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<\/a>\u201cFor God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.\u201d <\/em>\u2013 Genesis 3:5<\/p>\nI figured something out. I\u2019m not sure of the theology, so don\u2019t call me on the terms I use or on the methodology I employ. Still, I\u2019m fairly certain of the result. As such, I rise Archimedes-like from the bath, feverish with my solution and eager for its impartation (I won\u2019t run buck naked down the street shouting about it like he did, but I\u2019m pretty pleased nonetheless).<\/p>\n
The scriptural passage above\u2014in that lovely Jacobean English\u2014was spoken by our first friend, our bosom pal, the most subtle of all the friendly beasts in the neighborhood (when it was still fresh and new and unfenced): the wily serpent of ancient lore. In the creation story, this line is the point at which the tension builds. Deceit is being worked here\u2014the apple, offered; the trap, laid. The rest of the story needs no rehearsing, and it\u2019s merely ancillary to my discovery anyhow. For I\u2019m interested in the language set out above, in particular, the phrase \u201cand ye shall be as gods.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the part where, historically, I\u2019ve absolved myself of at least some portion of original sin, the fallen state that we\u2019ve inherited like a leopard does his spots, as C. S. Lewis would say. This business of being as a god seemed only hyperbole before, just part of the ruse the serpent in the story played to secure our first parents\u2019 disobedience.<\/p>\n
There now; disobedience\u2014that was the stuff of sin for me. I could see my way to owning a part of that. Rejecting the good, accepting the bad; that sounded very familiar. I could even concede that I fooled myself most of the time when it came to the good and the bad. As Aristotle predicted, like a true son of my race, I would tell myself that the bad is <\/em>the good, so that I could permit myself to have it. After all, no one chooses what he thinks is bad, said the Stagyrite, he simply rationalizes it into a semblance of the good.<\/p>\nBut see, that was my problem. I thought that sin was just a matter of disobedience. A matter of doing what you were told not to do or not doing what you should\u2014of choosing the wrong instead of the right. Now I spot my folly. That was just the means<\/em> by which the great sin was achieved. I disobeyed, yes, but only as the vehicle to get what I really wanted: to be God.<\/p>\nThis thought struck me like one of those epiphanies that both surprise and repulse: the kind of startlingly unpleasant experience of thinking someone reflected in a store window is particularly unattractive, right before you realize that the particularly unattractive person is you.<\/p>\n
And as with all such repulsions, I started to reject it: When have I thought myself God? When have I usurped God\u2019s place?<\/p>\n
But again, the grace of intellectual honesty made me concede that the experience of such a thing is common, though not in some melodramatic fashion. That is, the usurpation occurs not by way of ceremony or statement, but by action and consequence: I act as though I am my own creation, my own autonomous state, eternally begotten of my own fiat. Yes, it leads me to disobey, but only because I have first pronounced that I am entitled to\u2014I can, because I am (pace <\/em>Descartes).<\/p>\n\u201cThis is my realm,\u201d I say, as a god feels its scope, \u201cand all is permitted me here,\u201d as a god tests it.<\/p>\n
I posit that humanity\u2019s great sin amounts to the staking of a claim, the planting of a banner. This corner becomes a private sphere\u2014a strike-free zone, as it were\u2014off limits\u2014self-governing\u2014a country unto itself. There is but one crown, and no dominion can bear two masters.<\/p>\n
At first, there are terms of peace. \u201cThis one little area is all I claim,\u201d we say to God. \u201cI make no war with you. Just this one modest plot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then we bear our teeth.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it is mine. And you must stay out of it. Here I have my say. All else is yours, but this. I retain dominion, power, over this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Except, of course, they grow, these borders do; they never remain so small. I have revanchist tendencies. I spoil for empire. More and more of my heart must be ceded.<\/p>\n
And when that happens, the world shrinks\u2014I become all eyes\u2014wet tongue\u2014greased lips\u2014hands slippery, sweaty, sly. There is only my will and its object then. From my sovereign throne, I bestow the fullness of my magnanimity upon myself, and speak in the native language of my land:<\/p>\n
Have all that you see before you, my good and faithful servant. You have not toiled, nor have you reaped. You have made no promises, sworn no vows; you have pledged no part of yourself to what you would have. But take it anyway; use it; drain it; plunder and plow, pillage and sack\u2014grow full upon it and shove it aside when you are done. Prosper long upon this earth, this realm, your kingdom.<\/em><\/p>\nSo we who are not God clamber upon the throne clumsily, sharp elbows and skinned knees, like a child acceding to a place too high\u2014fumbling into a masquerade glory, a Mardi Gras fraudulence we eventually start to believe in.<\/p>\n
God has spoken in fire: \u201cI am.\u201d But how often we repeat those words, reflexively, with the referent for the great pronoun changed, and the voice of the speaker so subtle that it is hard to recognize it as our own.<\/p>\n
A.G. Harmon<\/a><\/strong> teaches Shakespeare, Law and Literature, Jurisprudence, and Writing at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. His novel, A House All Stilled,<\/em> won the 2001 Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cFor God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.\u201d \u2013 Genesis 3:5 I figured something out. I\u2019m not sure of the theology, so don\u2019t call me on the terms I use or on the methodology I employ. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1049,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[398,88],"class_list":["post-758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-g-harmon","tag-knowledge","tag-sin"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>\u201cFor God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.\u201d <\/em>\u2013 Genesis 3:5<\/p>\n