Not so Felix Culpa
Tuesday, 12. February 2008, 16:02:10
This week's reading from the Old Testament (this Sunday was Temptation Sunday) was the account of the first temptation in the Garden of Eden, and something occured to me. The serpent's great temptation of Eve is that if she eats the fruit, she will not only not die, but she will be like God, knowing good and evil.
The first part of this is a lie laced with truth: She didn't die, at least not right away - but she did die eventually. It would be like someone saying, "You're not going to die from jumping off of a cliff!" with the subtext of, "You'll die from hitting the ground below."
But the second part is what really struck me. The serpent says that Eve will be like God, knowing good and evil. But how great a lie this was, for when Eve ate the fruit, she not only gained understanding of evil, but she became intimate with it. She did not allow God to teach her about good and evil, but she took evil into her body and made it part of herself, coming to know it so well that she can never forget what she learned. I do not believe that God's intention was to leave Adam and Eve naive about evil, because I do not believe that the first temptation would have been the last temptation. But I believe that God intended to give them knowledge and discernment without allowing them to become evil themselves.
Thus, we have the New Testament reading from this week: the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus resists the temptation of the Devil not by simply ignoring him, but by knowing enough about good and evil to not allow it to enter him. He knows evil, but He is not intimate with it. He is as shrewd as the serpent, but also, as Paul would later say, like a child concerning evil.
The first part of this is a lie laced with truth: She didn't die, at least not right away - but she did die eventually. It would be like someone saying, "You're not going to die from jumping off of a cliff!" with the subtext of, "You'll die from hitting the ground below."
But the second part is what really struck me. The serpent says that Eve will be like God, knowing good and evil. But how great a lie this was, for when Eve ate the fruit, she not only gained understanding of evil, but she became intimate with it. She did not allow God to teach her about good and evil, but she took evil into her body and made it part of herself, coming to know it so well that she can never forget what she learned. I do not believe that God's intention was to leave Adam and Eve naive about evil, because I do not believe that the first temptation would have been the last temptation. But I believe that God intended to give them knowledge and discernment without allowing them to become evil themselves.
Thus, we have the New Testament reading from this week: the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus resists the temptation of the Devil not by simply ignoring him, but by knowing enough about good and evil to not allow it to enter him. He knows evil, but He is not intimate with it. He is as shrewd as the serpent, but also, as Paul would later say, like a child concerning evil.
WIDGETIZE