That origin of evil was not in Adam
and his wife; but when the serpent said, 'In the day that ye shall eat
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, ye shall be as God' (Gen.
iii. 5), they then made in themselves the origin of evil, because they
turned themselves from God, and turned to themselves, as to God. _To eat
of that tree, signifies to believe that they knew good and evil, and
were wise, from themselves, and not from God._" But the two angels then
asked, "How could man turn himself from God, and turn to himself, when
yet he cannot will, think, and thence do anything but from God? Why did
God permit this?" I replied, "Man was so created, that whatever he
wills, thinks, and does, appears to him as in himself, and thereby from
himself: without this appearance a man would not be a man; for he would
be incapable of receiving, retaining, and as it were appropriating to
himself anything of good and truth, or of love and wisdom: whence it
follows, that without such appearance, as a living appearance, a man
would not have conjunction with God, and consequently neither would he
have eternal life.
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