Why did Adam sin?
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Very well.
By oldhermit
There is an example of triadic structure that demonstrates how the natural world and the supernatural world relate to one another in the eternal continuum. At the beginning of man’s history in the garden, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were mentioned in the context of man’s relationship both to God and to the natural world. The text never seems to indicate that in the beginning there was any prohibition to the tree of life but that man was only denied access to the tree of knowledge. It was not until after the fall of man that God placed an angel with a flaming sword at the east of the garden to prohibit man’s access to the tree of life. The way in which Adam chose to represent these trees would reflect his understanding of his association with both God and the natural world. As the narrative unfolds, it becomes clear that access to the tree of life was predicated upon man’s observance of the divine prohibition of the other. Man was to have absolutely no contact with the tree of knowledge. God had provided every tree of the garden for man’s use and pleasure, but this tree was to be left strictly alone. These two trees stand as symbols of a world beyond man’s sensory existence. The tree of forbidden knowledge represents the holiness, the superiority, and the sovereignty of God. It suggests that God always reserves unto Himself the things that belong exclusively to him. It is not merely the tree that has exclusivity, but what that tree represents. As a whole, man is never content to abide by prohibitions. Here, he desires the one thing he is denied. How characteristic this has proven to be of human nature!
Although man was given the highest place of honor as the crowning creation of God with dominion over all creation, this tree was a reminder that even man is not God. Man must stand in the index position of this triadic structure and link the tree of knowledge that he can see to the will of God whom he cannot see. He must also link this tree to revealed consequences that he cannot see and has never before experienced. For Adam to properly relate to both worlds he must learn to link the eternal world to the natural world by bringing God’s warning to bear upon his relationship to this tree. He must learn how to define the nature of his relationship to this tree based on what God had told him about it. Now, this epistemology did not just apply to this tree but extended to everything in man’s dominion. He must understand his relationship to all of his domain based upon this triadic epistemology. God had already defined his function in creation and man must relate to his world according to the words of the Lord.
From the beginning, man was confronted with a decision in his association with this icon of good and evil. This tree was a symbol of an unseen reality. There is a particular type of knowledge man was not equipped to handle and should not seek to obtain. The accessibility of the tree shows that man was also given the ability to obtain this knowledge. The prohibition laid down by God says that this knowledge is destructive to man. This reinforces man’s position as a subordinate creature to what is unseen. God had said, “From this tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shalt not eat of it; for in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die.” Here is a divine standard given to instruct man on how to think when he considers this tree. Since God has decreed that punishment will follow disobedience, the validity of God’s word is upheld. Divine judgment preserves divine justice because it is through the exercise of justice that God protects his holiness. Observance of this revelation becomes a matter of life and death. The ethics were simple; God said, “Don’t touch it.” This did not require a human analysis of ethics to decide what might be the right thing to do. Contact with the tree was evil both because God said it was evil, and because of what man would suffer as a result.
We know, because of how this tree is interpreted by the physical senses in the text that man, left on his own, could not arrive at this conclusion. Adam could not see what the tree represented. He could only see the physical dynamics of the tree. For the rest, he must rely upon what God had told him about the tree. Man requires instruction from God to protect him from that which he has no point of reference to understand. As the Creator, God understood things about the nature of man and his relationship to his environment that man did not know and was not created to know. Man was not endowed with the capacity to distinguish between good knowledge and evil knowledge. This truth has not changed. The knowledge provided by this tree was not a necessary component for man to fulfill his role within his assigned environment.
The environment of the garden supplied every conceivable human need. He was even given access to the tree of life and the garden was a secure environment where man had no experience with fear, shame, and disgrace. These were yet unknown elements. It was an aesthetic environment where God controlled access to knowledge. There were certain things that man knew by design, but the prohibition of the tree says that there were those things which man should never want to know or seek to know.
