But the only reason that I can sit here now and contemplate this question, is because of Adam. Without the knowledge of good and evil how would I be any different than all of God's other creatures? Blissfully incapable of sin, not because I selflessly choose the nobler path, but simply because I'm too ignorant to know the difference.
That's what Adam's choice gave me, a gift, and a curse. The gift of a deeper understanding of the world around me, and the curse that with that understanding comes the recognition of the cruelty that I inevitably inflict upon it. Innocence was lost and and for all of our lamentations we cannot get it back. We know the evil that we do, in spite of the fervency with which we yearn not to do it.
Adam's choice didn't make him a sinner, so much as it made him a man who knew that he was a sinner. That's his burden... not that he sins... but that he knows that he sins.
Perhaps like all of God's other creatures it would be better if I lived and died in ignorance, and perhaps if I had been in Adam's shoes that's how it would be today. But that's a choice that I was never given. My choice is different. My choice is to do the nobler thing when I can, and to ask forgiveness when I can't. Even if there's no one there to grant it.
Do I fault Adam for the choice he made? No. Was it worth the cost? Knowing that it's the only reason that I can sit here now and contemplate this question I must reluctantly say yes... reluctantly, because what I have gained has cost so many so much that it seems unfair of me to say that it was worth the cost, because the cost wasn't just mine.
Well, this response certainly took on a life of its own...sorry.