The tree of the “knowledge of good and evil”. A curse from God, or a test of obedience born of His love?

Summary of Genesis: The Lord God placed man in the garden of Eden and bestowed abundance upon him. In the garden there was the tree of life and also the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Man could make use of the gifts, but he received one prohibition: he was not permitted to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because disobedience would bring death.

God in His goodness desires to make man happy — yet with an ordered happiness.

Paradise was a gift: a place of peace, of work without toil, and of abundance. Yet the center of happiness was not the pleasures of creatures themselves, but God Himself, the Giver. Created gifts are good, but they are meant to lead to the Creator, not replace the Creator. The tree of life in the midst of the garden shows that man’s life is a gift and depends upon God.

Why then did God permit in Paradise the tree of the “knowledge of good and evil” and the prohibition?

Not in order to deceive man, crush him, or draw him into evil. The prohibition is a sign of a boundary: the creature is not God. Man has will and reason, yet he is not the lawgiver of good and evil. One commandment amidst an abundance of gifts was a simple trial: whether man would acknowledge God as Lord and keep obedience, or whether he would wish to establish the law for himself.

Free will does not mean that man must sin in order to be free. Free will remains also where there is no sin. In the state of trial God permitted the possibility of choice, so that fidelity might be an act of obedience and love, and not mere necessity.

Just as God Himself is Love, so too man, created in His image and likeness, is called to love and fidelity.

True love is obedience to truth: the acknowledgement of God as God. The trial in Paradise touched the very heart of the matter: whether man would love God more than himself, more than the desire for “self-determination”. Sin begins not with the fruit itself, but with the rebellion of the heart: “I myself shall be judge, I myself shall determine good.”

In this light it is clear that man received an easy situation, and yet he fell.

In Paradise there was an abundance of gifts and one prohibition. Disobedience was therefore a choice without compulsion: a betrayal of the divine order. Here the essence of sin is revealed: man turns away from God not because he lacks gifts, but because he wants to be “as God” without God.

Satan — the father of lies and a murderer from the beginning.

Summary of Genesis: The serpent is described as the most subtle of the animals. Beneath his mask there acts a spirit in rebellion against God.

Satan was an angel — a spiritual creature — and fell through pride.

He was created good and endowed with great penetration of mind, but he desired independence from God: “I will not serve.” For this rebellion he lost grace, peace, and participation in glory. Yet he retained his natural sharpness and power of influence; severed from the love of God, these became instruments of hatred and ruin.

In Paradise he came not with violence, but with disguise and falsehood. Thus he always acts: he conceals the goal, offers poison under a sweet form, and draws man into a conversation of the heart.

Summary of Genesis: The serpent begins with a question that distorts God’s commandment, as though God had forbidden man everything.

Satan’s action in Paradise is subtle: he does not command sin at once, but first destroys the image of God.

He does not begin with “do evil”, but with “is God really good?” The first aim is doubt: if man comes to regard God as unjust, then the commandment will begin to appear as a yoke, and sin as “liberation”.

The father of lies casts forth a question which is poison.

Within the very question there is slander: the portrayal of God as one who “forbids everything”. This is no small matter. A lie about God gives rise to rebellion against truth, and rebellion against truth prepares the way for rebellion against the commandment.

Satan shifts the center of gravity: from the abundance of gifts to the one prohibition.

The prohibition is meant to dominate the whole of man’s thinking. Man ceases to see the generosity of God, and begins to live in tension over one single point. Thus temptation is born: not from lack of gifts, but from a diseased concentration upon the prohibition.

The poisoned mind of man and rebellion against God.

Summary of Genesis: The woman answers the serpent, repeats the prohibition, yet at the same time distorts it, as if adding a burden. The serpent denies the threat of death and promises “knowledge” and “likeness to God”.

The tragedy of the beginning is simple: sin is born from dialogue with temptation.

When man begins to consider temptation as a partner in conversation, vigilance weakens. Satan gains time to lead the thought step by step: from doubt, through desire, all the way to consent.

Then the word of God ceases to sound clearly, and confusion appears in the mind. At one moment God seems a good Father, at another an enemy of happiness. This is a reversal of order: the prohibition begins to look like an injury, and sin like a remedy.

Summary of Genesis: The woman looks upon the fruit: it is “good for food”, “pleasant to the eyes”, and “desirable for gaining knowledge”. She takes it, eats, and gives it to her husband, and he receives it.

Satan’s plan becomes easy: sin looks like “a good means to a good end”.

When God is portrayed as an obstacle, man wishes to “take fate into his own hands”. This is what rebellion means: I myself shall be my law. From that moment sin is no longer called sin, but “choice”, “enlightenment”, “freedom”. Thus deception works.

Satan’s activity on earth after the events in Paradise.

Thus Satan works today as well: he wishes to destroy the soul, and so he rarely begins with obvious evil.

For hardened men an open temptation is enough. For those who still possess a conscience, he works by the method of Paradise: he clothes evil in the appearance of good or in the appearance of “necessity”. He suggests the thought: “it is indeed a sin, but the goal is good.” And then man himself begins to justify what God has forbidden.

This brief dialogue with temptation reveals the essence of sin: conversation becomes the road to consent.

Temptation cut off at the beginning weakens. Temptation fed by thought grows. He who allows a conversation to take place in his heart will arrive at an inward “yes”, and that “yes” gives birth to the deed.

First Satan poisons the mind with doubt concerning the goodness of God.

He presents a false image of God: as though God were an enemy of happiness. Once man believes this, then grave sins begin to appear as “solutions”. Thus the justification of evil is born, for example:

• introducing destructive changes into the Church’s Liturgy so that it may be “more accessible” — which in practice became the gateway to the Neoplasm of the Mass and the spirit of the Antichurch,
• promiscuity and adultery “to test compatibility”,
• contraception “for convenience” or “for peace of mind”,
• acts against nature justified by “love”,
• lying and deceit “for a higher good”,
• violence or injury justified by “necessity”,
• and many others.

The end never justifies the means: evil may not be done that good may come of it.

Sin is rebellion against God. The thought, “I shall commit sin, because afterwards things will be better,” is the logic of the serpent. At the same time there is a distinction which Catholic morality has long known: in extreme necessity, when someone has no means of survival, the use of another’s necessary goods for the preservation of life need not have the character of theft, because natural law directs goods toward the sustaining of life. Yet this is no doorway to cunning, evasions, and a life of constantly justifying sin.

Temporal life is a great gift, but it is not the highest good.

Earthly security must not be placed above God and His commandments. Better to lose everything than to lose grace and salvation. He who for convenience, fear, or profit breaks the law of God sells eternity for a moment.

Let us not repeat Eve’s error: let us not mix good with evil.

When man does not reject evil firmly, but allows it to live within his thoughts, he begins to lose the light. In the end, even while desiring to do good, he will do evil — because conscience will become blind, and reason poisoned by self-justification.

The firm rejection of evil at the beginning is the guard of the soul.

Sin is not weighed on the scale of “it pays — it does not pay”, but on the scale of: “in accord — not in accord with the law of God”. Grace is needed for the struggle: confession, prayer, avoidance of the occasions of sin, and discipline of thought. He who despises small concessions falls by great ones.

Let us ask the intercession of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, for She is Immaculate and is the terror of hell.

Satan fears Her purity and humility, for in Her he found no opening at all. She leads to Christ and teaches obedience: simple obedience, without discourse with temptation. He who clings to Her and remains in grace, let him watch in humility. Amen.