Why Did God Want Adam and Eve to Not Have Knowledge of Evil?

Maybe He did. Not all Christians agree on these points, but if God is all-knowing and had foreknowledge of Adam and Eve eating from the tree and He still chose to put it where they could eat from it and God could have done otherwise, then it should stand to reason that the fall of man was intended.

If He can see what will happen and He formed human nature, the garden, the tree, the serpent, etc, then maybe the answer is He did intend that all that happen.

But if He is not all-knowing, then yeah. Perhaps He made some mistakes.

Jaedan said:

I don't know if this is what is supposed to be interpreted in Genesis. But if it is, why did god not want Adam and Eve to have knowledge of Evil?

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What sort of parent wants their children to know about ' evil '?

They had instructions some positive and one negitive, don't eat from two trees.
They didn't need detailed knowledge about what these trees represented.

As far as Adam and Eve were concerned it was a case of obey, they chose to disobey.

It is interesting that people still chose to disobey.

Tolworth John said:

What sort of parent wants their children to know about ' evil '?

They had instructions some positive and one negitive, don't eat from two trees.
They didn't need detailed knowledge about what these trees represented.

As far as Adam and Eve were concerned it was a case of obey, they chose to disobey.

It is interesting that people still chose to disobey.

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Was the choice to disobey evil?

Gene Parmesan said:

Was the choice to disobey evil?

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The choice to disobey God express command was wrong.
If you call not obeying God evil then yes it was evil.

Tolworth John said:

The choice to disobey God express command was wrong.
If you call not obeying God evil then yes it was evil.

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Disobeying God might be considered evil by some. Certainly sinning, which is usually equated with evil. So we do know that prior to eating from the tree, they had the capacity to sin or do evil. Some suggest that the tree may not have had any special qualities at all and was simply a test. It's interesting to think about.

There's "know", and then there's know. The word used in Genesis 2, da'at, is a derivative of yada, which has the connotation of intimate experiential knowledge. It is used, for instance, with regard to marital relations - "Adam knew his wife", and they had a son, etc. Another word, dakar, meaning acquaintance, could have been used concerning the tree, but wasn't.

Adam was told not to eat of the tree, and was warned that there would be dire consequences, namely death, if he did so. So he was acquainted with the concept of evil. But he did not intimately know evil until he sinned.

Gene Parmesan said:

Maybe He did. Not all Christians agree on these points, but if God is all-knowing and had foreknowledge of Adam and Eve eating from the tree and He still chose to put it where they could eat from it and God could have done otherwise, then it should stand to reason that the fall of man was intended.

If He can see what will happen and He formed human nature, the garden, the tree, the serpent, etc, then maybe the answer is He did intend that all that happen.

But if He is not all-knowing, then yeah. Perhaps He made some mistakes.

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The biblical sccount of the original sin is a symbolic story and it is not to be interpreted literally.
The original sin consists in the lack of trust in God, in the proud desire to affirm our authority above everything and everyone, in the proud desire to feel “the god of ourselves”, so that we can esablish the moral rules and do whatever we want to.

I fully recognize myself in Adam and Eve, because I know that even if I had lived in the ideal situation described symbolically in the Genesis, I would have certainly done what Adam and Eve did. I think I rebelled against God, since I was a kid, even if I was not aware of that. In fact, every time children disoebey their parents (for example when they teach them that something is dangerous and they should not do it) they are unconsciously rebelling against God. Since the most tender age, children manfest forms of egoism and the desire to affirm their will against their parents' will; I think these behaviors represent embrionic forms of the original sin.

The story of the fall is not only a figurative account of Adam's sin, but it is also the figurative story of each of us; it tells us who we really are beyond our own awareness, it tells us that we are all proud rebels. Even if we had been created in Eden, we would have sinned and rebelled against God. Therefore, Adam's sin is also our sin.

Jaedan said:

I don't know if this is what is supposed to be interpreted in Genesis. But if it is, why did god not want Adam and Eve to have knowledge of Evil?

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The implication seems to be that this knowledge was a familiarity with. It's a more "intimate" knowing than just what we typically mean when we say "know" in English. In Hebrew, for example, when a husband "knows" his wife, it means they have had sexual intercourse, become intimate with one another.

As such knowledge here is likely an intimate familiarity with evil; that is, evil has now entered the human picture.

It's not knowing the difference between right and wrong; but rather the destructive conflict of the good and the evil, between justice and injustice, that results in the misuse of the good, i.e. evil and sin.

