If it were not for the demerits of life ‑ its disappointments, its failures, its dangers, disease, calamity, fear and violence, there is not much doubt that most men and women would wish to live for ever. There is so much in life to give satisfaction and pleasure. There is the thrill of experiment and exploration; the joy of achievement, the endless variety of interesting things to see and to do. Given good health, pleasant companionship, freedom from fear, the world becomes a most desirable place in which to live. There are so many good things in creation. This earth, on which we find ourselves, is so admirably fitted to our needs and pleasures and capable of meeting all our requirements for daily living.

It was like that at the beginning. When in the course of God's creative activity the first human beings walked this earth the unpleasant things of life had not made their appearance. Not only the Bible narrative but also the oldest traditions of the most ancient nations tell of the primal Golden Age when man lived in communion with God and there was peace on earth. The modern view that the earliest humans lived in a condition of unintelligent savagery and depravity from which they slowly emerged as they became less like beast and more like man, has no support in ancient lore. All the old legends picture the first men and women as perfect and upright, fair of form and sound of mind, serving and loyal to a Higher Power. The first society was one based on equity and benevolence; the first human era one in which men lived in happiness and security, into which the dark shadow of evil had not as yet entered. One Sumerian epic, ("Sumerian Epic of Paradise" Pinches 1932) written some twenty-two centuries before Christ, describes that primal world as a glorious and holy land in which the wild beasts were tame and gentle, living in peace with the cattle. Men were kindly and just to one another; no violence, neither sorrow nor grief. The sun shone warmly and rivers of living water fertilized the land producing rich crops. It is easy to dismiss these traditions as folk-lore having no basis in fact, but it is true that the most ancient peoples did have this fixed impression of an original Golden Age and there must have been some reason for that impression; the fact that the Bible with its story of the Garden of Eden adopts the same position should be accepted as strong presumptive evidence that there was such a time of peace and equity in the days of the first man and that the after history of mankind as well as Divine intentions regarding the race must be viewed in this light.

All this highlights a principle, the acceptance of which is essential to a reasonable understanding of the riddle of life. God makes all things good! It is inconceivable that God is incompetent or impotent, as though He has to experiment a little and perhaps register a failure or two before achieving His purpose. In creating at all, He does so for a good purpose and the elements of His creation are in themselves good and fitted for their intended function. This is true of man; as he left the hand of his Creator, he was perfectly fitted for continuing physical life and free from inherent evil. That characteristic entered later. "God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1.31). "What is man" asked David "thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet" (Psa.8.4-6). And all this that man should enjoy the gift of conscious existence thus given, find happiness in life and discharge a useful function in this creation of which he is a part. God created man for happiness and usefulness, as well expressed by the Wise Man in Eccl.3.10-13 (RSV) "I have seen the business that God has given to the Sons of men to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time, also he has put eternity into man's mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; also that it is God's gift to man that every one should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil". The extent to which men in general do not measure up to this ideal is a measure of the extent to which they have departed from the state of goodness in which they were created.

But what is goodness? What is the yardstick by which must be measured such qualities as morality, rightness, benevolence? Can these things be defined as evidences of an orderly harmony with creation? The actions of every man has an effect upon the conduct of creation and what a man is and does either advances or retards the orderly progress of creation. It either facilitates or obstructs the Creator's purpose. That is why the individual life ought to be conducted in accord with the standards laid down by the Most High and why man owes a duty of loyalty to God, of co-operation and collaboration with Him. God is the source of the life that is in man and He is responsible for man's existence but He has made men in the form of creatures who are measurably independent of Him and of each other. Men depend for continued life upon their interaction with their environment, which affords them the necessities of life. That same environment allows them to express the life that is in them and to make use of it in exploration, experiment, achievement and enjoyment. But to experience all these things in their fulness and to gain the greatest satisfaction from them, it is essential for man to live the good life. Physically, he must play his part as a biological creature in preserving the balance of Nature, a duty he shares with all terrestrial living creatures. Morally, he must live as a member of a community, a community that embraces all humanity. seeking the welfare of all other members, playing his due part in all the labours and activities necessary to the continuance of the community. "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself' is not only a theological precept but a fundamental maxim for daily life.

