|
of Eden was somewhere in that plain therefore, especially as the rivers Tigris and
Euphrates (Gen. ii. 14) are well known, and the other two rivers mentioned (Gen. ii. 11,
13) can, it is thought by some, be recognized in the Karkhah and the Karun. However this
may be, it is clear from the above-mentioned verses that the Garden of Eden was situated
on earth, somewhere to the East (Gen. ii., 8) of the land of Palestine, and not in the sky
as many Muslim sages have fancied, and as is stated in their Traditions
(احادث). In fine,
the earthly Garden of Eden is lost, and there is no great advantage in knowing where it
once stood, for, were we to find it, man could not there regain rest of heart and true
happiness. Man's true happiness can be found only in the heavenly Eden, the ever lasting
Paradise, of which mention will be made in the final chapter of this book; and man must
seek it with all his might.
Contenting ourselves with what has been said about Adams creation and his first
condition, we shall now deal with his sin and its consequences.
Since God had made Adam a free agent and had created him with the intention that he
should recognize, love and obey his Creator, it was necessary that Adam should show the
love he bore to God by obedience to Him. And, although God did not prevent Satan from
tempting Adam and Eve, yet He permitted the temptation to take place, not with the desire
that they should fall into disobedience,
|
|
|
but simply with the object that Adam, having thereby been rendered firmer in faith and
love and obedience and in friendship with his Creator, should advance in happiness and
honour, and should thus become acquainted with both good and evil. Therefore God afforded
an opportunity to Adam of showing his love and obedience. That is to say having planted in
the Garden of Eden the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God
forbade Adam to eat of the latter, saying, 'In1 the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die.' Nor was it difficult for Adam to abstain from the
forbidden thing, for God rendered the observation of that prohibition easy for him, not
only by the great favour, kindness, graciousness and love which Adam had up to that time
enjoyed, but also by the fear of a new, debased and terrible state into which Adam was
warned that he would fall through disobedience.
If you now ask what sort of a tree that one was which was forbidden, and what effect
there was in its fruit, and how Adam then ate of it, we cannot give a decisive answer;
because these matters have not been explained in God's word, and man's condition and that
of much of the world is other than it was in those days. Yet, though we cannot say more
about that tree, so much is evident, that it was the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, though it had the prohibition attached to it. For
|
|