“And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil…”
 - Genesis 3:22

I’ve been thinking a lot about choice lately. I believe that we are constantly being acted upon by two forces, and we are given the choice to follow whichever one we wish. This ability to choose, was set up in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Man was given agency, the power to choose, and this then set him apart from the rest of God’s creations, making man great. I think this point is wonderfully illustrated in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden:

“Thou Mayest! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the Gods, for in his weakness… he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win. …It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, ‘I couldn’t help it; the way was set.’ But think of the glory of the choice! …I feel that a man is a very important thing – maybe more important than a star … I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed – because ‘Thou Mayest’.” 

9″ x 12″ oil on panel