Last month we explored the concept of broken thinking. This month we will delve into a possible biblical explanation for broken thinking, and a suggested resolution for it.
As far as an explanation, let us explore what happened way back in the Garden of Eden. The account explains that God had created Adam, and placed him in the Garden. It is mentioned that in the center of the garden were two trees: the Tree of Life; and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God gave no instruction to Adam regarding the Tree of Life, but did instruct Adam that if he ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he would die.
It is interesting to observe that at the time of this instruction to Adam, Eve had not yet been formed. Shortly thereafter, Eve is formed from a “rib” of Adam. It is apparent that she is aware of the instruction regarding eating the fruit of this tree, but she possibly had not heard it directly from God, rather second-hand from Adam. Therefore, the serpent was open to challenge Eve. It is possible that if the serpent had said to Adam: “Did God really say …?”, Adam could have answered: “Of course God said that!” But Eve did not have this luxury; she really did not know exactly what God had said. So the crafty serpent challenged Eve, and unfortunately Eve did not check things out first with Adam or God before believing the serpent and taking a bite out of that fateful fruit.
Adam of course followed suit. The Bible does mention that he ate of it knowing the outcome, but he was in a dilemma. The girl of his dreams is lost. I suppose Adam also didn’t check things out with God first, before taking things into his own hands. So whose instruction was right? God said they would die, the serpent said they would not. After the misdirected faith, God prevented them from eating the fruit of the Tree of Life under these conditions, and kicked them out of the garden. I see this as an act of love, for God does not wish man to be eternally condemned.
I wonder what may have happened if Adam and Eve had been able to resist the serpent. I wonder if at some time God may have asked them if they had eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Life yet. Perhaps they would have answered: “No, we haven’t thought of that yet.” God may have replied: “What are you waiting for? Go ahead and eat!” After doing so, God could possibly suggest: “Now go ahead and eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. You don’t have to fear death, because you have life in you.”
I do not think it was God’s intention that we would not eat the fruit of both trees; it is just that we would have been better to have eaten those fruits under his direction. But history tells the other story, and we have paid for it dearly ever since. We are heirs of having eaten the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil on our own terms, and now we find ourselves in conflict with one another, each with our own definition of what good and evil are, and exerting our will to prove our point against one another. The consequence is that we are broken, as exhibited by the broken thinking of the destructive mindset, pitting one against another, as if people, or God, are the problem. This is the irrationality of broken thinking. People are not potatoes! I suppose that is why God instructed us not to eat of this fruit; he knew the cost!
So that is a possible explanation. What about the resolution? It seems as though we have been aware of our brokenness ever since, and many great wisdom writings and practices have been handed down to us through the ages. It seems as though they only meet with limited success. None is a complete repair. Perhaps God, as our maker, is also aware that we are broken, as perhaps God is looking at ways to repair us.
A brief biblical history of the world since “the fall” could be summarized in three major events: the flood, the law, and the son. Each of these events reveals God as being involved in man’s brokenness and in man’s repair. A description of these events is consistent with how we handle things that are broken: the discard, the crutch to shore up what is broken, and the repair.
As the population from Adam and Eve grew, people, as they display evidence of broken thinking, pit themselves one against the other in the survival mode. Man does not give much credence to God as being in the picture, but trusts in his own strength. This became toilsome for God. The discard: God decided to do away with man in a flood, but decided to spare Noah and his family. However, even though this dramatic event had consequences for the world, it did not change the basic attitude of man to pit himself one against the other, in terms of deciding who gets to rule and survive. God is revealed in this cataclysmic event, but man is not repaired.
Eventually, after the flood, city states and nations with kings ruled the day, each king deciding what is good and what is evil. God’s next major intervention was in giving the law, with Moses as the intermediary. The crutch to shore up what is broken: the law became an entity that people could relate with. People could then further relate with one another in the context of the law. God revealed himself to us by the giving of this law.
However, man’s own concept of what is good and of what is evil was not affected by the giving of this law. We see in history how man formed a privileged group that took ownership of this law. Somehow, it affected how people would relate with each other nationally and individually, displaying the destructive mindset. Therefore, nothing much had changed. The law revealed God and served a purpose, but man still was not repaired.
I think this is where Jesus, the son, comes into the picture as the next step in God’s repair plan. The repair: it is as if Jesus presents himself as the cure and possibly as the fruit of the Tree of Life. He reveals himself as God by his miracles, and he pretty much instructs us to: “Eat my flesh and drink my blood.” We have to believe him and not cater to our own idea of what is good and evil, in order to do this. By believing him, the promise is the giving of the Holy Spirit to man by God, which is the way to adjust and repair our broken thinking. It seems that this repair becomes complete when Jesus comes the second time and we are fully transformed to become like him. It seems that at least one of the ways we become like him is that we will have no problem forming the constructive mindset in whatever happens, for as it stands it appears that Jesus is the only one who is totally constructive. The best we can do until the second coming is to work on being as constructive as we can, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, but we cannot be completely constructive until the repair is complete.
The antidote to broken thinking is love. It is stated that God is love. It is as if we cannot love without God, because to love is to connect with God, who is love. Love has to do with relationship. Our broken thinking (the destructive mindset) that pits us against one another in a confrontational survivalist sense is transformed into love, which allows us to relate with each other in a collaborative manner (the constructive mindset).