Suppose you were in a garden, and a snake ambled up to you and start talking. Would you freak out? Of course you would.
So why doesn’t Eve freak out? Let’s go back through the interaction between Eve and Satan to see if we can figure out why Eve didn’t freak out.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” … For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. -Genesis 3:1, 5
How does Eve see Satan right this moment? As an arch enemy of God? As some demonic creature out to destroy her? As some supernatural creature?
No, no, and no. Eve sees Satan as a snake. A common “garden variety” creature, one of God’s creations, something God put there for her to have dominion over. There is no fear here, no surprise as Satan talks to her, no concern that she might be keeping bad company.
The snake is a creature, like her. The snake can speak, like her. The snake needs food, and rest, and acceptance, like her. She and the snake are a lot alike.
Satan’s question, Satan’s words, take on a different meaning, a deeper meaning, when we view things in this light. What Satan is saying makes sense.
Aren’t you a creature like me?
Don’t you need to eat?
Don’t you need to know things? To have knowledge?
Don’t you need to feel loved, a part of the crowd?
What crowd is there but us animals? Don’t want to be loved by God’s creation?
The effect is insidious, of course, playing on Eve’s desires to be accepted, to be liked, to fit in, to be smart, to be fed. Satan is, actually, following a well known psychological principle —separating needs, and working from the least to the greatest. You might have seen this chart someplace in school.
It’s called the hierarchy of needs. Notice how the bottom tier is physical, the second is social, and the third is self actualization? Does anything here look familiar in terms of the temptation of Eve?
Don’t you need to eat?
Don’t you need friends?
Don’t you want to be smart and wise?
These question echo down through the ages, for we are confronted with the same questions, and the same problem, today.
Will we trust God, that his way is best to fill physical needs, social needs, and the ultimate end of our lives? Or will we try and take a shortcut through Satan’s way? Will we reach out for these things in our own power?
Christians often think about sin, avoiding sin, what sin does in their lives, etc. But we rarely think about the process of sin —how does temptation work? In this series of posts on reading Genesis 3:17 I’m going to talk about four different possible ways to see the process of Eve’s acceptance of Satan’s invitation to sin: obedience/disobedience, challenge to God, need/fulfillment, and the dialectic process.
