Why would God not want Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Did that mean that God did not intend mankind to have the knowledge of good and evil?
Answer:
Prior to eating of The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God had already commanded Adam not to eat of the fruit. Adam knew what God was like, and what God was not. Since whatever is not of God is by definition, evil, Adam already knew good and evil in a cognitive sense. For Adam to be able to make a choice between good and evil he must first know cognitively whether what he is choosing is in obedience to God, or in disobedience to God (therefore choosing evil).
Therefore, The fruit of The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is not a reference to cognitive knowledge of good and evil, for Adam had already possessed that before the fall. Neither can we come to the conclusion that God did not intend for mankind to distinguish good from evil since it was God himself who explained to Adam what was good and what was evil prior to eating the fruit.
The likely explanation for the name of the tree is that by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam would have come to experience both good and evil. Before eating, Adam would only have experienced what is morally good. Adam (before the fall) would be somewhat similar to the second Adam, Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:45-47), in the sense that he cognitively knew what good and evil was, but experientially, he only knew good. When God told Adam not to eat of The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam gained experiential knowledge of sin because of his disobedience to God. The crux of the matter is not the name of the tree or the power of the tree, but simply the fact that Adam chose to sin. Had Adam disobeyed God by refusing to tend the garden, that too would be sin.
1 Comment
This is very helpful. Thanks.