Why did Adam fall?
It wasn't so I could grow my 401k
Thought
The most universal diagnosis known to the human family is life itself. Whilst life is brilliant, majestic and awe-inspiring, it is nonetheless terminal; everyone dies. Everything dies; if we are to trust the science, should we live long enough we’d see our own sun and thus our solar system die.
Death and the pain the precedes dying is the great equalizing truth in the universe. Rich or poor, none will escape. I realize this all sounds quite morbid, but meditating on death and the impermanence of life is something I find myself doing with increasing frequency.
I don’t know if God created me so that I could work a job that I likely find unfulfilling, save so I can ‘retire comfortably’ and then die. Is this why Adam fell? That man might buy more stuff, build bigger houses, drive nicer cars, acquire more possessions, climb the career ladder, build an investment portfolio…
For all these things, how many of them have brought forth joy? What man has felt joy looking at their 401K Balance? What car has ever brought joy? Does the third or fourth bathroom tip the scale to joy? Of course not!
We’ve been sold so many lies by clever and sometimes conspiring men who desire to make another dollar or oppress or suppress the souls of other men. Maybe I am wrong, I am not suggesting we don’t save or own homes, but these things in the end matter little. Whether there is a God or not, these things do not induce joy and often are hinderances to acquiring joy.
Anyway… I could say more, but for now I am tired and must now rest.
Quote.
Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find you have excluded life itself.
- C.S. Lewis (The Problem of Pain, p.25)