humanity is still aware of the Garden. We live in an existence that we can clearly discern is broken, yet at the core of our beings, we know it was not intended to be this way. It would be logical to state that during our Fall and expulsion from the Garden we not only were alienated, but so corrupted by the events that we cannot even comprehend what it was before. Wouldn't it make sense that the corruption was so complete that we had no remaining knowledge of the wholeness that preceded the tragic event?
Why do we still have knowledge of the garden? Why do our expectations float to the sensible, or mere logical for that matter, preferred existence we never truly knew or experienced? We are in the shadows of what once was. Yet the cosmos continues to move it is perpetual cycles and the solar system has not spun off into complete chaos and electrons appear to be still rotating around nuclei. There is a flavor of the past that remains, yet it is tainted and unattainable. Like the flavors and aroma of last nights savory dinner linger, it exists, but it is no longer here and I can still sense it.
Animals appear to have no knowledge, as far as I can tell, that anything other that what currently is, has ever been. They toil from day to day seeking their daily needs for survival, but don't appear to have any comprehension of right and wrong, or perfection, or a reality that would be in sync with an ideal. Why then does humanity have this awareness of the unattainable? How is it that we know of the Garden, understand what it once was like and comprehend what was lost? Wouldn't it be preferable that we were ignorant of these things and moved in and out of daily tasks with no notion of any other reality? It would seem this would be much less taxing. Gone are many anxieties and concerns over circumstances that do not meet expectations. We would in our blind and unaware state of being just move forward with "normal", absent a sense that life could be any other way. Yet, this is not how reality appears to have been built, nor how it functions.
Perhaps this is the knowledge of Good and Evil that the Bible describes. The awareness of what is preferrable, accompanied by the awareness that what we have is not preferable. There are graces, mercies and blessings that make our walks tolerable, even enjoyable. However these things are reflections of what could be in perfection and not the standard operating procedure of daily existence. Why was Plato's man no longer satisfied with the cave shadows after experiencing the reality based source of the shadows? Why does awareness of the reality that casts the shadows even exist? The knowledge of what should be is torturous because this is clearly not it.
The idealists among us might say the complex mixture of good and evil we live, is in fact, the beauty. They conclude that focusing one's attention on the beauty of the contrast and complexity is the key to enlightenment. But the inquiry remains, why do we seek enlightenment in the first place? Enlightenment still requires recognition that this, is not the Garden.
Simultaneously insisting we have a mind-over-matter duty to perceive it as good. Similarly, others may state that this reality is in fact, a beautiful one. This is hard to argue with given the Spring flowers on the trees, warming sunshine, landscape vistas and babbling brooks with rising trout. These things are unquestionably good and beautiful. Question, are the insects that infest and slowly killing the flowering tree part of the tree's beauty? Should we, as these friends suggest, appreciate the dark and the light?
The concern with our idealistic friend is there are darknesses that are too dark to appreciate. There are evils that do not have an admirable side and tragedies that have no redeeming value. There are dark colors that contribute nothing to beauty. The friend that quotes Romans 8:28 without continuing with Romans 8:29ff seems rather naive. In this case, we must tell our enlightened friend that there are irreparable elements of reality that cannot be admired no matter how hard we attempt to convince ourselves otherwise. There are tragedies that are literally and acutely not repairable this side of eternity. Appreciating the darkness in an effort to admire the wholeness of life via enlightenment seems like the fools errand of an individual who has not experienced something that cannot be repaired. "Appreciating" a murder for the contrast it contributes to life's landscape seems absurd. Assuming that whatever evil has taken could be replaced with something of equal or greater value in life, seems silly. There are some things so valuable that when they are lost, there is nothing in existence that can come close to replacing it.
There are things in life that once gone, cannot be replaced or redeemed with any amount of silver lining or broadening of perspective. Hiding one's eyes from the reality of evil so as to cling to a beauty that is a shadow, thank you for your advice friend, but does not answer the larger question. Why are we even aware of greater or lesser existences at all and astutely aware that this, is not as it should be? Moreover, believing life is a pleasant tapestry of light and dark colors ignores the fact that there is darkness where no color or light can be perceived.
The Book of Numbers is one example after another of teams of people having expectations for something, namely God's blessing or Moses' leadership, that simply are not met. The Hebrews are aware of the evil that causes their discomfort, death and suffering. They have the expectation that God would not "do it this way" and Moses is a fool for leading them into toil. They comprehend a good and experience an evil, complaining because they are aware that circumstances are not as they could be, and God is apparently in the middle of the whole scenario.
Like a target with a bullseye, it is not unreasonable to notice that the bullseye exists and has been missed. The enlightened friend will tell you that the beauty is in the design and the failure is simply a part of the artistic grand design. To which the natural reply is that this notion ignores the objective fact that the better than could be has not been achieved. Even a child knows that a broken toy is less desirable. The toy is not made more beautiful by its inability to operate properly and perform its intended function. And the Hebrews wandering the desert look around and say to one another, "this stinks". Duly noting that there is something that would be better, and this is not it. Asserting that the evil either does not exist or somehow contributes to a beauty, does not add up when tragedy shows up.
When tragedy arrives, we are stuck face to face with evil and somehow, some way, God is involved. We are very aware that the Garden exists, and this is not it, not even close. The bullseye has been missed. The beautiful landscape is burning and denying evil's existence or thinking positively about it is, I am sorry, ridiculous. It is vile to know what should be and be trapped inside the failure that is. It is wretched to be stuck in a fallen existence.
So, when Habakkuk sees the evil going on inside the city walls, and the evil preparing for attack outside the city walls, he asks a valuable and important million-dollar question, "God, where are you?". It is an honest question. It is a pertinent question. And it ranks among the preeminent questions human beings ask the Almighty.
Then spoke Jesus unto them, saying, I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. - John 8:12
There is nowhere else to go.