The Estuary of Theology 11

The Work of Man (The Serpent)

 (Modified in Apr. 2020)

The last discussions on Christian communities have led us to the conclusion that “my church” (cf. Matthew 16:18), which Jesus talked about, does not yet publicly appear. This fact may be a negative factor in answering the question that we asked in The Estuary of Theology issue 1, “Why can’t Christians put an end to the ‘work of man’?” and to put an end to the “work of man.” So, from this issue on, I would like to approach the origin of the “work of man” itself and to discuss aiming for the understanding of its mechanism so that I can clarify the connection between the fact that “my church” does not yet publicly appear and the reason why Christians cannot put an end to the “work of man.”

We can understand that living things had the faculty of storing things that they experienced through their five senses, namely the five-sense data, in their memory from the fact that God had arranged food for them (cf. Genesis 1:11-12, 29-30). When more than one living thing with this memory gets together, a kind of information comes to emerge in their five-sense data. When living things face an event, each of them does not experience it in the same condition at the same time even if they belong to one species. Each data which each of them obtains is always somewhat different from each other. When they come across the same event on another occasion, this difference will appear as a difference in the way of reaction. This difference of reaction is exchanged each other among the living things of the same species through five senses and is stored as five-sense data in the memory of each of them. This memory is the information which would not have existed if the living thing had been alone, and we can call this process the accidental emergence of information in the five-sense data. Living things, which were created by God, must have evolved with the influence of the accidental emergence of information over a long time and have lived preserving their species and following the history of God and man, that is, the process of the completion of the plan of the Creation. The accidental emergence of information can be regarded as a part of nature because it arises when living things gather. 

The man who was created for the first time in Genesis had the faculty of storing five-sense data in his memory like other living things. When the man was divided into a man and a woman, this memory of the five-sense data of the man is thought to have been equally succeeded by the two (cf. The Estuary of Theology issue 4). Therefore, both of them equally had the memory of God’s caution about the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, each memory that they had after they were separated to a man and a woman was different from each other because there was a difference in condition between the man, who had succeeded almost entire body of the man, and the woman, who had been newly created as a helper. This difference appears as a difference in the way of reaction when they come across the same event. Eventually, the accidental emergence of information has arisen in five-sense data of each of them. The fact that the woman has received the verbal image of the serpent, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1), expresses that very this accidental emergence of information had taken place.

By the accidental emergence of information, the data which God had given to the first man, “You may freely 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 die.” (Genesis 2:16-17) was unknowingly changed to the data that the woman responded: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” (Genesis 3:2-3) 

The man is supposed to have had the same information as this response of her at the same time because she says “We.” The image of God’s words which they had remembered from the beginning must have been rewritten as the accidental emergence of information has been repeated between them while the whole image has become obscure because of the difference in image between the two commands: “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden” and “[O]f the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” For them, who have never experienced death, it is an image they cannot grasp through their five senses. Then, as they communicate with each other, the image of death was put in their memories as a negative and obscure image: “You will not die.” (Genesis 3:4) 

When God divided the man into a man and a woman, God cast a deep sleep on the man and took one of his ribs, and He created the woman out of it. He closed up its place with flesh and remodelled the man into a man. We can understand, from the word the man said at the time, that it was the woman brought by God that the man saw first when he awoke (cf. Genesis 2:23). On the other hand, it was God that she saw first. When she was brought to the man and saw him, she must have had a strong impression from the difference between God and the man, who had been made in the likeness of God. Holding this image, she, with the man, was in front of the tree in the middle of the garden, the tree which she had been looking at with an image of God’s word of prohibition: “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it.” Then she saw “that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise” (Genesis 3:6). This image of her had developed in her into the image of the word of the serpent: “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5) In this situation, she took and ate the fruit of the tree. The reason why she then gave some to her husband, who was with her, was because she was not simply a living thing but a human, particularly a human created by God as “helper.” 

The knowledge of good and evil, which was given when they ate the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, gets connected with the memory of the five-sense data. When the knowledge of good and evil draws data from this memory, it finds data acquired through the accidental emergence of information and takes it in as its own knowledge, and it evolves making it the recognition. On the other hand, the fruit of the tree of life makes the knowledge of good and evil recognize the fact that the free mind, which was breathed by God, belongs to God, and that humans have eternal life. The knowledge of good and evil of the two does not find the data of having eaten the fruit of the tree of life in their memory of the five-sense data because they did not eat from the tree of life first, so even if it stores the words that God tells in the memory of the five-sense data, it does not make them into recognition and does not make itself evolve towards God. It always tries to evolve based on data acquired through the accidental emergence of information. For this reason, the Bible calls the data by the accidental emergence of information which appeared in the memories of five-sense data of the two in the garden of Eden a serpent, and God foretold that the serpent will crawl on its belly inside the memories of people, who will sooner or later return to dust, all the days of its life (cf. Genesis 3:14). 

All human faculty about knowledge are the faculty of the knowledge of good and evil. Therefore, God, who is the creator of this knowledge, knows whatever a human thinks as the Gospel reads: “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did; but Jesus did not trust himself to them, because he knew all men and needed no one to bear witness of man; for he himself knew what was in man” (John 2:23-25). However, as God asked the man and the woman, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (Genesis 3:11), God, who does not need to know the decision of the human free mind, does not know what action a man takes and when it is taken (cf. The Estuary of Theology issue 5). 

To be continued.

Mar. 2020 in Hiroshima

Maria K