In Christian historical theology we have often expressed Adam and Eve before the Fall as children, they weren't created "perfect" in the sense of complete, finished, etc. They were created with the potential to grow, to mature, to grow in knowledge of God.

So when the serpent lies and says, "you will be as gods, knowing good and evil" the serpent's lie is actually subtle, rather than obvious. It was always God's will and purpose that human beings grow, mature, and become more like God; what the serpent gave was a shortcut, a false shortcut. Like a cartoon villain putting a false "Detour" sign leading the wrong direction.

The Incarnation, God the Son becoming man: Jesus Christ, was always going to happen (at least according to a number of the ancient fathers and teachers of the Christian Church). Because the fullness of being human is found in that union of God and man together in Jesus. The fall represents man going down the detour, falling into a pit, and God's response is, in a sense, to do what He was always going to do. So the Incarnation also means the rescue of man from the devil's pit, lifting humanity and all creation out of the pit of death and sin, and into reconciliation with Himself. And so, God's purposes are not thwarted, the goal is still what it always was: The fullness of a creation brimming with knowledge of God, filled with love from God and reciprocally shared with all creatures.

The doctrine of Theosis or "Deification" (though that can be misleading) in Christianity means that human beings are to share in God's Being. Not by becoming divine beings, but by God's gracious sharing of Himself with us, by which we have become "partakers of the Divine Nature" (2 Peter 1:3-4).

St. Athanasius wrote, "God became man so that man might become God" and "we shall become by grace what God is by nature", or as the earlier St. Irenaeus wrote "[God has] become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself".

That is to say, by our union and communion with God, by His grace, growing in knowledge and love, we are growing in Christ, growing in God, being "conformed to the image of the Son of God" (Romans 8:29), sharing in God's life--with the ultimate purpose being a fullness of life in the Age to Come. The union of God and man in Jesus brings forth the redemption and healing of the world, and points to our union with God by grace. To be human beings sharing in God's Being, even as God has become man, sharing in our being.

-CryptoLutheran

Gene Parmesan said:

Maybe He did. Not all Christians agree on these points, but if God is all-knowing and had foreknowledge of Adam and Eve eating from the tree and He still chose to put it where they could eat from it and God could have done otherwise, then it should stand to reason that the fall of man was intended.

If He can see what will happen and He formed human nature, the garden, the tree, the serpent, etc, then maybe the answer is He did intend that all that happen.

But if He is not all-knowing, then yeah. Perhaps He made some mistakes.

Click to expand...

Maybe God knows that men do not appreciate what they have until they no longer have it. God gave man free will and a rational mind, Man needs to learn how to use it properly.

Jaedan said:

I don't know if this is what is supposed to be interpreted in Genesis. But if it is, why did god not want Adam and Eve to have knowledge of Evil?

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God knows how attractive evil is to man. Sin always looks so good but it always costs far more than it is worth.

Before Adam. Satan, the ‘Father of Lies’ was there.

What we know is this: the angels were created before the earth (Job 38:4-7). Satan fell before he tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden (Genesis 3:1-14). Satan’s fall, therefore, must have occurred somewhere after the time the angels were created and before he tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Whether Satan’s fall occurred hours, days, or years before he tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden, Scripture does not specifically say. God knew that if He made man in His image, man would have have freedom of choice.
It seems He tried to protect Man by warning him of the consequences of disobedience. He is a loving parent.

Romans 5:13. For before the law was given, sin was in the world, but there is no accounting for sin when there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin in the same way that Adam (who is a type of the coming one) transgressed. But the gracious gift is not like the transgression. For if the many died through the transgression of the one man, how much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ multiply to the many!

Acts, 17:28. For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commands all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

Sin, the father of lies, fell before man existed, yet still had access to the throne of God.

Job, 1:6. One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from? Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

Some will assert that this refers to the king of Tyre. No. Tyre was not in the Garden, it did not exist. Ezekiel, 28:12.

“Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord God:

“You were the signet of perfection,

full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

13 You were in Eden, the garden of God;

fevery precious stone was your covering,

gsardius, topaz, and diamond,

beryl, onyx, and jasper,

sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle;

and crafted in gold were your settings

and your engravings.

On the day that you were created

they were prepared.

14 You were an anointed guardian cherub.

I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God;

in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.

