Episode Transcript  

One

Creation 

In Genesis chapter 1, God creates both the invisible world of the Angels and the visible world, and the whole account culminates in the creation of man and woman. Scripture is very clear about what happened: God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. That means a good God created a good world, and He created you very good. 

Then in Genesis chapter 2, verse 7, we’re told that God formed man from the dust of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life. The Hebrew word for breath is ruah. It’s the same word we hear in Genesis 1, where the Spirit of God is hovering over the waters. So ruah or breath refers to the Holy Spirit. God breathed into Adam the Holy Spirit; God was giving him a share in the divine life, making him an adopted son of God. 

God the Father created the world, the Angels and us, so that He could share his divine life with us and we would become sons and daughters of His universal family. That is why 2 Peter 1:4 tells us we are called to be partakers of the divine nature, and 1 John 3:2 tells us we are to become like God. 

That was the plan. That is still the plan. That is the purpose of life. 

Two

God Places Man in a Relationship, Not a Test Chamber

In Genesis chapter 2, God places man in a relationship, not a test chamber. He placed him in the garden to till it and keep it. Then God speaks as a Father, not a tyrant, "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."

When God said, “You may freely eat,” this signifies that He gave us free will. The tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil signifies the authority to determine good and evil. Only God has the authority to determine what is good and evil. We do not have that authority. The temptation is to push God aside and decide for ourselves what is good and what is evil. When we do that, we are trying to be God.  

This is why God’s moral law is not a restriction of freedom but a revelation of how we are designed.

Three

An Analogy for the Moral Law

Some people say the Catholic Church has too many rules and see the moral law as a limitation on freedom. But the moral law is not a restriction; it is the expression of our design. God is love, and He made us in His image. That means we were made to love. The Commandments and the moral teachings of the Church simply describe what love looks like in practice. They are to us what an owner’s manual is to a car: not arbitrary rules, but a guide that reveals how we were made and shows how we operate at our best.

Imagine I just bought a new car, a red Ford Mustang. As soon as I got it home, I read the owner’s manual, which told me to: Change your oil every 3000 miles, inflate the tires to 35 psi, and use unleaded fuel only. Then, imagine me flying into a rage, “Who does Ford think they are! This is my car, I own it. I am free to do whatever I want with my car. You know how expensive gas is these days. But hey, wait, the grocery store down the street is selling Kool-Aid for 24 cents a gallon.”

So, I use my freedom and my last fumes of gas. And I drive to the store and buy enough green Kool-Aid to make fifteen gallons, and I put it in my gas tank. Was I free to do this? Yes. But now what am I? A pedestrian!

Ford wasn’t trying to deny my freedom by giving me the owner’s manual. Ford designed the car and knew how it worked. Ford wanted me to know what to do and not do so the car would reach its full potential. So that I would be happy and tell other people to buy a Ford.

The moral law is the expression of our design to love. If we break the moral law, we break our design, we break ourselves. In the end, we are less free, not more. 

Four

The Fall  

God is an exceedingly good Father who placed His life in the souls of Adam and Eve so that by grace they could share in everything He is and does. Satan rejected this gift, and out of envy, he seeks to destroy that gift in us. St John Paul II said, “The devil seeks to abolish the Fatherhood of God by placing in doubt the truth about God who is love.” 

Recall that God told Adam and Eve that if they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they would die. But in Genesis chapter three, the devil spreads a lie that sows doubt in the Goodness of God. Satan said, “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God,” determining good and evil for yourselves.

The lie is subtle but devastating. Satan insinuates that God is not a loving Father, but a controlling Master, and that we are not His children, but His slaves. God’s command is recast as jealousy, His moral law as a chain. The implication is clear: God forbids the tree not to protect us, but to keep us from becoming like Him. So if we want to be free, if we want to be “like God,” we must break free from His law and decide for ourselves what is good and evil.

The Catechism (397) tells us, “Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God's command…all subsequent sin would follow the same pattern, a lack of trust in His goodness which leads to the disobedience of sin.”

Every sin we ever commit follows the same pattern from distrust to disobedience. 

Five

Harmony Ruptured

Original sin shattered the original harmony God created. Turning away from God, our first parents lost their share in the divine life, damaged the powers of the soul, wounded the relationship between man and woman, disrupted creation itself, and introduced suffering, disease, and death. And we can’t fix it. No government program, no economic or educational system, no scientific or medical advance, no philosophy or military power can save us, only God can save us from ourselves. 

This is why Jesus comes. Not merely to give us better rules, but to reveal the truth about God the Father so we will learn to trust him. 

If the devil’s tactic is to get us to distrust God, in what way do we fall into this trap? How do you, in your own way, struggle to trust God? As a resolution, let us ask the Holy Spirit to show us where we fail in trust and also how we need to practice trust in a concrete way to gain the virtue of trust. 

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