From the Genesis Berit Olam -series commentary, by David W. Cotter, A Michael Glazier Book, The Liturgical Press, ©Order of Saint Benedict, Inc., 2003, p.30:
The Human, still quite alone, was placec in a garden that God had planted in Eden, full of tees beautiful and nourishing as well as two other trees, one known as the Tree of Life7 and the other as the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bd. The former tree disappears from the story until the very end. It is the latter tree that looms lage both in the story and in the biblical religions, especially Christianity.
Why did God forbid the consumption of its fruit on pain of death? There are several possibilities: God desired to withhold ethical knowledge from Humanity, making humans dependent on commandments; God desired Humanity to remain without the knowledge of sexuality, pleasure and pain, life and death; since Good and Evil are an example of merismus meaning something like "everything," God was commanding Humanity not to attempt universal knowledge. Yet others feel that the command is purely arbitrary, that God might equally well have forbidden something else just as long as Humanity realized that they were subject to divine command and not free to act at will.
The text does not say which of these possibilities, or perhaps some other, is meant here, but we can reason our way to some conclusions. When the serpent approached the woman and offered the fruit to her she already possessed ethical knowledge. She knew that her action would be wrong. If she already knew the nature of evil and possessed the ability to make moral choices, the tree's meaning must be something other. At any rate, knowledge of such sort is hardly a sin, but a good thing to be desired.
[...]
My suggestion is that the phrase refers to universal knowledge. Humanity is commanded not to try to become like God and know all things. For in doing so they will lose what is distinctive about their humanity, their very conditionality and limitation, and so die.8
7 See also Prov 3:18, 11:30; 13:12, 15:4
8 Note that the verb form of the prediction of death (mȏt tāmût) means that death will follow as a punishment but not necessarily immediately. It does not imply immediate execution. See Gn 20:7; Nm 26:65; Judg 13:22; 1 Sam 14:39, 44; 2 Sam 12:14, 14:14; 1 Kgs 1:4, 6, 16, 8:10; Jer 26:8; Ezek 3:18, 14.
p.36
In the Tradition
Why did God allow Man and Woman to be tempted? Was it fair, knowing that they were so utterly naïve? Augustine did not have an answer to the question that he found entirely convincing, but he inclined toward the idea that there is no virtue without the possibility of sin, and that God uses the example of the sinner to instruct the virtuous.
Then it cites
On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, 11.4.6, in Andrew Louth,
Genesis 1-11, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Old Testament I (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2001) 80:
"If someone asks, therefore, why God allowed man to be tempted when he foreknew that man would yield to the tempter, I cannot sound the depths of divine wisdom, and I confess that the solution is far beyond ...
p.37: ... my powers. There may be a hidden reason, made known only to those who are better and holier than I, not because of their merits but simply by the Grace of God. But insofar as God gives me the ability to understand or allows me to speak, I do not think that a man would deserve great praise if he had been able to live a good life for the simple reason that nobody tempted him to live a bad one. For by nature he would have it in his power to will not to yield to the tempter, with help of him, of course "who resists the proud and gives his grace to the humble" (1 Pt 5:5) ... [My insertion: 1 Pt 5:5f (1966 JB):
headline:
To the faithful
To the rest of you I say: do what the elders tell you, and all wrap yourselves in humility to be servants of each other, because
God refuses the proud and will always favor the humble.* Bow down, then, before the power of God now, and he will raise you up on the appointed day;
* Proverbs 3:34 (LXX)
... Why then, would God not allow a man to be tempted, although he foreknew he would yield? For the man would do the deed by his own free will and thus incur guilt, and he would have to undergo punishment according to God's justice to be restored to right order. Thus God would make known his will to a proud soul for the instruction of the saints in ages to come. For wisely he uses even bad wills of souls when they perversely abuse their nature, which is good.