Harold Burke Sivers and the Power of the Cross show

[thyrodandstaff]

thyrodandstaff asks:


I think Deacon Sivers said that placing the angel in the garden to protect the tree of life and expelling our first parents from the garden was an act of God’s mercy, because eating from the tree of life would have meant death forever for them.

I reviewed the story in the RSV-CE and it doesn't seem to say this. I always thought that it was punishment. Can someone explain his position and where this notion comes from? Thanks.

[deaconharold]

There seems to be some confusion about my comments on Catholic Answers Live a couple of weeks ago regarding Genesis 3:22-24. Let me clarify my take on this passage.

Genesis 2:16-17 says, “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die’."

What is the “tree of knowledge” all about? I believe there are two things going on. First, God is letting Man know that “I’m God and you’re not.” This apodictic command represents our limits before God and the infinite chasm between His authority and ours. God warned Man not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or he would die. Man's existence is a gift from God and to disobey God means doing violence to that gift; it would be a contradiction.

Second, God gives man a directive about the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and in this command the foundation for freedom and self-determination is laid. Knowledge can be attained in two ways. Through empirical fact (da’ath in Hebrew) e.g., 2+2=4, the Earth revolves around the Sun, etc. or through experience (yada in Hebrew); you have to experience something in order to know it. Genesis 2 uses yada to show that God did not want man to experience evil and death (separation from His divine life). The tree itself was not evil and God did not create evil. It is Man’s free-will choice to choose self over God that allows evil and sin to exist. Evil is not a power, it is a weakness: a weakness that can have power over us if we allow it. God warns that if Man chose this option, he would die (mavet in Hebrew), that is, he would be cut off from the life of God.

In the beginning of Genesis 3 we see the temptation and the Fall of Man. After the Fall, we read in Genesis 3:22-24, “Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’ … He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”

This verse seems to be contradictory. First, the Lord says that Man has become like Him. This could not be the case because if it is, then Satan was telling the truth. Man, in fact, has not become like God after the Fall and does not possess any of the attributes of divine nature. Second, the Lord says that He “knows good and evil.” God did not and cannot experience evil since evil and sin are foreign to His nature and, as such, cannot exist in the beatific vision. God, therefore, is either wrong or mistaken, which cannot possibly be the case. So what’s going on?

God is thinking about the best interest of Man because of His great love for His children. Even though they defied and disobeyed Him in committing personal sin, with its effects for human nature (the state of Original Sin), God knows that Man remains a being made in His image and likeness. In formulating a plan for Man’s future, God anticipates the logic of Man in his now fallen state.

Eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil brought severe consequences, including the loss of the state of original holiness and justice, i.e., Man’s share in God’s divine life. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “As long as he remained in the divine intimacy, man would not have to suffer or die. The inner harmony of the human person, the harmony between man and woman, and finally the harmony between the first couple and all creation, comprised the state called ‘original justice’" (CCC, 376).

God, having created Man in freedom and love, knows that Man is free to reject His love and, after the Fall, acknowledges Man’s inclination and desire toward evil (concupiscence). Therefore, in His abundant mercy, God thinks like Man (Genesis 3:22) and anticipates that he will once again be tempted to violate his limits before God and eat of the tree of life, which this time would lead to his eternal death (not eternal life). Therefore, God removes Man from the garden (“lead us not into temptation”) and, out of his divine mercy and love, sends the cherubim and a flaming sword to stand at the east entrance of the Garden guarding the way to the tree of life. (The “east entrance” anticipates Christ as in the canticle of Zachariah, “the dawn from on high that shall break upon us”).

[Joe Kelley]

I got the idea someplace [don't know if I read it or made it up] that if man ate of the Tree of Life he would live forever. In that case there could have been no Crucifixion, and thus no redemption of man. We would have been condemned to live forever on a continually deteriorating world.

[thyrodandstaff]

Can you point to a Bible passage that says they would suffer eternal death if the ate from the tree of life? Does God say they will suffer so if they ate of the tree of life?

3:22 says "...and live forever." It doesn't say and suffer eternal death. But I can see what you are saying that to live forever in the state of original sin would be like eternal death. So he was merciful praise be to God.

[Slaney]

Well who knows, ok God does, but it would seem the row between God & the not so squeaky clean angel was going on for sometime, probably before mankind was created.

So WHY ! are we included in their dispute? why are we who weren't born at the time, let alone before, suffering the consequences of a dispute that we had no part of in the first place ?