A few years ago I was in England to study English. On the occasion of a visit to a London bookstore, I remember being attracted by the title of a book, which also became a bestseller: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.1 The thesis or basic truth of its author, the eclectic Robert Fulghum, is short and simple: what is really essential for life is not learned at university but, paradoxically, in kindergarten, starting from the very first relationships, from the confrontation with others. After all, what counts and is essential for living is not so complicated. Even the well-known Italian journalist Enzo Biagi liked to repeat in a proverbial tone: “The truths that count, the great principles, in the end, always remain two or three. They are the ones your mother taught you as a child.” It is legitimate, therefore, to wonder whether the same paradox does not also apply to the Christian experience. What is the essence of faith, beyond all the accessories that risk weighing it down?
Kindergarten in Eden
In the search for a faith that is essential and simple but not simplistic, we begin with the story of our origins—the “kindergarten” where God the Creator meets and relates to His creature and the human being taking his first steps. From this starting point we can discern two or three great ideas, two or three truths about God, life, and the bond that unites them.
Faced with the question of what is God’s first commandment given to humankind according to the Bible (apart from the imperative “Be fruitful and multiply” [Gen. 1:28]), many believers instinctively answer, “Do not eat the fruit of the tree.” But this answer is a partial and misleading summary of God’s visage and His words.
Between freedom and responsibility
In fact, God’s first commandment to humankind does not begin with a command about what not to eat, but with a fascinating invitation to life, a true and convinced yes to a full life: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’ ” (Gen. 2:16, 17).
Here we find not a God who denies something good to the human being, but a God who creates life, beauty, and well-being, for the happiness and pleasure of the human being. Nevertheless, even believers often perceive God’s visage in dark colors. This is evident, for example, for many young Adventists, as seen in a humorous strip by Gianluca Biscalchin that appeared in the youth Italian monthly L’Opinione with the evocative title “The Law First!”
In this strip four religious leaders appear in four vignettes: a priest, a rabbi, an imam, and an Adventist pastor with the following respective statements:
1. “It is nice to be a Catholic because premarital intercourse is forbidden.”
2. “It is nice to be a Jew because it is forbidden to do anything on Sabbath.”
3. “It is nice to be a Muslim because it is forbidden to drink alcohol and eat pork.”
4. “But being an Adventist is even nicer because a little bit of everything is forbidden!”
The law first! It is true, this is how God is sometimes perceived, as a great and gigantic NO, as a living and permanent prohibition, as a threat to human freedom. Faith, therefore, if understood in this way, is no longer a relief, a source of life and liberation, but might be perceived as a narrow cage, a cramped prison. If God’s law and commandments are no longer understood in the context of relationship, such might be perceived by some as cold, oppressive, and painful norms.
The purpose of the God of the Bible, Savior and Lord of life, is not to clip the wings of His children, but to train them to fly toward horizons of meaning, freedom, and lasting happiness.
Yet we can find embedded in Genesis 2 itself truths that are useful for building and nurturing our relationship of faith, or trust, with God in a more positive manner. Here are three ideas starting from a careful reading of Genesis 2:16, 17, a sort of elementary ABC to (re)discovering another visage of God, another way of understanding His will for good for every human being.
A. Enjoy life
As has already been mentioned, God’s commandment begins with these surprising words: “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat” (Gen. 2:16). That is to say, enjoy life, take joy from life and all creation.2 It is nice to think that God takes care of human beings by inviting them to eat. Is there anything more pleasurable and more essential? This invitation reminds me a lot of the expression of joy and amazement of my son Federico, at the age of 3, sitting on the shopping trolley in a large supermarket and with his arms outstretched, almost as if he wanted to grasp all the array of colors and variety shining in his innocent eyes. Here, then, is the visage of God in Eden, not a sad and avaricious tyrant, but a generous Father who ignites desire, the discovery of an authentic life. For the God of creation, the happiness and joy of His creatures is almost a duty.
B. Recognize your limits
The second part of God’s commandment, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” (verse 17) sounds, consequently, not as a subtraction of freedom but as a guarantee of it. As an invitation to recognize the limits of freedom, without which even freedom can quickly turn into delirium and a sum of deplorable slavery.
The intangibility of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” does not therefore derive from a capricious god, but is the very sign of human limitation. He or she who does not know and recognize his or her limits is destined, sooner or later, to get hurt. Despite the advertising slogan of a well-known watch (“No Limits. No Limits. No Limits.”) that may still sound particularly seductive to young people, real-life experience confirms that exactly the opposite is true. Living without limits is not only illusory but also dangerous: it creates, not life, but chaos and anarchy. It must be acknowledged, with Asha Phillips (a child psychotherapist), that there are some noes that help one to grow, and this also applies to the experience of faith.3
C. Evaluate the consequences of your choices
In the last part of this exemplary commandment, “for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (verse 17), God calls every human being, every believer, to weigh the consequences of their choices for good and evil, to take full responsibility for their actions. This too must have been on the apostle Paul’s mind when he wrote to the Galatians, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Gal. 6:7). Of course, there are no mechanisms valid always and in every case, but responsible action must accompany every human being on the demanding path of freedom. Not least because the true essence of freedom “is man’s ability to surpass himself, even to act against his inclinations and in defiance of his own needs and desires. . . . Freedom is liberation from the tyranny of the self-centered ego.”4
Conclusion
In a nutshell, the theological dynamic present in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:16, 17), as well as in the prologue of the Decalogue (Ex. 20:1, 2; cf. Deut. 6:20-25), also articulates in a significant and exemplary way the dialectic of grace and law, of gift and commandment:
“The divine commandment is based on grace: God gives man his being, He communicates to him His own life-breath; He pampers him by placing him in a garden of delights, and then begins his education. Similarly, in His Word, God first evokes the gift He has given, ‘You shall eat of every tree,’ and then introduces the limit to be observed: ‘You shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.’ This approach prefigures that of the gift of the law at Sinai. God brought His people out of slavery, set them free, and now He gives them His commandments. Similarly, in His Word, the memory of the gift precedes the obligation of the law: ‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. You shall have no other gods.’ ”5
The manifestation of grace, therefore, comes first and grounds the ethical imperative. The opposite is not equally true and possible. It is the love of God that creates for us the conditions for loving in our turn. “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). For this reason the purpose of the God of the Bible, Savior and Lord of life, is not to clip the wings of His children, but to train them to fly toward horizons of meaning, freedom, and lasting happiness. A true happiness that transcends the immediate pleasure, which goes beyond the reductive contemporary mantra “life is now.” For God’s yeses for our well-being are far more numerous than his noes to protect us, even from ourselves.
1 Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (New York: Villard Books, 1988).
2 See also the New International Version, which reads: “You are free to eat of any tree in the garden” (Gen. 2:16).
3 See Asha Phillips, Saying No: Why It’s Important for You and Your Child (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1999).
4 Abraham J. Heschel, The Insecurity of Freedom. Essays on Human Essence (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966), pp. 14, 15.
5 Jan Joosten, “Que s’est-il passé au jardin d’Eden?” in Revue de Sciences Religieuses 86 (2012): 495, 496 (translation and emphasis by the author of this article).
