In the fragment of Genesis 3, 9-15 it is related how man became a sinner. It is a story that explores and exposes one of the great enigmas of human existence: our freedom is labile, it easily loses its way and we do what we should not. Instead of making decisions that build and grow us, we often make decisions that destroy ourselves and each other. And from bad decisions comes guilt, which is the awareness of having lost moral integrity. The Bible clearly states that in the beginning they were both naked, the man and his wife, but they were not ashamed of each other (Gen 2:25). This lack of shame in spite of being naked is the image of innocence and moral integrity. Because when we act well, when our freedom decides correctly, we can be transparent, we can “undress” before others in the sense that we have no duplicity, there is nothing to hide, we do not hide twisted intentions and spurious motivations to act.
According to this story of origins, God placed man and woman in a place where all their needs were met. But he also imposed a commandment on them. They were not to eat from a special tree, called the tree of knowing good and evil. If they ate it, death would befall them. That special tree is a symbol of a deeper reality. Human freedom to act righteously must conform to norms that stem from the nature of the reality in which it will act. In all areas of human action, marriage, sexuality and family, business, work and commerce, political organization and the arts, we can perform actions that are consistent with the nature of that reality and are therefore constructive actions or actions that are inconsistent with that reality and are therefore destructive. Each field of action has its own nature from which the criteria for action can be deduced. We therefore call these criteria of action “natural law”. Good and evil, the works that build and those that destroy, are such because they do or do not conform to an objective criterion. Man discovers the good and the bad, he does not invent them. It is not in man’s power to decide what is just and what is unjust, what is good and what is evil. Our conscience and our freedom must know the moral law, the commandments of God and be educated in them, abide by them, in order to act constructively. The very nature of things and actions give us the criteria for action.
I like to give the example of the faculty of speaking. When we talk and converse, we create bonds of friendship, we give information, sometimes we have fun telling funny jokes, we transmit knowledge, we do business. There is a wide range of constructive actions we can do by talking. But we can pervert that faculty of speech and instead of telling the truth, lie; instead of entertaining, instigate; instead of informing, deceive; instead of transmitting knowledge, manipulate people with falsehoods. The very faculty of speech and its properties tell us which are the constructive uses of speech and which are its destructive uses. We can deduce these criteria from all areas of human activity: sexuality and marriage; health, commerce, politics. But the fact remains that I may believe that it is in my interest to act against those criteria or I may find pleasure and satisfaction in performing actions contrary to those criteria. That is the sin. That meant the respect that man should have for the tree of knowing good and evil. He had to learn to abide by the moral law.
That man and his wife transgressed the precept: they ate of the forbidden tree. They did not do so on their own initiative, but at the suggestion of the serpent. This is important: the will to transgress was not born from man himself, but came from outside of man. God did not put in man the inclination to transgress the moral law; it was a suggestion from without; the serpent seduced them. God did not make us “crooked”. Here is a keen defense of the goodness of man. The first thing that happened after the transgression was that they discovered they were naked and felt ashamed. They transgressed the order of things and felt the disorder in themselves. It always happens to us even today. When we do something wrong, we feel ashamed; we hide it; we look for excuses; we try to justify ourselves if we are caught. We realize that we are naked, that is, that we have lost our moral integrity. We hide from others what we have done wrong, unless we are scoundrels and we also hide from God.
This is where the reading comes in. Man hides from God, but God goes out to seek him. The Lord God called the man and asked him: “Where are you? Since then, God has always gone out to look for us. God knows that our freedom is fickle and must be sustained not only with the commandments, but with inner persuasion. In the supreme quest, God sent his Son into this world to seek out sinners, offer them conversion, heal their freedom and lead them to salvation.
When God questions the man and asks him why he hid, the man answered: I heard your footsteps in the garden; and I was afraid, for I am naked, and I hid myself. In the face of man’s confession, God deduces that man has transgressed His command: Have you eaten from the tree I forbade you to eat from? The response of both men and women is striking. They do not assume their responsibility. The man casts it on the woman and the woman on the serpent who insinuated the transgression. I am surprised that God does not correct either man or woman to take responsibility for their actions. But God gives sentences. To the serpent he assigns a crawling existence and the enmity between it and mankind that will eventually crush its head. The same biblical authors have seen Satan in the serpent. This character is a creature of God, but he rebelled against Him and is now the instigator of the rebellions against God. But that means that evil is not born of man himself, but comes from outside and therefore man can be healed of moral evil and evil will be destroyed. Jesus Christ is presented in the Gospel as the one who has come to bind Satan and take away his power over humanity and therefore has come to heal our freedom so that we may know how to act constructively. Jesus Christ acts with the power of the Holy Spirit to bind and defeat Satan and save us from his power. Let us thank him.