Was There Evil Before Eden? – Brad Jersak

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Question:

I have a question. It would appear that evil has been present for a very long time. Death has been on earth for billions of years according to scientists. And in the Eden story the tempter was present. It seems to me that Adam and Eve’s sin didn’t mark the beginning of evil.

Response:

I can see your questions between the lines! Theses are important and insightful observation. And also quite a mystery!

The first order of business is sorting through what we know for sure scientifically and biblically… even philosophically… I’ll try sticking to the data (and some questions) at first:

1. Biblically:

a. We know that in Genesis, God says that “on the day” Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the wrong tree, they will die. But the story says that when they ate the fruit, they did not physically drop dead. Since the story is about humanity, we can relate. When we turn from love toward self-will, something ‘dies’ but without need of a mortician.

What then did God mean by ‘die’? Maybe, (i) he meant that on that day, they would lose their immortality (we are immortal by grace, not by nature) OR (ii) God wasn’t referring to physical death but rather, the experience we call alienation.

b. We know that in Romans, Paul says that it was through one man (Adam) that sin and death entered the world. It is interesting that he did not say “through the tempter, sin entered the world.” That’s interesting. Wasn’t the serpent evil?

c. Neither of these texts mention ‘evil’ per se (except ‘the knowledge of good and evil’). Perhaps the ‘evil’ in Eden is that the proto-couple chose self-will in their desire to be gods without God. The next time we read about evil is in Genesis 6 when God sees how ‘wicked’ and ‘evil’ people have become, specifically through levels of violence that made the earth uninhabitable! (The world is ‘ruined’ so God needs to give the earth a bath).

​2. Scientifically:

a. We know that biological death occurred in the world before there were people. That’s simply a fact.

b. But is death before humans showed up evil? Or is it simply natural?
Evil is a moral judgement. Can a comet or a raptor or a life cycle be evil?
In fact, is it true that the biological death of a human is evil?
We all die. But I think we can certainly say there are evil ways of dying.

​3. Philosophically:

​a. Philosophers have struggled with the ‘problem of evil’ since before the time of Jesus. It’s usually framed this way: “If God is all-good and God is all-powerful, why evil?” And yet we see evil. So where did it come from? And if evil is real, then they wondered whether God is perhaps NOT all-good or NOT all-powerful. Efforts to answer that conundrum rationally are called theodicies and generally worsen the problem by calling good evil or evil good.

b. Earlier philosophers thought evil included both natural tragedies (earthquakes, tsunamis, epidemics, death, etc.) and human wickedness (because both caused death). Later philosophers concluded that natural tragedies probably shouldn’t be considered evil, since it is a moral judgement—unless humanity triggered the tragedies.

Some Faith Statements

​So far, we have some facts and a few hard questions. Rather than treading where angels fear to dabble, I will stick to a few faith statements that I get from Scripture:

​1. While biological death in itself may be natural, losing loved ones causes deep grief. And whether that loss comes suddenly, tragically, prematurely, or through a prolonged disease like cancer or Alzheimer’s, how can we regard death as anything but an enemy (1 Corinthians 15)? No wonder we experience death as a power and an evil that we fear! Hebrews 2 acknowledges this but also brings good news:

14 Since the children have flesh and blood, [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

​So in Jesus’ death, the gospel is that he has broken the power of death and the fear of death. So we are no longer slaves to either. In fact, through his resurrection, Christ has transfigured the tomb into a womb. Dying is still a very real grief and we’re right to resist tragedies and diseases and wickedness that bring about death (these seem evil to me), but passing over is also now presented as the labor pains of our rebirth in resurrection.

2​. The kind of non-biological death we describe as alienation (or perishing in John 3) is also an evil that Jesus came to overcome. Jesus came into a perishing world to lead us from alienation to reconciliation. The kind of living death that isolates people and causes them to decompose emotionally, mentally, or spiritually is never resolved by condemnation or cajoling. The medicine is mercy—a divine welcome into belonging and belovedness. This is the eternal life (here and now) of knowing and experiencing our union with God.

3. Theologically, the early Christians didn’t regard ‘evil’ as some thing (noun) so much as a privation of the Good (more like a verb). In other words, evil was seen as an act of turning away from love (of God or neighbor). And repentance was not about self-loathing but as a joyful re-Turning to love.

Our orientation to love is a daily choice that we make through many interactions with others. It’s a good way to examine our spiritual and relational health. I ask myself,
”Where did I turn from love today? And where did I re-Turn to love today.” So we pray for the empowering grace to re-Turn to love, even and especially where our natural inclination is to react or retreat.

I hope this is of some help.

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