The story of the Garden of Eden is usually told as humanity’s first failure. Adam and Eve disobeyed God, listened to the serpent, and ate from the Tree of Knowledge. For centuries, preachers have framed this as evidence of human weakness – and the reason we all need salvation.
But if we take a step back, the story reads less like a tragedy of free will and more like a setup.
The Limits God Built In
According to the Bible, Adam and Eve were created with innocence, not wisdom. They had no experience with deceit, no understanding of manipulation, no knowledge of good and evil. God made them this way.
Yet into this state of naivety, He introduced an absolute prohibition: do not eat from this tree. A rule with no wiggle room, and a penalty so severe it shattered paradise itself. It wasn’t a fair test – it was an impossible test.
The Placement of the Serpent
Even more troubling is what comes next. God not only planted the Tree of Knowledge in the center of the garden, within easy reach, but He also allowed – or perhaps deliberately placed the serpent right there beside it. The very agent of temptation was put directly in front of the two people least capable of resisting it.
If God is all-knowing, then He knew what would happen. If God is all-powerful, He could have stopped it. But instead, He let the conversation unfold.
A Guaranteed Failure
What do you call it when someone designs the rules, rigs the environment, and withholds the tools needed to succeed – then punishes failure as if it were freely chosen?
That’s not justice. That’s not love. That’s a trap.
Adam and Eve were never set up to flourish. They were set up to fail. And when they inevitably did, God condemned them – not just them, but all of humanity – to a life “east of Eden.” Pain, toil, loss, mortality. Less than paradise forever.
The Narcissistic Pattern
Look at it closely:
• God creates the rule.
• God withholds the wisdom.
• God positions the serpent.
• God punishes the failure He orchestrated.
This is not the story of a loving father betrayed by ungrateful children. It’s the story of a narcissistic deity setting a trap and then demanding worship for offering the only way out of the very disaster He engineered.
The Dirty Little Secret
For believers, Eden is often painted as the moment humanity “fell.” But the real dirty little secret is this: the fall wasn’t an accident. It was built into the design from the very beginning.