Chapter VI.
It resolves several doubts about the command given to Adam and the temptation stirred up by Eve.
30. Again, they make other questions in this way: It is not always wrong to disobey a precept. For if the precept is good, obedience is honorable: but if the precept is evil, it is useful not to obey. Therefore, it is not always wrong to not obey a precept: but to not obey a good precept is evil. But it is good to operate the knowledge of good and evil; since God knows both good and evil. Finally, he says: Behold, Adam has become like one of us (Gen. III, 22). Therefore, if it is good to have knowledge of good and evil, and goodness is something that even God possesses, it seems that those who forbid it to human beings are not doing so rightly; and they propose this argument. But if they understand what it means to know, what power this word has: if they understand it correctly, the Lord has known those who belong to him (II Tim. II, 19); he surely knows those who have been made one out of many, in whom he dwells and through whom he moves. To know is certainly not only in mere and superficial knowledge, but in the actions that need to be done. It was necessary for man to obey the command, but by not obeying, he transgressed. Therefore, whoever did not obey, erred, because transgression is a sin. However, even if they want to diminish the power of knowledge, considering it as a mere and forbidden knowledge of good and evil, even in this there is the fault of transgression for not having obeyed the command; because the Lord God also considered the turbulent knowledge of good and evil to be forbidden.
31. Another question: Someone who does not know good and evil is no different from a child. However, with a just judge, there is no fault in children. Indeed, a just creator of the world would never hold a child responsible for not knowing good and evil, because a child is without the sin of transgression and fault. But when we say in the previous statements that there are two understandings of the knowledge of good and evil, if we consider a superficial knowledge, it is certainly false that there is no difference from a child who does not know good and evil. But if it is false that nothing differs from a child; therefore Adam is not a child. If he is not a child, then sin is attributed to him as if he were not a child. If sin is attributed, then the punishment of sin follows; for punishment is found to be worthy, who did not try to avoid sin. It can also happen that even one who does not have knowledge of good and evil is not a child; for before the boy knew good and evil, he did not believe in wickedness. And again you have: Because before a child knows how to call his father and mother, he will receive the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria (Isaiah, VIII, 4). Therefore, the one who performs good deeds, even if they have not acquired knowledge of good and evil, are themselves their own law, just as many are their own law before they know the law. The Apostle, before he said, 'You shall not covet' (Rom. II, 14), did not know that covetousness is evil. In fact, he himself says: I did not know sin except through the law. For I would not have known desire, unless the law had said: You shall not covet (Rom. VII, 7). To that extent, a child can also be perfect according to the law of nature, before he knows that desire is a sin or commits the sin of desire. Therefore, according to a cursory knowledge, God did not want man to know what is evil, so that he, as if imperfect, could not avoid it. But by not obeying the commandment, we incur blame: therefore, we confess blame. But again, if by deep and profound knowledge we mean the knowledge of good and evil, which indeed perfects the soul; yet the little child who cannot attain to such deep and profound knowledge is not immediately condemned, just as a little child is not condemned.
Again they raise the question: He who does not know good and evil, they say, does not even know that it is evil not to keep the commandment, nor does he know what is good, which is to obey the commandment. And therefore, because he did not know, they say that he deserved pardon for not obeying, not condemnation. This question indeed has to do with those absolved, which we have mentioned before. For man could have considered from those things which God had granted to him before, that he received the breath of God, that he was placed in the paradise of pleasure, that he owed the highest obedience to the Author. And therefore, even if he did not know the power of good and evil, nevertheless because the author had said that the tree of knowledge of good and evil should not be tasted, he should have obeyed the command. For it was not skill, but faith that was required of him. He certainly understood that God surpassed all, and therefore he should have respected the person who commanded. And even if he did not understand the force and nature of the command, he still knew that reverence should be shown to the command giver. He had this opinion in his nature; although he did not have a sense of good and evil. Finally, the woman said to the serpent: We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said: You shall not eat of it (Gen. III, 3). Thus he knew that obedience to the command was necessary, so he said: We may eat of every fruit, as the Lord had commanded; but of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has commanded that it should not be tasted, lest they die. Therefore, because he knew that it must be carried out by order, he certainly knew that it was wrong to prevaricate, and for this reason, he is rightly condemned for prevarication.
33. Take another thing: If the assumption of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was so operative that good and evil were recognized; which seems to be indicated by the Scripture, when it says: Because when they both ate, their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked (Genesis 3:6-7); that is, the eyes of their heart were opened, and they knew that it was shameful to live naked: undoubtedly when the woman tasted from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she sinned and knew that she had sinned. Therefore, she who knew that she had sinned should not have invited her husband to share in the sin. By enticing her husband and giving him what she herself had tasted, she did not avoid, but rather repeated the sin. For surely, if one considers reason truly, she should have not dragged the one she loved into a partnership of punishment, but rather called him back from what she herself knew was sin, even if this woman seemed to fear being cast out of paradise alone, knowing that she could not be in paradise after the fall. Finally, both of them hid themselves after the fault. Therefore, knowing that she should be excluded, she did not want to be deprived of the companionship of the man she loved.
34. Take it again: Knowledge of evil is not evil; but when action fills it with malice. For it is not immediately the case that one who knows what evil is does what is evil, but rather one who knows that it is evil, does it. However, the incentive to do what is evil is usually either anger or desire. It is not necessary that one who has knowledge of evil does what is wrong, unless they are overcome by either anger or desire. Hence, what we have said is that the incentive to sin is either anger or desire, or often fear, although desire may arise from fear, as each person wants to avoid what they fear. And therefore we rightly placed anger and desire as the incentives of the remaining two vices. Let us consider, therefore, whether Eve was incited to vice by these stimuli. But she was neither angry with her husband, nor overcome by desire: she only erred in the second instance, by giving the fruit to her husband to eat, which she herself had already tasted. At first, desire was the author of the error, so that she herself would eat it, and the cause of sin followed. For what she had already tasted, she could not desire: and by tasting it, she had gained knowledge of evil. Therefore, she should not have directed the evil she had recognized towards her husband, nor should she have made her own husband a transgressor of divine command. Therefore, being aware and prudent, she sinned, and being aware, she led her husband into her own mistake. Otherwise, the speech about the tree of knowledge of good and evil will be found to be false if, even after she had eaten from that tree, she could not have the knowledge of evil. If this speech is true, then it could not have had the cause of desire: although many people may think it can be excused in this way, that she feared being separated from her diligent husband, and they may present this cause of desire because she wanted to be with her husband.