The Coming of Self-Consciousness Through the Fall of Adam and Eve

The story of man in Genesis is a story of separation — a tension between man and God, even as they remain inherently tethered to one another. In one of the oldest recounts of human’s creation story, Genesis, we get two accounts of how man came to be.  The first part recounts the creation of the world where God makes man and woman in his image on the sixth day. Here, we see the first movement of consciousness coming to life through creation, and with it coming all these objects and beings that God wishes to create. Soon after, God decides to bring forth something else into Consciousness: Adam and Eve. However, there is something peculiar we see with the creation of Adam and Eve that distinguishes them from other forms of creation, and that is their likeness to God. Here, humanity is part of creation yet distinguished from other creations in their likeness to God. In the second account, though a bit different, we get a more grounded version of the story. God created Adam out of dust, breathed life into him, and made him sleep until the creation of Eve from his ribs.  

A pivotal moment occurs when God puts Adam  into a deep sleep before Eve is created. This detail holds symbolic significance that man only truly comes into being—into self-consciousness—through the creation of the Other. We get the account as follows: “But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then, the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man (Genesis 2:20).” What is more interesting in this unfolding of humanity is that the Other is not separate or something created independently but rather an extension of the self. In other words, the Other is necessary for the coming of Self-Consciousness, which begs the question of what lies for self-consciousness without the Other. Deep sleep? Non-existence?  

The garden of abundance was not enough for humanity, and although this represents our unsatisfactoriness and desire for more, the action also possesses a redeeming quality, as it also represents humanity’s desire to know more and to act in their understanding. Here, we see the first act of freedom through humanity’s first exercise of free will, even if it led to exile. The serpent is the trickery, almost illusory element of reality, something that convinced the self to gain self-consciousness through the desire of something more. It is the same tempting curiosity that led to the fall of Icarus and led Pandora to open the box. Perhaps one might argue that it would've been better for Adam and Eve to stay ignorant, but one can also argue that this defying act for knowledge is also what initiated the human experience. This stage marks the realization that the self relates to objects not only as things to be known but also as things that fulfill its desires which we see in the story through Eve's desire to consume the fruit of knowledge. Soon after, Eve’s perceptive process in the bible is detailed as “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it (Genesis 3:6).” Here, we get the attribution of three kinds of qualities: that it appeared as beneficial to sustenance, it looked pleasing, and it appeared as a source of knowledge. For consciousness, this is the first instance of the categorization and breaking down of an object.  

The eating of the fruit would soon lead to the most important rupture of human’s history of consciousness. Soon after, the bible recounts the phenomenon as “the eyes of both were opened, and they realized they were naked; so, they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves (Genesis 3:7).” The serpent’s temptation introduces the idea of knowledge as something desirable which awakens a desire to know themselves and the world in a new way. This new way of knowing themselves and the Other is through the introduction of a self that appears in the world as a subject. Here, we get the first encounter of the Other — the moment self-consciousness came to be, it recognized the Other.

As all this unfolds in Eden, the first thing that God asks Adam and Eve is “where are you?” marking the path to separateness. The eyes opened up but what came wasn’t the wisdom of God as they expected but rather an encounter with Self-Awareness and first recognition of nakedness where Self first becomes aware of itself as a distinct, exposed entity. Adam’s response when God started to look for him was “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so, I hid (Genesis 3:10).” Why would they hide from their creator? What is this fear based on? Surely their innocence would’ve allowed them to be okay with their actions. This is the most important element of Self-Consciousness that we can understand from this scene — the coming of shame, which arises when the self perceives itself as an object in the eyes of the Other. Adam and Eve cover themselves because they now see themselves as objects in relation to not only each other but also the world and God.

The rupture between humanity and God symbolizes the alienation inherent in self-consciousness. Once self-awareness emerges, the subject perceives itself as separate from the divine, initiating a struggle to reconcile this divide. Nonetheless, God proclaims in his final statement that “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever (Genesis 3:22).”  Here, the knowledge that has made humanity like God can be described as self-consciousness, which reveals the paradox of their new state. In gaining knowledge and self-consciousness, they have become “like God,” yet this likeness separates them from Him. They possess the capacity for moral discernment but also bear the burden of their finitude, fragility, and alienation.

After the fall, Self-Consciousness is met with hostility from the world. It is an almost symbiotic connection where the subject believes the world to be distinct from it; therefore nature for humanity appears as something hostile, threatening, and something to be subdued. Adam and Eve must now wrestle with the world and each other as they perceive the world as objects separate from them. By eating the fruit, Adam and Eve begin to perceive distinctions — between good and evil, themselves and God, and between each other. The world that once presented itself as a garden is suddenly morphed into something to be feared and hidden from. Here, God lays out the reaction of the world that’s going to meet their new state of consciousness. Through Eve, we are told that there will be a conflict with the Other as one tries to subdue and seek to assert mastery over the Other, which could be observed in not only marriages and partnerships but also of communities and people. In Genesis 16, God proclaims:

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”

Now, the self is a subject of two objects, subjected by the Other but also subjected by the world. Through Adam, we are told that the humans must now labor and toil in a world that resists them, reflecting the existential struggle of humanity to feel at peace in the domain that he once ruled and felt still in. God tells Adam:  

“Cursed is the ground because of you;

through painful toil you will eat food from it

all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow

you will eat your food

until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken;

for dust you are

and to dust you will return.”

Adam and Eve, having to reckon with the knowledge of God and of good and evil are banished out of the Garden and into the real world — into the world that looks them back in the eye as an object. Now, man can’t take out the new lens that he’s  put on for the perception of the world and has to contend with looking at the world through these eyes. A lens that shows the world as an object and makes his desire run rampant in trying to get to know these objects that appear as distinct and foreign to it.

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