Answers to Christians' questions about Adam & Eve. A fundamental question of non-Christians is why God would allow Adam and Eve everything but the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Wasn't it a set up for failure?
A fundamental question of non-Christians is why God would allow Adam and Eve everything but the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Surely God knew that they would eventually take the fruit so why did He put the tree there?
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were innocent of evil. They didn't know evil existed. In their idyllic home, they had communion with God, meaning that God visited with them, much like we would have visitors in our homes. (Genesis 3:8)
They were given dominion over the garden "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (Genesis 2:16-17 KJV)
But Eve was beguiled by the serpent and ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and offered it to Adam, who also ate the fruit. This is when sin entered into the history of people. God cast them out of the garden. (Genesis 3:1-23)
Now surely an all-knowing God would have to know that Adam and Eve would eat the forbidden fruit. So why did He tempt them by putting the tree there and telling them they couldn't eat the fruit of it? Wasn't it all a big set up? No, it wasn't. God did not tempt them, Satan tempted. God didn't set them up for failure He created them with freewill.
God didn't want to create beings that would worship Him mindlessly. He wanted for us to love Him because we choose to love Him. Freewill is His gift to us. If Adam and Eve had no choices in the garden, they would have been mere puppets. God had to set something apart that they could have a choice about. He gave them the choice of being obedient or not. The angels also have this choice. Satan and his demons were angels that chose not to love and obey God.
God was merciful, not merciless, in His behavior with Adam and Eve. God walked with them and shared with them. He gave them paradise and asked that they avoid only one thing. If He were merciless, He would have given them a pit to live in rather than a paradise. If He were merciless, He would have surrounded them with forbidden fruits. If He were merciless, He would have given them no choices and would have ruled them from above with an iron fist.
The Tree of Knowledge was the chosen tree because God wanted to spare Adam and Eve from corruption and maintain their innocence. Because of His gift of freewill, though, they had to have an opportunity to choose knowledge of all things or choose obedience. God was asking them to have faith that He knew what was best for them.
Let's take a closer look at what happened. Eve is in the center of the garden and observes the serpent. He says to her, "Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" She replies, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." (Genesis 3:1-3)
When God told Adam and Eve that they would die if they ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, He was talking about spiritual death. Satan manipulates God's Word and tells Eve that she won't die, meaning her physical body will not die right then and there. This is the nature of Satan. He can take the Word of God and manipulate it to his own purpose. This is the very thing that he tried to do with Jesus in the wilderness. Knowing the Word of God helps you to defend yourself against Satan's attacks.
Next, he tells her that if she eats the fruit, she will be like God, having knowledge of all things good and evil. (Genesis 3:5) He tells her this is why God doesn't want them to eat from the tree, that God doesn't want them to be their own gods. Eve's sin was not in trying to be like God. We are called to transform our behavior and our minds to be reflections of God. He made us in His image. Her sins were disobedience and deception.
When Eve convinces Adam to eat the fruit, he was not deceived. He was taken with the idea of being his own god. Adam's sins were pride and disobedience. Now that they have knowledge of good and evil, they know shame. They sew themselves fig leaf coverings in an attempt to hide their shame from God. This is symbolic of the barriers we erect around our sins trying to hide our shame. These barriers are what separate us from God.
When God discovers them, they are cast out of the garden and cursed. God did not punish them by casting them out of the garden. (Genesis 3:22-24) This He did in mercy. Within the garden was also the Tree of Life. If Adam and Eve had eaten from the Tree of Life after having eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, they would have been forever condemned in sin. By casting them out of the garden, God was able to spare them eternal condemnation for their sin.
The curse that Adam and Eve carried with them out of the garden was not of God's making either. They brought the curse on by their choice of disobedience. The curse of Adam and Eve is original sin. No parents with minds corrupted by sin could raise children without infecting them with the corruption. Original sin is like a genetic virus, spread though all of us by the choice of these early parents.
All sin requires a consequence. Consequences are the natural result of misbehavior. When a child misbehaves, the parent must provide consequences that the child can learn from. Man's consequence is having to toil for a living. In the garden, he would not have had this burden. The burden is the reminder of the consequences of disobedience. Woman's consequence has the same reminder; her consequence is the pain of childbirth. It is the reminder of the pain of sin.
God didn't set Adam and Eve up for failure. God didn't tempt Adam and Eve. God didn't banish them from the garden as punishment. Adam and Eve made choices that infected us all with a sinful nature. God provides us mercy by limiting our lifespan and providing us a way to be reconciled with Him, through Jesus Christ. God is merciful and wants us to come to Him. What's your choice?
