First Sunday of Lent
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Tale two trees
pride and humility
self deter and obed
KGE and Life
as CCC 390 garden figurative language of
fall of our first parents
history sin starts w/ tree of pride and reverses tree of humility
Eve bears the fruit of sin and Adam completes it, Mary bears the fruit of salvation and Christ completes it.
tried to take godhood tree and loses it, now God nails godhood back to a tree and gives us it
All is a great mirror
tree this side, tree that side in reverse
Christ, standing as the tree of life reverses the fall
The elder tree
Look at the eating tkge
way fell is also same way we all fall individually
3 step
first sin pride
obsession with experience
then misuse of goods
Pride
Why does Eve first want the fruit of kge?
to take the place of God in choosing g and e
Church Fathers + other phrases in Scripture: kge is determining for yourself g+e. determining for yourself reality
CCC 396 tree kge represent limits: our nature, what we are
deny limits is to claim God
so reaching is pride:
hesitate to use this word...’think well’
but it is to think greater than you are.
no greater pride is there than to trade self for God, trade Truth for YOUR truth
‘my truth’
me me me above even the Truth itself!
No greater pride is there than this, than to claim your personal truth
perhaps unintentionally (or maybe not), Aptly named movements deny our basic biological reality as a pride movement, though obviously only one form of pride among many
Pride shuts its ears to the high council of truth and turns to nebulous experience: feelings and emotions and pleasures for its justification or points out that its choices involve some good as even the most evil actions always do.
Obsession with experience over the truth
as the hebrew suggests about ‘knowledge’ in kge, it is experiential knowledge
Eve sees and wants to experience for herself, not content on relying what she knows from abstract Truth Himself
unlike Mary, Eve having chosen self as the standard for truth, now judges by lived experience:
looks and sees how pleasing looks, how delightful it is to experience
her lived experience, disconnected from truth is prized over truth.
takes the food
Abuse of goods
the fall is nearly sealed
already now corrupt in heart and body mankind misuses goods symbolized by food
all things are good, but not necessarily good for us, humanity judged that the fruit was good, but not longer sees not good for
man, deciding for himself, luxuriating in the pleasant experience, takes and misuses goods
immediately reality is thrown into chaos,
natural state (represented by nakedness) becomes shameful, twisted, and vulnerable,
pride rep by curling in is revealed as shame
and paradise is lost and the serpent cursed to eat dust, to feed on the death of man who returns to dust.
MiRROR
The new tree
In the distant future, as if in the exact reverse, in the howling desert rather than paradise, the now eater of dust comes crawling through the desert to devour another man
Food/goods
Experience c
Become mighty ruler than what God made you
Cross
now opposed to the beautiful sensual tkge stands the cross revealed as tree of life
As man once tried to take godhood from a tree now man nails godhood back onto a tree
taking tasty good contained death, now in justice reverse and take ugly that contains life
For us
obvious role Eucharist in reversal as a ritual, let alone its true saving power as the Body of Christ.
daily living?
beware temptation to be decider of reality
don’t decide like God (Truth itself) what is good and evil
when hear ‘my truth’ ‘truth is relative’ ‘up to us to determine meaning of life’ know the primordial forked tongue is at hand whispering
Instead aim at the objective truth
Beware of lived experience over faith and reason
the tkge looked very very beautiful
because of the fall lofty truth, abstract moral principles, and doctrines of faith are not as appealing to us as raw emotional and sensual experience
emotions and feelings have their beautiful place (not Spock) but bring under the control of faith and reason.
Dont mistake good things as good for us
The food of tkge was good itself, not good for us
as Church teaches all that exist is good at least to the extent that it exists, even the damned devil
evil is corruption, a negation, a lack of existence
Do not be tricked that good things are always good for us
Every evil is always done for some good thing.
so that a thing may be good choosing it may be a terrible evil.
for instance a psycopath might choose hurting someone for the good of power, but just because power is a good doesn’t make the psycopath’s choice any less than evil.
food, pleasing to the eyes, for the sake of choosing for yourself.
Reject the temptation.
Instead of continuing to eat from the t kge choose instead to do the exact reverse: eat from the tree of life mirrored in reverse
Notes:
first sin: choosing something above himself (pride), namely deciding for self good and evil [Aquinas says so and is obviously right here] (like god)
Gospel reverses (last sin first, first sin last): lust, knowing by experience, another God
go together to produce fall: pride (can still trust God is truthful with this), distrust of reason (knowing for self by experience) and then lusts of flesh
repeated back: food (lust), pleasure (experience), wisdom (self-determination)
Great mirror, scale, chiasm
Lesson: Pride root humility root
pride is curled up self-obsession
arg for nature of evil?
In Gospel empties out what is, in old grasps at what is not his
Chiasm:
man in pleasure garden w/ woman
tree of life and tree of k g e
forbidden k g e
placed to till
naked but unashamed
snake tempts
food, sight, wisdom
woman tempts
naked and ashamed
roles reversed
exiled
forbidden tree of life
man cast to pain earth w/ woman
Eucharist
can’t take from tree o life bc of sin
Tree of life is cross according to tradition
first sin: not trusting truth
tree of knowledge
knowledge sometimes used as determination: determine for self good and evil
Man placed into the land of apparent beauty and good earthly things
“Die the death (serpent and God, but not woman)”
“knowledge vs perception”
faith vs seen
“naked but not ashamed”
eye opened and knew naked
fact, but why now care?
Method of temptation:
exaggerate their limit
woman corrects, but meets devil’s lie half way “nor may we touch it”
claims Truth is lying to preventing happiness (divides truth from fulfillment/happiness),
only way is faithful trust or experience
chooses experience and so we learn God is trustworthy and evil is not w/o much faith
price is the experience of suffering and death
Method of fall
focused on the good of the thing
earthly apparent good
food, sight, wisdom
rather than God’s will to man, animals will to man
“Formed” hebrew has no tenses, and though added with the more precise Greek Septuagint, only can be inferred by context.
temple and Eden very similar
cherubim, water flowing from, on a mountain, trees, one East entrance
Serpent
means dragon or leviathan just as much as snake
in Scripture always negative
similar spellign to sorcery
in this area of the world associated with the symbol of chaos and evil
unlike near east, just a creature not co-equal divinity
Man who was with her,
there whole time
supposed to be guardian as the word ‘keep’ implies
Does anyone ever sin thru reason and higher faculties?? Always animal?
“Phulasso” man is put there to guard it
Commentators
First sin is lack o trust and disobedience CCC 397, Rom 5:19
Christ learned thru obedience
me: grasp God, emptied God
Wanted Godhood w/o God and creature limits. Destined to be divinized tried to take w/o limits; this is pride self over God CCC 398
CCC 396 Tree symbolically represents limits as creatures
John Dam:
Self-knowledge (turns to self)
Origen:
all completely figurative for true events
Aug:
knowledge of good and evil refers to knowing penalty of evil and good of obedience
seduction of devil is to be incited by appearance judgment (which share w/ animals) rather than reason and wisdom
body now rebels
naked but not ashamed, for nothing to be ashamed of
“they have become like us” irony as warning [others seem to indicate outright mockery]
St. Bern: curiosity leads to fall
St. Ambrose:
the trees of paradise are our higher faculties within us
Jerome
means of tree (cross) to cancel out means of tree
Aquinas
pride beginning of all sin bc only gives in to fleshly tempt after hears words that she can be made greater
pride is will for excellence beyond right reason
Greg of Naz
lower part ruling over higher
knowledge tree is experienctial which is antecedent of death and sin
evil colorful multifaceted while good simple
Wis 2
Fall is thru devil’s envy