"But this functioned as a provocation.

"If God really wanted him not to eat from the tree of knowledge, the better course would have been that Adam was never told about it. Paradise is infinitemillions and millions of trees. Even by now, Adam would not have been able to discover it – one tree of knowledge. But the moment God said: 'Don't touch that tree, don't go near it, don't eat it,' that tree became the most important tree. Certainly. Obviously.

"Adam must have started dreaming about it. A temptation – going into the forest, into the garden, again and again the tree would call him. He must have gone close to it, looked, waited, brooded; many times he must have been just close to it, at the very brink of committing the sin, of disobeying, of being rebellious.

"There is a fundamental law to it. Adam has to be expelled. Unless Adam is expelled, Adam will never become a christ. He has to go astray to come home. Very contradictory. But unless you move into sin, you don't know what sainthood is.

"Every child is a saint, but that sainthood is very cheap. You have not earned it; it is just a natural gift – and who bothers about a natural gift? You have to lose it. When you lose it you become aware of what you have lost. When you lose it then you start suffering, then you feel a great hunger for it. When you lose it, then by contrast it becomes clear what it was.

"If you want to see the beautiful dawn you have to wander into the dark night. Only after the dark night is the morning beautiful. If you really want to be rich, you have to become poor. Only after poverty do you start feeling the beauty of riches.

"The contradiction is only apparent – they are complementary.

"Christians have a theory; they call it felix culpa – a happy fault. Adam's sin has been known to Christian theology as felix culpa – a happy fault – since it brings about the need of Christ the Redeemer. If there had been no disobedience on the part of Adam then there would have been no Christ."