7) The Fall of Adam and Eve
How did Adam and Eve, created by the omnipotent God, fall? This is an important theological problem.
Many Christians believe literally what is written in the Bible, that Adam and Eve fell by eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If they ate a literal fruit, then it would not have been a big problem. However, when we see the history of the providence of restoration taking six thousand years, we can understand that Adam and Eve did not fall by merely eating a fruit.
How, then, did Adam and Eve fall? Simply, Adam and Eve fell due to a problem of love. Because the problem was love, the providence of restoration has taken thousands of years and has been prolonged repeatedly to this day. Most religious believers have not understood this fact.
Who was it that trampled on love? It was the archangel. He trampled on the love of Adam and Eve. The archangel seduced Eve, and through her, he trampled on Adam. As a result, Adam and Eve's love, which should have centered on parents' love and followed the true path to reach God, deviated and went astray.
This is why all humankind, which was supposed to inherit God's flesh and blood, instead received Satan's flesh and blood. Most religious believers never even dreamed of this.
It is written in the Bible, "Do not eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." The commandment contains the implication that the relationship between God and human beings could be broken. Indeed, a problem arose, which the Divine Principle explains about clearly. The Divine Principle is a great gospel for people who do not know clearly about the Fall. It is the great gospel for saving all people, who are living in suffering.
We cannot accept that the fruit was the literal fruit of some tree. Why would God create a fruit that could cause a situation in which all humankind would suffer in struggles and destruction for millions of years? It is more logical to regard this situation as resulting from the matter of love that I have been discussing.
Where did the Fall start? [In the family.] What was the fall of the family? Was it eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good or Evil? Nothing other than love could cause Adam and Eve to fall as a family. Did they fall through eating the literal fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Could the Original Sin arise from eating a literal fruit? If, as many believe, the Original Sin occurred when the father ate a fruit, then what kind of fruit could cause thousands of generations of his descendants to become sinners? The generations are related through lineage. If the root of sin is planted in the lineage, the sin continues forever by the law of heredity. Only the problem of love could make this happen. Wrong love was the cause of the Fall.
The Fall occurred when Adam and Eve were tempted by illicit love. This love, though not permitted by God, came at them from the left and the right. Succumbing to it, they violated the moral law.
When you come to know about love, you will be well acquainted with everything. You will not only know the facts of the earth plane, but also your spiritual eyes will open and you will under, stand the physical and spiritual worlds in all their dimensions. You will reach the level where you can see God face to face.
However, Adam and Eve fell before they fully developed their awareness of love. Their immoral relationship with the archangel was the fundamental cause of the destruction of the universe.
The Fall happened because of love. The main point of love is not the eyes or the mouth. The Fall occurred through a man and a woman's love organs. The Fall ruined everything.
The place where love is consummated is where all the senses merge together. However, the fall destroyed this original standard and damaged the entire universe.
We are supposed to grow centering on love. However, when something goes wrong with love, God steps back. In this respect, the Fall cannot be anything other than a failure of love. This is why it became a problem for God, for humankind and for history. Only disastrous failure of love can cause such a shock. It was the greatest catastrophe in the whole universe.
The Fall was making a love relationship with Satan.
The Fall was this: we joined with Satan and left God.
The Fall was the failure of love caused by an evil motive towards the lineage. This is why we inherit the result of the Fall as the Original Sin.
Amazingly, the fact that the Fall resulted from love was only revealed in the time of Reverend Moon. I have investigated its history and systematized its theory, so that no-one can deny it.
The reason that the omniscient and omnipotent God could not prevent the Fall is as follows:
God must maintain the absoluteness of love, so it was for Adam and Eve to develop their love up to the level desired by God. Since they fell during the process of their growth, God could not prevent their fall. As all human beings have to go through the period of adolescence, Adam and Eve were to become perfect after going through a certain growing period. Then they would have become one with God. Yet, they fell before reaching that level.
If Adam and Eve, standing before God, could have understood God's inner feelings, they would not have been able to fall. God as a Parent had a heart of love for His children, but the children did not know their Parent's deep heart. The Fall occurred when Adam and Eve were young. Yet, was the motivation of the Fall because of their deficient age, or rather because of their deficient hearts? If Adam and Eve had said, "God knows me. He can never leave me no matter what," and had felt that they were the center of God's every concern, then they would not have been able to fall. In-other words, the Fall took place because Adam and Eve's hearts were not in accord with God's heart. The Fall happened because their wishes could not meet Heaven's wish, and their thinking strayed from Heaven's thinking.
What is the Fall? The Fall occurs when we engage in human-centered love and ignore heaven and earth, ignore human beings, and ignore God. Therefore, any society where promiscuity is rampant will perish.
The Fall was the archangel and Eve together bringing her husband to ruin.
The Fall was the separation of man and woman. Adam and Eve became enemies.
The most serious among all sins is the sin that ruptures divine love. We must know this law of nature. Adam clearly failed in his duty as a brother, and Eve failed in her duty as a sister. When the archangel tempted Eve, Eve should have checked with Adam and Adam should have asked God. However, because they acted on their own, they went the way of the Fall.
What do you think the Fall is? The Fall meant that they could not live as the original ideal human beings, become the true loving husband and wife desired by God, and live with God centering on love.
The Fall meant that Adam and Eve, who should have become one with each other centering on God, instead became one with the archangel, a servant of God. Instead of inheriting God's lineage, human beings descended from the servant's bloodline. Therefore, no matter how much fallen people call God "my Father," they do not feel it as true to life.
This is because human beings inherited a fallen nature, an inclination to think only of oneself without caring for anything else, including God. We became beings of contradiction, and hence whatever we establish-tribes or nations, etc. divides after a while. In this way, we formed the realm of satanic culture. In the satanic realm, whatever is established as one divides into two, and two into three, until ultimately, everything divides.
God has been unfolding the providence of unification, to bring the divided cultural realms into one. Every human being has an original nature that desires to be part of the central existence of the universe. However, in this world, the central existence is not God, but Satan. Therefore, whenever people seek for the center, they end up becoming unhappy rather than happy. Such has been the unfolding of the miserable history of humankind.