Season 3 Podcast 181 Utopia

Utopia We have names for the perfect society: ·      The Garden of Eden, ·      Shangri La,·      El Dorado, ·      Promised Land, ·      Heaven, ·      Camelot, ·      Paradise, ·      Nirvana, ·      Utopia, ·      Happy Valley, ·      The New Jerusalem, ·      The Celestial Kingdom·      Zion, ·      Elysium, ·      Empyrean, ·      The Millennium. ·      ArcadiaI dare say that all religions promise an eternal utopia, and all mankind dreams of Elysium.  Those, however, are future imaginings, and, surprised by tragedy and disrupted tranquility, we must live in the real world filled with noisy commotions, inveigling distractions, and abrupt interruptions.  It is ironic but Adam and Eve willingly partook of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil to escape Paradise, knowing they would be forced to leave the Garden of Eden. The story of Adam and Eve has become the archetype of all utopian literature:  Hugh Conway left Shangri La; Candide left El Dorado; Raphael left Utopia; and Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, left Happy Valley.  Once they left, they all longed to return, but, of course, like an unhappy adult one can never return to the elysian fields or “blissful captivity” of youth.  “Blissful captivity” is the term Samuel Johnson used to describe Happy Valley.  The Prince was unhappy because he had everything and didn’t know what to desire: In Johnson’s novel we read,“Here the sons and daughters of Abissinia lived only to know the soft vicissitudes of pleasure and repose, attended by all that were skillful to delight, and gratified with whatever the senses can enjoy.  They wandered in gardens of fragrance, and slept in the fortresses of security. Every art was practiced to make them pleased with their own condition.”   3 RONChristians long for the Garden of Eden, Paradise, the Millennium, Heaven, and the New Jerusalem.  We always desire that which we do not have; but, like freedom once achieved, once we do have it, we consider it as common and trade it for that which has the most glitter. As Peter warned, 16 As free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. (1 Peter 2:16)Today, Christians long for the Second Coming of Christ, the coming down from heaven of the New Jerusalem, the Rapture, and The Millennium where Christ will reign a thousand years; but the paradox of life is that the only way we can enjoy the Millennium and even heaven is to first experience a taste of hell.  We must gain a knowledge of good and evil which can only be found in mortality.  The law of opposition is necessary in both the temporal laws and spiritual laws.  Adam and Eve and their posterity had to first leave the Garden of Eden and experience life in the natural world before they could enjoy the fruits of paradise.  Adam and Eve chose the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil over the fruit of the tree of life because immortality in the Garden of Eden, without the forbidden fruit, was tasteless.