NOTES for Gen 3:8
Why man suddenly decided to hide from God? What guided him at that moment? The fear for punishment? Of course, man had all the reasons for being afraid of God's dissatisfaction, quite as God had all the reasons for being dissatisfied after what happened. But indeed, man had certainly not forgotten yet what God's mercy is like and which is its measure, he couldn’t have not know that a single word of repentance is capable of restoring the relations which already began to be ruined.
So as he could not understand that the refusal to communicate had to bring inevitably to his later estrangement from the One, without Whom the garden of Eden will be very soon transformed for him into desert, invaded by weed and thorns. Apparently, man at that moment was guided by something more serious and deep than fear.
Perhaps the same thing, that first led him to taste the forbidden fruit. What was it? Desire of power? The desire to be superior to God? Hardly: even we understand that there is nothing good in such desires, and yet people living before the fall were not worse at all , but infinitely better than us. What would have been able to tempt them?
However paradoxical it can appear, the main temptation could be just the creative possibilities of man, surpassing infinitely ours. Create a remarkable world, according to one’s own project, by oneself, with one’s own strengths! Such a task could appear to the perfect man completely possible
And then, perhaps even present his creation to God as a majestic and wonderful gift! Of course this idea was doomed from the very beginning, and pretty soon man began to realize that he doesn’t succeed in his projects. But at the moment to go and meet God meant being capitulated, recognizing his defeat and the insolvency of his own plan, recognizing the failure of a whole ambitious project.
It is not surprising, that such recognition for man was worse than any punishment. And the attempt to hide from God, was maybe just the desire to win the time necessary in order to correct everything and still go to meet God, not as a loser, but as a triumphant victor, to whom succeeded everything that he conceived.
Well so the failure of creativity turned out in a spiritual failure, a disruption, which, unfortunately, predetermined all the later history of mankind. Humanity, of which there was now no need to lead forward, but pulling out of the pit, in which it was. Humanity henceforth became in need not only of transformation, but also of salvation.