In the garden, man enjoyed the presence of God and the full awareness of God. God knew that through disobedience man would be exiled from this controlled and protected environment and from his fellowship with God. By violating God’s prohibition, man challenged the sovereignty of God. Man does not have the authority to mandate a standard of moral conduct. The text of Genesis shows us that this level of knowledge belongs exclusively to God. Because man chose to behave sinfully, he is now confronted with a new reality. Adam is now aware of a particular type of knowledge that will forever change the way mankind represents the relationship he has with the natural world and with his God. It also laid a foundation by which humanity would forever be forced to choose between these two epistemologies. Should we represent reality based on revelation from God or should we rely on those things learned from pragmatic experiences? Which one will we depend upon to tell us the truth about what is relevant?
Now, man has access to the knowledge of good and evil. This presents two problems: First, man does not know the difference between good and evil and secondly, history shows us that when man is left to his own, he will more often than not choose the evil to his own destruction, even when revelation is present. In Genesis 6:5, we see that by the time Noah comes on the scene, “every imagination of the thoughts of the heart is only evil continually,” (RSV). The fact that revelation was available to that generation is evident in the character of Noah. God regarded Noah as “righteous in his generation.” Righteousness is the result of submitting one’s self to revealed constraints. This deterioration of a divinely established ethic shows a complete reversal of a revealed epistemology. This is what happens when the mind of man becomes isolated from the revelation of God. This isolation was willful, deliberate, and fatal. When man is left to himself without a desire for revealed knowledge, he is characteristically self-destructive. If man is to survive spiritually in a cursed environment, it will require a revealed ethical standard that will enable him to represent properly his assigned place within creation.
When Satan approached Eve in the garden, he confronts her about the tree of knowledge. Eve rehearsed the commandment that God had given to them about this tree saying, “from the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but of the tree that is in the midst of the garden you may not eat from it or touch it lest you die.” This represents a revealed language structure about certain truths concerning this tree that she could not know any other way. Satan then introduced a new way of thinking about what is true. He portrays this revealed grammar as unreliable and not to be trusted. “You shall not surely die for God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil.” The idea obviously appealed to Eve but the force of the temptation was more than just a desire to be like God. This new way of representing truth offered a means by which control could be shifted from God to man.
She relies upon an unrevealed method for making decisions. Rather than consulting God and relying upon revelation which, by her own admission she understood, she relied instead upon her five senses operating in this natural world to formulate her epistemological base. She “rationalizes” why it would be acceptable to eat that which had been forbidden. This reveals a distorted ethic in the misappropriation of things that belong to God. She contemplated stealing that which belongs to God and then attempted to justify the rightness of it in her own mind.
Satan’s temptation was two-fold based upon the decision matrix of the woman. This would imply that Satan understood something of the psychology of the woman and he capitalizes on her naiveté. Experientially, Eve knew nothing of Satan, temptation, evil, craftiness, the pain of disobedience, or death. The serpent created doubt in her mind about the motives, character, and purpose of God. He accused God of lying and planted the seed of evil ambition. “God knows that in the day you eat of it you will become like God.” The reality was that she was already like God. He creates suspicion in the mind of the woman by implying that God is deliberately withholding something from her that is both desirable and beneficial. It implies that, 1) man is just as good as God is, 2) God is unjust in this prohibition, and 3) man has the right to be God. This is a challenge of God’s sovereignty. At the heart of this, is the question of who has the right to be in control? Who has the right to decide what is best for man? A worldly epistemology says that man has the wisdom to decide what is best for him. A revealed epistemology says that God not only knows what is best but he is also able to supply it.
Satan then makes an appeal to the empirical and aesthetic observation. Eve saw that the fruit was good for food and was pleasing to the eye. He also appeals to the subjective impulse; it was desirable to make one wise, which the text defines as knowing good from evil. Where then was the sin? The sin was allowing human logic and rationalization to overrule the revelation of God. This is a propensity of humanly derived standards of ethics. The decision was made by appealing to an uninspired epistemology rather than to the words of the Lord. Human logic and rationalization are not valid determinants for deciding what is right or wrong. God said, “Don’t touch it.” This alone determines what is right or wrong.
