Is there really Evil in the first place.

My first interpretation of Estrella Alfon's Magnificence, I must say, is far from what we have discussed in class. The first time I read it, the theme and idea I thought it revolved around is the special relationship and bond between a mother and a daughter. The last thing I would have thought is that it is actually an allusion, a response to the Genesis' story of the Fall of Adam and Eve, which it really is.

This is actually hard for me to say. Even if I am a Catholic, I must admit that I myself do not truly understand all the teachings of the religion I belong to. There are still many questions that I found no answer for. I cannot even be biased about this since I am truly passionate about knowing many things and knowledge itself, just like the many philosophers I read about and admire.

However, I have always liked challenging myself. I also tried to come up with my own answers to the questions that Alfon has raised through her response to the Genesis story. The two stories, Magnificenc and the Fall of Adam and Eve, were very similar in many ways but Alfon missed many important aspects of the characters and events in the Genesis story that kind of misleads the readers:

1. First, the Mother flawed but she was not aware of what the kind of person Vicente really was, for she really is a person, still. God, however, is a perfect Being, omnipotent, omniscient. He would not be perfect if He did not really know everything. So He does. He put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil because He loves Adam and Eve, and He wants to give them choice to follow and love him back and not make them His mere puppets. The mother, on the other hand, did not have the same awareness as God.
2. The little boy and little girl did not really have the choice that Adam and Eve had.
3. We cannot really say that there really is evil in the first place. I would say that it is only a term to describe absence of goodness. And we can't really say that Adam and Eve eating the fruit does not really give an account to say that there was ignorance and knowledge then, which is presupposed by Alfon. Knowing evil is not a knowledge because it's just a consequence of something that is in the absence of good.

There were many more missing points, but it would be too long to pin point each. However, I would like to conclude by saying that we cannot question that story in such a way that we are using only our limited knowledge. Being a believer of a notion of God, I believe there are things that we cannot fully fathom or comprehend. We now live in a world wherein we know what is good and evil, and this is what we are used to. Knowing this has become a part of our routine and habit in this world. Therefore, we cannot really judge what life would have been if we did not have this knowledge. Let's not look at the Biblical story only in the context of our time and situation. We would say that life would have sucked if we did not know what was good and evil, and it would have exposed us to even more evil. But what if the act of choosing to know what is good and evil is actually choosing to renounce goodness, thus making us see its absence, that which is evil?