Now in order, intelligently, to discharge this responsibility man must have a free-will, capable of willingly, without constraint, accepting the position and taking action accordingly, or rejecting it. He must either be so, or a robot, incapable of independent thought and action. "mere puppets which would dance only at the call of the master" as Gatland puts it ("The Inhabited Universe"‑ Gatland 1957). It is the glory of God that the intelligent creatures to whom He has given life do possess this quality of free-will and free choice. Everlasting life under any other condition would became an unendurable agony. Men are intended to become companions of God, to develop so intense an awareness of the tie that binds them to Him that they can enter into communion with Him and realise that they are integral parts of that which He has brought into being, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord" (Isa. 1.18). That such an invitation can be given and recorded is a striking testimony to the exalted position men may occupy in the sight of God, if they choose. 'Choose' is the operative word; it is unthinkable that creation can be effectively administered by responsible beings unless those beings have accepted their duties willingly and voluntarily and are heart and soul in sympathy with the principles and objects of creation.

It is obvious though that the reverse of goodness is possible in free-will creatures. There is a story told by Jesus in which a nobleman was called to the supreme Court of the Empire to receive appointment as king over his own little territory, and his citizens, hating him, sent a message to the Court saying "We will not have this man to reign over us" (Luke 19.14). In like manner it is a necessary corollary of free-will that the man may reject goodness and the good life and opt for the opposite; so we come face to face with evil and sin.

What is evil? What is sin? To say that sin is disobedience to God's commands and evil is anything which is of the Devil may be popular theology but is altogether too much of a simplification of the problem. If in fact it is the will of God that certain things should not be done then there is a valid reason; the prohibition must be for the good of mankind. If there are certain things credited to the power or activity or influence of the Devil as the arch enemy of God then those things have no rightful place in the progress of God's creation. They are in opposition to it and therefore must be opposed and eliminated. So it emerges that what is called evil, and what is called sin, are forces exerting a disruptive effect on creation. Whatever it is, in the physical sphere, that opposes or hinders the creative work of God, that is evil. Whatever it is, in the moral sphere, that opposes or hinders the progress of the individual towards God's ideal, or limits or destroys the God-given life that is in Him, that is sin. Sin cannot be defined by an arbitrary code of rules such as the Ten Commandments. That code listed certain prohibitions and admonitions which were applicable to a certain people in a certain stage of culture, and ceased to be applicable to its letter when the people and the culture that called it forth had passed away. Jesus made that plain when He said that love for God and love for neighbour included the whole of the Law.

Whatever tends to destroy the link that ought to exist between God and man, or between man and man, or whatever threatens or destroys the orderly relationship which ought to exist between man and his environment, this is sin and evil. So is anything that disrupts the interaction and interdependence between life and energy that sustains His creatures. If God defines a thing as evil, it is because it is harmful to man. If God says "Thou shalt not" it is for man's own benefit and ultimate happiness, even although in his present state of development man may well be ignorant of the fact. The pollution of rivers with chemical waste and refuse is sin just as heinous in God's sight ‑ perhaps more so ‑ than the violation of the seventh commandment. The training of children in the principle of self first and the practice of the law of selfishness may merit greater retribution in the eyes of the Most High than a breach of the eighth commandment. A proper appraisal of what constitutes evil and sin demands an understanding of the Divine purpose in creation and man's intended place in it. Perhaps sin can be defined as the deliberate practice of evil by an intelligent being. Animals cannot sin.

All of this exemplified is in the first story of the Bible ‑ the story of the Garden of Eden. These principles are included in that simple narrative. The first man and woman were brought into being by God, compounded out of the elements of the earth, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sulphur, potassium etc., infused with the power of life by the Holy Spirit of God, and became living, sensitive beings. 'The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul" (Gen. 2.7). He was set in a garden, a cultivated and prepared parkland, amid the surrounding wild and untamed countryside. In it were "made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food" and a river, "to water the garden", a perfect environment, affording all that human beings would need to sustain continuing life. They were given a mandate or commission expressed in the words "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the face of the earth". The earth was to be man's domain, to be brought under control by his labours and become as much a Paradise as the garden in which God had placed him. Then there was the admonition; refusal or failure to preserve his loyalty to God or transgress the laws of his being, would involve the loss of all that God had given him, the loss of life itself. "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

AOH