Originally posted on October 10, 2013
Nietzsche argues with Schopenhauer that the highest drive of man is his strive for power. Schopenhauer argues that Will to Life is the primary goal of man.
In this post, and the following one, I will explore that the drive of man for power led to God kicking him out of paradise.
In Genesis Chapter 2, God commanded the man, saying:
“Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 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 surely die.” ~Genesis 2:16-17
Knowledge equals power. Enter evil as serpent:
And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat 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 it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’” And the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that is was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked….” ~Genesis 3:2-7
They wanted the power that God had. Simple as that. They had everything they needed, they had Paradise! But it wasn’t enough. They wanted more. They wanted to be like God. And it seemed like there would be no ill consequence, besides God’s warning, it all seemed good. As Neitzsche so aptly points out, “My idea is that every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its force and to thrust back all that resists its extension. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement (“union”) with those of them that are sufficiently related to it: thus they then conspire together for power. And the process goes on.”
Let us also remember that Satan got kicked out of Heaven for this same exercise:
“And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” ~Revelation 12:7-9
So the Enemy was, and is, perpetually looking for women and men who will collude with him to usurp God’s power, in a seemingly neverending process between good and evil.
In the next post, we will see how God responds…
~Song of Mary~ 