Eden's purposes cont.

Our unique understanding of the fall of Adam and Eve is looked at here.  If Adam and Eve were actual people, and the Garden of Eden an actual place, then what difference does it make whether this is the 'real' plan or the fallback plan?  Does it really matter to our lives?

I submit that it does.  If Adam and Eve ruined the bliss that God intended for us, then we are a continuing disappointment to Him.  Every one of us is born into a condition which should have been a better one.  If that were the case, maybe we would ask why he didn't decide to start over, and pick someone else.  When all the people on the earth were so wicked that he saved only one family from the flood, couldn't he have taken that kind of action at the very beginning and given the human race another try at paradise?

If the hope and plan of God was that we would live peaceably in this perfect-forever place, then we would have had all we needed.  We would have been all we could be, already.  If we are now instead living our lives out in an inferior state, then we can never overcome it entirely, and we can only become so much and no more.

Either way, the message is the same:  we are forever lesser creatures who cannot make progress beyond a certain level.  In the first case, we would be theoretically happier than we are now, peaceful and easy and not learning much, just being.  In the second case, we struggle and fail and repent so that God will be more pleased with us, but we can only go so far.  If you believe that God created us, individually and particularly, out of nothing, zap! with a snap of his fingers, then how is it our fault that we are not already perfect?

Why do we exist at all?

In fact, that assumption is the source of the question of those who have not yet found faith, or who have lost it, of how there can be such evil in the world if there is a God.  If God created this earth and every person in it, out of nothing, exactly as it is and as we are, with all its flaws, and ours, how can he be the definition of love?

If we understand, as the Prophet Joseph Smith was taught and taught us, that we are co-eternal with God, who is our Father, it is a whole different matter.  If we have always had some individual identity as intelligences, then were brought forward as spirits by our Heavenly Parents, then offered the chance to make a further step by becoming physical beings, then this plan was to go down and struggle through the learning curve that was necessary for us to purify our nature and grow into our potential.  Each step in that sequence of becoming is essential.

He could tell us everything we wanted to know, but theory only goes so far.  Experience is a more profound teacher.  Even if we understood everything in concept, it doesn't change us until we put it into practice and discover that dealing with other people's choices and personalities, and with imperfect circumstances, is tricky.  What would we learn from being here if there were not hard choices?

From 2 Nephi chapter 2:   (Book of Mormon)

12 Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God....

15 And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.

16 Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.

We have to have, and make, real choices.

6 Wherefore, redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; for he is full of grace and truth.

7 Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered....

9 Wherefore, he is the firstfruits unto God, inasmuch as he shall make intercession for all the children of men; and they that believe in him shall be saved.

Christ, chosen as the Redeemer, was the answer to how we could come back to our Father, who was so purely perfect that we would not be able to withstand his presence in our inevitable failings.  The gospel is about how we can become perfected in Christ as we repent and strive, and his sacrifice answers the eternal law of accountability and punishment.  Isaiah said:

4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.  (Isaiah 53)

It is all about learning and becoming.  We do have a reason for being here and going through all this. We take with us out of this life our experience and knowledge, our relationships, and our growth.  Every other thing is left behind.  Our Father is waiting to welcome us home again, to rejoice with us in all that we have gained and all that he can give us.  This life does mean something; it means everything.