In many ways, the myth of Eden as a myth perfectly symbolized something for which nothing but symbols were available; it became an exquisitely vivid way of describing that aforementioned immemorial loss of intimacy with the divine, the end of innocence, the unnaturalness of death for spiritual beings oriented toward eternity, the wounding of creation, and so forth; and in all these ways it could be made to testify to the final horizon of Christian hope—a restored communion with God, a restored creation, the necessity of God becoming human so that humans might become God.
