The difficulty is this: if man was meant to disobey then it is no longer disobedience, which is the contradiction involved. I would say we can have maturity without sin — Christ and Mary both show us this, in their own sinlessness. But we must not confuse “knowledge of good and evil” as wisdom, in many ways, it is the opposite of wisdom. I think we agree on some points, but I do think the foundation is the attempt to be one’s own source for existence, which, because we are not, cuts us up and brings about the egoism.

Anyway, I agree it is a difficult issue, and I don’t have all the answers. I think we can bracket a “general disposition” and realize some of it we cannot figure out beyond the revelation which we have, revelation which is not “pure history” but a story telling us something about the human condition and the foundation of sin. Maybe one day I will be able to write more on this — but, if you are interested in this line of talk, I would also recommend St Athanasius’ Contra Gentiles and On the Incarnation (http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/athanasius/incarnation/incarnation.1.htm to the part dealing with creation and fall) as a good start to see ancient reflections on this.

When dealing with the Genesis story, there are many different possible interpretations that have been given in patristic and traditional theology. There are a few aspects which tend to be universal:

1) That humanity in some way disobeyed God
2) This disobedience was a kind of egoistical assertion which tried to place oneself as equal in essence to God
3) And thus in this egoism, there was an initial evil which was done, which corrupted the humanity and divided what was once united along the lines of individualistic egosim.

Now, there are questions about the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Some would say what it means is “knowledge of the experience of evil” of “having done evil” for disobedience, that it was a token show of faith in God or not. Others, like St Irenaeus suggest that the tree was meant to be taken, and it was to given increase in knowledge, but only after maturity and proving oneself worthy of it. But in all of them, there was indeed something which was evil done; and yet we were called to know what is good. Evil is generally seen as a privation and perversion of what is good.

Balthasar goes on to explain the issue of God’s foreknowledge along the lines of: God created the world in order to have the world be brought up and experience the divine life. The creation of the world comes out of the internal self-kenosis of the Father in the generation of the son, creating the space within the Trinity for creation and its own freedom. In that freedom, God has also made the world so that if it stood in faith or not, God’s desire for the world, that it could find a place in the divine life, would be established: the cross, the giving of the Son in kenosis to the world was planned at creation, so that the self-giving love of the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father can lead to our own sharing of the Son’s self-giving back to the Father. So it is not that God created us to fall, but created a world in which a fall is possible and yet not divert the divine plan.

I’m not saying these ways of viewing the question are necessarily the answer as much as there are many possible answers. It’s not an easy question and it is indeed one which is still be explored. But they rely upon the sense that humanity “Grasp for itself” in egoism instead of joined in with God’s love which led to the fall and original sin.

I’m glad you enjoyed the reflection; I am really trying to draw out the implications of our theological tradition to make sure we live the life we are called to live, a life of love; it’s not easy and I always need these reminders myself.