15 You were blameless in your ways

from the day you were created,

till unrighteousness was found in you.

16 In the abundance of your trade

you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned;

so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God,

and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub,

from the midst of the stones of fire.

17 Your heart was proud because of your beauty;

you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.

I cast you to the ground;

I exposed you before kings,

to feast their eyes on you.

18 By the multitude of your iniquities,

in the unrighteousness of your trade

you profaned your sanctuaries;

so I brought fire out from your midst;

it consumed you,

and I turned you to ashes on the earth

in the sight of all who saw you.

I think Tolworth nailed it.

Jaedan said:

I don't know if this is what is supposed to be interpreted in Genesis. But if it is, why did god not want Adam and Eve to have knowledge of Evil?

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1) God knew that wasn't right for Adam and Eve.
2) Considering all the bloodshed in history once this knowledge was acquired, I think that clearly demonstrates that God was right.

Jaedan said:

I don't know if this is what is supposed to be interpreted in Genesis. But if it is, why did god not want Adam and Eve to have knowledge of Evil?

Click to expand...

If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.

Jaedan said:

I don't know if this is what is supposed to be interpreted in Genesis. But if it is, why did god not want Adam and Eve to have knowledge of Evil?

Click to expand...

The tree in the garden was a simple choice, obey God, or seek your own will. I believe, it was only known as the knowledge of good and evil, because evil did not exist for those who chose obedience over disobedience.

Jaedan said:

I don't know if this is what is supposed to be interpreted in Genesis. But if it is, why did god not want Adam and Eve to have knowledge of Evil?

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In Eden, Adam and Eve lived in a state of innocence, unaware of the distinctions between Good and Evil and free of the burden that such knowledge would place upon them. This burden you can see in their reaction to eating the Forbidden Fruit which was to be instantly seized by a sense of guiltiness and a desire to hide from God and to clothe themselves.

Jaedan said:

I don't know if this is what is supposed to be interpreted in Genesis. But if it is, why did god not want Adam and Eve to have knowledge of Evil?

Click to expand...

Knowledge of good and evil (our conscience today) was not needed for Adam and Eve to sin. They had knowledge of right and wrong which is not the same. By Adam and Eve not having knowledge of good and evil they could be given just one way to sin. It was not "sin" for Eve to lust after the fruit, be selfish, covet the fruit, and not seek council.
We can look at the situation in the Garden with our two briliant best all human representative and see that they sinned with only one way to sin, so although the Garden looks to be like heaven on earth, it is a lousy place for humans to fulfill their earthly objective without sinning.
Knowledge of good and evil provides us with a ton more ways to sin, so all mature adults will sin.
Sin is not the real problem, while unforgiven sin is a huge problem.

The story of Adam and Eve goes on the basis on obedience and disobedience God forknew the events and told them to not eat of the tree they did because they follow there own desires and not God, God knew they would do such a thing is why he sent the servant who had an enmity with the serpent Genesis 3:15 this is all about becoming perfected in grace 2 Peter 1:4 Adam and Eve wasn't perfected in grace they was in the likeness of God but wasn't perfect in grace(which means they were corruptable) once Jesus returns and we get our glorified bodies we will be perfected in grace and sin wouldn't be possible cause all sin would be sent in the lake of fire

Jaedan said:

I don't know if this is what is supposed to be interpreted in Genesis. But if it is, why did god not want Adam and Eve to have knowledge of Evil?

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It is far better to have knowledge of true and false, which leads to the tree of life. Knowledge of good and evil is corrupted by our desire where we can't be sure whether we think that something is good because it is actually good or because we desire it, so we must lean not on our own understanding and do what is right in our own eyes, but should renounce our knowledge of good and evil and through faith align our throughs and actions with the truth and wisdom of God's word.

Proverbs 3 My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, 2 for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. 3 Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. 4 So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. 5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. 7 Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. 8 It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.

18 She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed.

One way to interpret it is that it is easier to be childlike, to be innocent. A lot of people become adults and miss their childhood when their parents took care of them and they didn't have to make complex decisions themselves. At the same time, it's becoming an adult that allows us to really appreciate our parents, what they've done for us. So God knows it is very hard to grow up, to have to choose between right and wrong, and like a parent, on some level maybe wishes we didn't have to... but ultimately I think it was God's will for all of that to happen. Like the prodigal son, who falls into the world of sin, and finds it empty and vain. He understands when he is back in his father's house how fortunate he is.