A partial quote (without paragraph numbers) from Genesis 3 [1] below seems to be a good beginning:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
This blogger is of the opinion that it is better to remain ignorant and know only how to love God and all of God's creations than being educated, but Original Sin has made the thirst for knowledge unquenchable. After disobeying God and eating the forbidden fruit, Eve and Adam became aware of their nakedness, covered themselves and hid from God. When God asked Adam if he had eaten fruit from that one tree he was not supposed to eat from, he replied that "she" gave him some fruit from that tree and he ate it. This is where Fr. Steven's insight enlightens. Fr. Stevens said Adam refused to take responsibility for what he did and on its face blamed it on "the woman" God put there with him. Fr. Stevens then read Adam's reply with emphasis on the words "the woman" and the words "you put here with me." This verbal underscoring by Fr. Stevens made clear that Adam was actually blaming God for making the woman who caused him to eat the forbidden fruit. When God asked Eve what she had done, she, too, refused to take responsibility and blamed it on the Serpent. Although Fr. Stevens did not say this, this blogger thinks that Eve also blamed God in her mind for her mistake since it was God Who created the Serpent and allowed it to enter the Garden of Eden to deceive her.
The question is whether Adam and Eve knew how to make excuses for themselves before they had eaten the forbidden fruit. The answer should be "no" because they were originally sinless and they had done nothing wrong previously for which they needed to cover up with excuses. Therefore, it can be reasonably concluded that knowledge leads man to his errors for which he would refuse to be responsible for later, and would always look for someone or something to blame.
It was a long time ago when man's first parents were banished from the Garden of Eden. Since then, man has gradually accumulated knowledge and in the process redefined what is good, not in accordance with God but in accordance with Satan, and has learned to create "like" God, except that the more man creates (other than fine art, prayers and music that glorify God), the faster his creations hurry him to his demise. This is because what man chooses to create are hardly products of perfection but forgeries of perfection and as such they are inferior, just as the Serpent had promised man's first parents, that they (and their kind) would be "like God" but not God. Even the most advanced applications today installed on hand-held devices that allow for quick mobile access to communication and resources are rudimentary, compared to what God is capable of, from omniscience to omnipresence within a realm that is timeless and infinite, which do not depend on charge-losing batteries to function, which are beyond human comprehension no matter how much more knowledge man continues to acquire, and this knowledge is not always necessarily good for man.
Even though what is good has been redefined time and again, man nonetheless still knows or ought to know instinctively the difference between good (despite having been made relative) and evil. Accordingly, man knows or ought to know that his numerous repetitive and replacement creations would eventually lead to the destruction of his environment but does nothing to remedy it besides talking about it hypocritically while seeking near-term profits for the corporate-self without considering long-term consequences for the good of mankind; worse than that, he creates fixes (again for profit) that will likely damage his environment even more rapidly and probably irrevocably. Man, of course, never sees himself as the destroyer but the savior, even though it is impossible for man to save himself because of Original Sin.
Original Sin was not inevitable; it was a choice. In the Garden of Eden, Eve who was sinless took on Sin by choosing not to obey God. The Blessed Virgin Mary, the second woman to come into being without Sin, chose differently. On this point, Fr. Stevens explained that Mary was betrothed to Joseph, and that She probably planned to start a family with Joseph, but Her plan did not come to fruition, and She would give birth to the Son of God. Fr. Stevens noted that Mary was not afraid when the angel appeared to Her [2], but that She was full of grace and full of love for God, and added that the opposite of love is not hate or indifference but fear. In Her reply to the angel, "Mary said, 'Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.'" [3]. At the end of his presentation, Fr. Stevens concluded that Mary had so much faith in and love for God that there was infinite space within Her to allow God to come into Her life, and asked all to have the same infiniteness as Mary when it comes to saying "yes" to God.
Based on Fr. Steven's insights, it would therefore be reasonable to conclude that in order to have infiniteness within oneself to say "yes" to God, one must empty out the fears within, and because knowledge often leads to fear, it must also be emptied out, leaving only love behind. Hence, the words of San Francesco d'Assisi are true: "There are many who willingly climb to the heights of knowledge; that person be blessed who renounces it for the love of God." [4]
[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3
[2] http://www.usccb.org/bible/luke/1
[3] Ibid.
[4] Armstrong, Regis J. O.F.M. Cap. et.al, (2000). Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Volume II, The Founder (p. 209). Hyde Park, NY: New City Press. See also https://books.google.com/books?id=dCbmHZ_G5DwC&pg=PA207&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false (the last paragraph on page 209).
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