Dissolving the Adam myth
In the allegory of Adam and Eve, Adam was condemned ''to till the ground from whence he was taken,'' because of his transgression - eating of ''the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.'' He was an outcast, a sinner, having no hope of reconciliation with his creator.n1
n1 See Genesis 2, 3.
Like Adam, we may feel as though we're destined to till the soil of frustration interminably. If so, we've accepted a bogus view of ourselves. The belief that we're simply not good enough, or that we're stuck with what we are or where we are, is just that - a belief. It isn't an actual fact any more than the Adam myth represents the true man God has made. The story of Adam, though, provides an immensely valuable lesson in how a mortal view would overturn the eternal truth that man is made in God's likeness.
God, our loving creator, didn't launch a race of frustrated mortals, subject to limitation and failure. Yet this false sense pervades human thought, coloring a person's outlook without his being aware of the influence of this misconception.
The inspired message of the Bible, illustrated most vividly in the life of Christ Jesus, is that God is Love and that His creation expresses the perfect nature of this loving, wise creator. This truth is obscure, hidden, to unenlightened mortal thought. But it was crystal-clear to Christ Jesus, so much so that he healed virtually every phase of human misery. He discerned man's higher, actual nature, unrelated to the burdensome Adam maladies of disease, sensualism, and the sheer frustration that springs from a materialistic sense of existence.
Can we make the view Jesus held truly practical today? As we cultivate a clearer recognition of man, following his Christian example, more of what we really are will progressively come to light. At the same time, the distorted elements of human thought with which we've falsely identified, together with the conditions they've fostered, will begin to dissolve, because they were never really part of us.
We tend to believe that we - or others - are stuck with a particular lot in life. But man isn't really a fortunate or unfortunate offspring of Adam. He's not truly what heredity or environment or circumstance would label him. To insist he is, is to deny God's goodness, His supremacy. It's to assert that His creation is flawed, as the physical senses report. But creation isn't defined by what the senses behold. In truth it's spiritual, ideal, as God fashioned it, and that fact can be demonstrated in some measure by everyone.
If, then, you've grown accustomed to believing you're not as capable as others, or maybe not as lovable, or, through circumstances apparently beyond your control, not as healthy, this is a fleeting phenomenon of the Adam myth. And it is myth. It's not the supposedly engraved condition it appears to be. If others believe it, that doesn't make it true. They may have accepted our concept of ourselves or we may have unwittingly accepted their concept of us.
The remedy is certain. We can trust divine Love, knowing that the present difficulty, whatever it may be, is neither lasting nor true. It can be replaced in thought by the natural, real condition of man, who is the inheritor of limitless good from God. And this brings healing.
What steps should we take to forward this end? We can become even better acquainted with the Bible and rededicate ourselves to living its precepts. The living of love and purity is vital; any form of sin would hide the freedom and joy that are inherently ours. We can also realize, in silent prayer, our likeness to God. Through efforts in this direction we'll begin to prove the transforming power of Christ - the same Christ-power that Jesus lived so completely. We'll slice through the Adam myth with progressively clearer views of God's perfect, spiritual man.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, states unequivocally, ''The great truth in the Science of being, that the real man was, is, and ever shall be perfect, is incontrovertible; for if man is the image, reflection, of God, he is neither inverted nor subverted, but upright and Godlike.'' n2
n2 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 200.
On this sure basis we can go forward in the certainty of healing. DAILY BIBLE VERSE As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. I Corinthians 15:49
