I think I might overemphasize the Tree of Knowledge when I think about the story of the Fall. Because God forbids Adam from eating from the tree, I become fixated on it as if it was the only sin that Adam could have committed. But was it?
Natural law suggests quite the opposite.
If objective morality exists and what is wrong is always wrong, then it stands to reason that Adam could have been ejected from Paradise for a great multitude of reasons. Most likely the only thing preserving Adam is that, in his original state of innocence, the idea to commit any other sin just wouldn't pop in his head on its own...but I don't know this would have prevented sin from ever popping in his head (if only because the serpent seems all too ready to suggest acts he wouldn't consider doing on his own).
It is difficult to imagine God somehow tolerating other sins in Eden so long as the Tree of Knowledge was untouched. If the serpent had set Adam and Eve against one another to the point of violence, he might have achieved his ends just as well--if not better. Could the serpent have convinced one of the first humans to kill the other, it would guarantee the destruction of the human race even more assuredly. Yet, the serpent doesn't--perhaps because he isn't really interested in physical genocide so much as merely corrupting humanity or perhaps because something so obviously wrong as murder, so overtly opposed to natural law would never have seemed convincing to the first parents in their natural state.
The sinfulness of eating from Tree, though, is different.
It's almost as if God has to point out the error of eating the Tree because it's sinfulness is not obvious. The error requires a divine revelation because it is beyond human reasoning--which is precisely why the serpent can confuse Adam and Eve.
The idea that knowledge can be bad or that knowledge can lead to corruption and death does not come naturally to man. If anything, we seemed hardwired towards the opposite--our insatiable desire for knowledge may well be an evolutionary trait designed for survival of the species as well as pre-programmed drive to seek out God, who is complete Knowledge.
The wrongness of seeking the Knowledge of Good and Bad is not self-evident to man--so God goes out of His way to explain that we shouldn't seek it. It's lack of self-evidence gives the serpent the opportunity to manipulate human reason into error. Despite Aristotle's appeals to logos, logic is not always the safest route when it is based on incomplete knowledge or misguided perceptions.
Another way I might consider presenting the point I'm trying to make is this:
Did Cain kill Abel because he was fallen in nature? Did his jealousy arise because his parents conceived him post-Fall? Or would Cain still have experienced jealousy for Abel the same way that Adam and Eve felt jealous of God's omnipotence?
If Adam and Eve had not eaten the fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil, would Cain have still slain Abel and shed blood on the soil of Paradise? Would natural law have prevented Cain from killing Abel, or could the serpent have found some argument to convince Cain that it wasn't such a bad idea? One can almost hear the serpent asking Cain, "Who forbade you from killing Abel? Is Abel so irreplaceable? What will happen in the future? Will there be enough land in Eden for the descendants of Cain and Abel? Don't your children have just as much right to live here as his?"
One can only assume Cain would still be banished for the act, and one wonders if (in ancient Judaic culture) Paradise would have been seen as far more tainted.
Original Justice is not something you hear about a lot, but before the fall, Adam had it.
The CCC mentions it in paragraph 400 but seems to assume you know what the term means.
According to the 1910 New Catholic Dictionary, Original Justice included the supernatural gift of sanctifying grace and the preternatural gifts of "exemption from concupiscence, bodily immortality, habitual infused science, and the non-necessity of suffering." The entry further notes that Adam would have transmitted this state to his descendants had he not sinned (http://saints.sqpn.com/ncd06177.htm).
Perhaps you would find researching the details of original justice to be a fruitful line of inquiry.
Posted by: Akh Ari | February 17, 2010 at 08:29 AM