Tim Mackie

So if the tree is an object that is good and it generates desire, we're back to what we talked about all those episodes ago, who or what is the source of all of the good?

And in the framework of the seven-day creation narrative, God is the one who is the generator of life and of goodness.

What is goodness?

Goodness is valuing something.

as being the good, the beautiful, the true, the thing that fulfills my existence.

And if I mistake a good thing in God's world for the thing that will truly fulfill my existence, that's like the ultimate deception.

which it has to be why the Guard of Eden story is like the template setting story for what's wrong with humans in the rest of the biblical narrative.

We mistake good things, the only thing that can ever truly meet our desire, which is not anything at all, except the one who is the source of all things.

You know, there's this kind of, there's a move made in my experience of the branch of Christian culture that I've been in that talks about like the God-shaped hole in the human heart.

And I think I was introduced to that early.

And then at some point it kind of became so familiar that it became a little cliche.

And I think I'm coming to appreciate what a vitally important truth that is because the biblical authors actually are really exploring it, I realized, a lot.

that mistaking some good thing within God's creation for God as the thing I long for the most, that's it.

That's a way of naming the whole human tragedy.

Follow your desire.

I love your imagination.

Yes.

Okay.

That's a great point.

On the whole, fulfilling all of my desires all of the time