Several years ago, I took a theology class, and I asked the professor the following question: If God created Adam and Eve as perfect humans in perfect harmony with both God and creation, why did they choose to sin? Since this is a common question for those who contemplate the Faith, I want to expound upon the professor’s answer. I also want to show why Jesus’s nativity is the fitting response to Adam’s and Eve’s actions.
By the way, the professor told me that Satan exploited the truth that God is the highest good, goodness itself. Adam and Eve recognized that God made them in His image and likeness, and they knew that God was the highest good. So, they understood that becoming more like God was a good thing. But how did Satan’s temptation work?
Understanding the Logic
- God created Adam and Eve in His image and likeness and full of grace. For more on this truth of the Faith, please read this article.
Adam and Eve had no inclinations to sin, no unruly passions, and there was no strife between them, between them and God, or between them and creation.
- They had everything they needed and wanted in Eden.
They had communion with God by grace, each other, sustenance, dominion, ease of labor, and power to create more persons, a power that even the angels did not have. We struggle with concupiscence (inclinations to sin), but they did not.
- Therefore, Satan could not tempt them with anything related to six of the seven deadly sins (i.e., envy, greed, lust, sloth, gluttony, or wrath).
However, in a very subtle and duplicitous way, which is why Genesis refers to him as a serpent, he could appeal to their pride. God created Adam and Eve with a healthy pride, a pride that was docile to God’s will and that did not try to dominate one another. They were humble and innocent.
- Satan knew that God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, or they would die.
So, Satan told them that if they ate from this tree, they would not die. Rather, they would become like God, knowing good from evil. In Adam’s and Eve’s minds, becoming more like God was a good thing. Couple this rationale with hearing it from an angel (albeit fallen), and you can see why this temptation made sense to them. Satan played on their pride of being made in God’s image and likeness. He also played on their intellect by helping them to “see.”
- In Genesis 3:6, Eve “saw that the tree was to be desired to make one wise.” God is wisdom itself. So, if the fruit of the tree could make one wise, then it stood to reason that the fruit would make them more like God.
God knows good and evil perfectly because of His divine omniscience. Adam and Eve, at the Devil’s prompting, believed that this kind of intimate knowledge of good and evil would make them more like God. Better knowledge indeed makes us more like God, but we must go about gaining this knowledge in a morally upright way.
- Adam and Eve “took of the fruit and ate.”
When God told Adam and Eve (by proxy) not to eat from the tree of knowledge or they would die, they understood the difference between obeying and disobeying God. They also understood the difference between good and evil but in a purely intellectual way.
When parents tell a child not to do something bad, or they will punish the child, the child knows the difference between good and bad intellectually. However, when the child does the bad thing, he knows the difference experientially. He knows it in a deeper way.
So, when Adam and Eve ate from the tree, their knowledge of disobeying God and of evil became experiential. It became an intimate knowledge that allowed them to contrast good and evil in a way that God did not want them to.
Duped or Seduced
Many people opine that Satan duped Adam and Eve. However, both their pride and their rational faculties were intact, and God gave them an explicit and clear command. So, Satan could not have duped them. However, by exploiting their pride in being God’s created son and daughter, and by using their properly functioning intellects against them, he certainly seduced them into eating from the tree.
If Adam and Eve would have sought higher knowledge through faith and prayer, God would have given it to them as they matured spiritually and increased in grace. However, they desired this knowledge immediately and chose a shortcut, eating from the tree. In this way, they gained experiential knowledge of evil, which God did not want them to have.
Usurping God’s Authority
By granting themselves the authority to eat from the tree, they rejected God’s authority and made themselves arbiters of morality. Consequently, they decided what was right and wrong instead of allowing God to direct them. Their pride became disordered through their attempt to raise themselves to God’s level and usurp His moral authority. They lost grace and passed this privation, along with concupiscence, to all their progeny.
Christmas
On December 25th, we celebrate the day that the eternal Word, who became incarnate nine months earlier in the Blessed Mother’s womb, was born and dwelled among us. Jesus became a visible sign of grace, the Primordial Sacrament, by assuming a human nature (body and soul). He showed us how to be human. Then, He redeemed us from the eternal death that Adam and Eve purchased through their sinful shortcut. “Oh, happy fault,” as St. Augustine wrote, because Jesus Christ is born, and He raises us up to a new life far greater than life in Eden.
So, this Christmas season, in the words of St. Paul, “Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God.” Please read this article for more.
Also, for a better understanding of Genesis 1-3, please read this three-part article.
Future Article
We are left with two questions: Why did God create Adam and Eve knowing that they would sin, and, if the angels were perfect, why did some of them sin? These will be the topics of a future article. Have a blessed Christmas!
Photo by Nathan Hulsey on Unsplash
