Adam Revisited

Before French philosopher René Descartes wrote these famous words: "Je pense, donc je suis" [1], "I think, therefore I am," there was Adam from the Garden of Eden. Would these words have entered Adam's mind?  Possibly, but not in that order.  Instead, Adam's words would probably be these: "I am, therefore I think."

Adam was God's creation.  He came into being in the flesh, conscious that he was being made but without awareness of who he was.  Adam could simply be without thinking, since he was provided with everything he would ever need, even though Adam was given the gift intellect and could think. However, at no time did Adam's cognitive ability precede his being. Therefore, he could not, unlike Descartes, first think, then conclude that he was.  Adam simply was, before he could even think.  Neither could Descartes think, in the literal sense, before he was, for if Descartes had never bothered to think, he still would have been a being of God's creation.

Perhaps Descartes' assertion, "I think, therefore I am," ought not to be taken literally; perhaps it went deeper.  Perhaps he was not saying that he was nothing but a heap of cells lumped together in some random fashion until he thought, when as a result of his own thoughts, he came to realize himself.  Perhaps he was saying that did not know who he was, what he was, how and why he came into being until he thought.  That would be a reasonable interpretation of his words since Descartes was educated in, among other disciplines, metaphysics. [2], [3].  Regardless of how Descartes intended his famous words to be read, literally or metaphysically, they did not apply to Adam.  Based on this blogger's assumptions, Adam did not have to think to know that he was Adam (God called him by that name), that he was made of flesh (he could feel it), that he came from God (he was given consciousness at some point while he was still in the making) and that he was made because of God's love (Adam's connection to God was so close that he knew instinctively why God created him).

Although Adam did not have a need to think, God nonetheless gave him intellect at some point after his creation.  It is possible that Adam did not use his intellect for quite some time.  In the Garden of Eden, time was irrelevant because it was timeless.  Adam could have been roaming around for centuries in the Garden of Eden, a place that could have been earth before it was riddled with pests and pestilences, enjoying life and spending time everywhere without being aware of time, his intellect and his sexuality, before he finally became bored, before Eve was made for him [4] and before he experienced the Serpent.  Because Adam was sinless at the beginning, he did not age nor did he know death.

All Adam needed to do as a human being in the perfect environment of Eden was to drink when he was thirsty, eat when he was hungry, rest when he was tired and carry out the remainder of his bodily functions and needs when necessary.  All of this is instinctual requiring no thought. With no worry and no stress, Adam had no reason for thought.  The Garden of Eden was the perfect vacation spot where the mind could be at rest.  Perhaps thought did not enter Adam until he was made to think about disobeying God, to be just like God, perhaps even better than God, in order to create a better Eden, as if he could.

Adam did not live long enough to create his Eden, but his descendants have not stopped trying to surpass God's natural perfection in the Garden of Eden, by filling the flip-side of Eden with artifices and modified substances.  If planet earth is Adam's Eden, it is a disaster in the making.

Man can only see so far--his lifetime and not much beyond, a moment in the course of eternity.  Therefore, his plans are necessarily short-sighted.  Even if they seem good, they only seem good to him during his lifetime, leaving behind by-products such as garbage and toxins for those in the next to clean up [5], until nothing can be done to dispose of generations of hazardous e-waste [6] that may never biodegrade and to neutralize higher and higher concentrations of toxins that are poisoning the air, the waters and the grounds.

New thoughts in a new generation do not solve problems created by the previous.  They only create new problems for the next, but thought, however defective and deceitful, however motivated by greed, power and profit, is here to stay.

Thought, driven by intellect, is the foundation of Free Will. Without thought, Free Will could not exist.  Free Will matters only when options are available.  Ironically, it was the Serpent, a creature of deceit, that gave Free Will its first option, whether or not to eat the Forbidden Apple, thereby perfecting God's gift of Free Will but forever tainting pure innocence

The death of natural innocence gave birth to unnatural thoughts.  It is possible that unnatural thoughts went into Adam's head after he sinned.  That was when René Descartes' words began to apply to Adam metaphysically when he would have to first think, before he was, because after he sinned, he realized that he had choices to be who he wanted to be, to do whatever he wanted to, to create whatever he wanted to create and think whatever he wanted to think, often times disrespecting Creation and destroying it as a result, without seeing any need for accountability, not in the spiritual sense.  Modern day adherents to those profound words of Descartes are Adam's descendants, including those who are transgender, who think; and therefore, they are.


[1] http://home.wlu.edu/~mahonj/Descartes.Bio.htm
[2] Ibid.
[3] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphysics/
[4] There has been some controversy as to how Eve was created after "biblical professor Ziony Zevit [suggested that] God made Eve from Adam's baculum, or penis bone" rather than Adam's rib. See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3377487/God-Eve-Adam-s-PENIS-not-rib-claims-religious-academic.html
[5] http://listverse.com/2013/01/27/10-ways-recycling-hurts-the-environment/
[6] http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2013/e-waste.aspx