On the Creation of Adam
The Hebrew word for “ground” is adamah. That’s the reason that the first human being, created from the “dust of the ground,” is named Adam. The first human being, according to the second chapter of the book of Genesis, is a gathering of dust, not even airborne dust, but the dust of the ground, deliberately shaped and miraculously animated to walk upright. But of course he’s more than that. For he is also imbued with free will. He could not be created otherwise and be human.
This element of the of Eden narrative is often overlooked. Even an omnipotent God cannot create a human being without creating him free, for free will is definitionally requisite to the concept of a human being. Take away his free will, and he ceases to be human; he becomes something other than human, something less than human; he becomes a robot, a flesh and blood automaton.
The logic is perhaps easier to grasp at a greater creaturely distance. Consider, for example, a “feeling stone.” Logically, a feeling stone is a contradiction-in-terms. By definition, a stone is an unfeeling thing. That means that a feeling stone would be a feeling unfeeling thing. Therefore, it cannot be. It isn’t even a thing, since thing-ness denotes intelligibility and the potential to be, which is not the case with a feeling stone. Nevertheless, at the moment we attempt (futilely) to conceive it or discuss it, we instinctively imbue it with thing-ness. That’s a cognitive, as well as a logical, error. For even though we can say what a feeling is, and thereby what an unfeeling thing lacks, we cannot sensibly say what a feeling unfeeling thing is… because a feeling unfeeling thing isn’t. To say what a feeling stone is is simply to say and then unsay its requisite properties. Again, it’s a contradiction in terms. It cannot be.
But what happens if, in the distant future, in a faraway galaxy, a space probe sets down on a hitherto unknown planet, and the stone it lands on cries out in pain?
It’s not going to happen.
It can’t happen because the moment that a “stone” cries out in pain, it has ceased by definition to be a stone, which is an unfeeling thing.
Likewise, human beings, in order to be human, must possess free will. That is the only attribute that distinguishes human beings from automatons. But to possess free will is moot, and indeed meaningless, if there are no choices to make—which is why, according to the Eden narrative, God forbids Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil… and then plants the tree not on the periphery of the Garden but right smack in the center. It had to be so. In order to exercise their free will, Adam and Eve require a commandment to either obey or disobey, and the decision to obey or disobey must be entirely theirs, and it must be unavoidable; the decision must be laid out in front of them, it must be up in their face, every day of their Edenic lives.
Now take a closer look at Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam, pictured above. Notice, in particular, the detailed view of the two outstretched hands. God’s index finger is fully extended toward Adam’s index finger; the two fingers are about to touch. But Adam’s index finger is slightly bent. He must decide whether to straighten it, to extend himself and touch God. It’s his decision, not God’s. The moment Adam, the first human being, is created is not the moment his flesh is formed from the dust of the ground; it is the moment he first exercises his free will
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