I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about consciousness and the nature of "being," and every time I think I am getting somewhere, I am led back to the fall of man and I hit a wall. What was the fall of man, and why did it occur?
(I'm gonna try to work this out cohesively...forgive me if I fail)
A lion hunts and kills and eats and sleeps because he is governed by an internal force that tells him that this is what he needs to do. He does not question why he does these things - but he does them anyway. We agree that this is instinct. I have become more and more convinced that Instinct is the closest to God we will ever be. It is a governing force that causes us to act in order to sustain life. Now lets look at the fall of man.
"...their eyes were opened..." the Bible says. I think we can interpret this to mean that mankind reached a point at which it was able to look objectively at his instincts. When this happened, he was able to choose whether or not to obey them. The fall of man, as everyone knows, was the beginning of free-will...but it is not often thought of in terms of instinct. The second human beings decided they understood how it was they lived and died, they assumed it was theirs as well to decided if they lived or died. The possibility of suicide is in direct contradiction with what the Bible preaches, and with the natural process of our bodies.
Mankind realized that he could kill himself - that he could make himself die - but that in the end, he could not make himself live. This began an unending conflict between God (instinct) and our objective knowledge of existence. I think that this is the reason for so much of the struggle between human beings. Am I making any sense???
Anyway - I'd love some feedback if anyone has any thoughts.
