16
visible creation.” 54 Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI underscores the importance of the garden
imagery in this way:
The garden tells us that the reality in which God has placed the human being is not a wild
forest but a place that protects, nurtures and sustains…a gift to be cultivated and
safeguarded, to increase and to develop with respect and in harmony, following its
rhythms and logic in accordance with God’s plan… 55
The garden is the sacramental reality of God’s lovingkindness towards man, in which he freely
and generously communes with his creature and allows man, male and female, to share in the
work of creation and its perfection. The task given to man is to protect this sign, this meeting
place where God shares his gift of self-revelation.
In the center of this earthly paradise, God places both the tree of life and the tree of
knowledge of good and evil, the latter of which comes with a proscription against its use as food
for the man and woman. Although the Biblical narrative does not give historical details regarding
the nature of man’s disobedience, the Church definitively situates his fall from grace within the
moral sphere. 56 This Fall involved “freedom put to the test,” 57 a freedom given to man in his
consciousness and his self-determination, i.e. in the use of his intellect and will. According to St.
Thomas, man’s desire for knowledge led to an over-reaching of his creaturely limitations and a
refusal to cooperate with God’s plan. 58 In his pride, he preferred his own will to the divine will,
leading to a lack of trust in the goodness of God and in His original gift of creation. 59 Among the
consequences of this original sin were disharmony in the spousal communion and a rupture in
the friendship between God and man. Man’s attempt to be like God led not to divinization as
master of the mystery of creation but rather to his subjection to the dictates of death and decay.
54
CCC, 378.
Benedict XVI, “General Audience,” February 6, 2013, para. 14.
56
CCC, 396.
57
Ibid.
58
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II.163.1.
59
CCC, 397-398.
55