By oldhermit
There is an example of triadic structure that demonstrates how the natural world and the supernatural world relate to one another in the eternal continuum. At the beginning of man’s history in the garden, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were mentioned in the context of man’s relationship both to God and to the natural world. The text never seems to indicate that in the beginning there was any prohibition to the tree of life but that man was only denied access to the tree of knowledge. It was not until after the fall of man that God placed an angel with a flaming sword at the east of the garden to prohibit man’s access to the tree of life. The way in which Adam chose to represent these trees would reflect his understanding of his association with both God and the natural world. As the narrative unfolds, it becomes clear that access to the tree of life was predicated upon man’s observance of the divine prohibition of the other. Man was to have absolutely no contact with the tree of knowledge. God had provided every tree of the garden for man’s use and pleasure, but this tree was to be left strictly alone. These two trees stand as symbols of a world beyond man’s sensory existence. The tree of forbidden knowledge represents the holiness, the superiority, and the sovereignty of God. It suggests that God always reserves unto Himself the things that belong exclusively to him. It is not merely the tree that has exclusivity, but what that tree represents. As a whole, man is never content to abide by prohibitions. Here, he desires the one thing he is denied. How characteristic this has proven to be of human nature!
Although man was given the highest place of honor as the crowning creation of God with dominion over all creation, this tree was a reminder that even man is not God. Man must stand in the index position of this triadic structure and link the tree of knowledge that he can see to the will of God whom he cannot see. He must also link this tree to revealed consequences that he cannot see and has never before experienced. For Adam to properly relate to both worlds he must learn to link the eternal world to the natural world by bringing God’s warning to bear upon his relationship to this tree. He must learn how to define the nature of his relationship to this tree based on what God had told him about it. Now, this epistemology did not just apply to this tree but extended to everything in man’s dominion. He must understand his relationship to all of his domain based upon this triadic epistemology. God had already defined his function in creation and man must relate to his world according to the words of the Lord.
From the beginning, man was confronted with a decision in his association with this icon of good and evil. This tree was a symbol of an unseen reality. There is a particular type of knowledge man was not equipped to handle and should not seek to obtain. The accessibility of the tree shows that man was also given the ability to obtain this knowledge. The prohibition laid down by God says that this knowledge is destructive to man. This reinforces man’s position as a subordinate creature to what is unseen. God had said, “From this tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shalt not eat of it; for in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die.” Here is a divine standard given to instruct man on how to think when he considers this tree. Since God has decreed that punishment will follow disobedience, the validity of God’s word is upheld. Divine judgment preserves divine justice because it is through the exercise of justice that God protects his holiness. Observance of this revelation becomes a matter of life and death. The ethics were simple; God said, “Don’t touch it.” This did not require a human analysis of ethics to decide what might be the right thing to do. Contact with the tree was evil both because God said it was evil, and because of what man would suffer as a result.
We know, because of how this tree is interpreted by the physical senses in the text that man, left on his own, could not arrive at this conclusion. Adam could not see what the tree represented. He could only see the physical dynamics of the tree. For the rest, he must rely upon what God had told him about the tree. Man requires instruction from God to protect him from that which he has no point of reference to understand. As the Creator, God understood things about the nature of man and his relationship to his environment that man did not know and was not created to know. Man was not endowed with the capacity to distinguish between good knowledge and evil knowledge. This truth has not changed. The knowledge provided by this tree was not a necessary component for man to fulfill his role within his assigned environment.
The environment of the garden supplied every conceivable human need. He was even given access to the tree of life and the garden was a secure environment where man had no experience with fear, shame, and disgrace. These were yet unknown elements. It was an aesthetic environment where God controlled access to knowledge. There were certain things that man knew by design, but the prohibition of the tree says that there were those things which man should never want to know or seek to know.
In the garden, man enjoyed the presence of God and the full awareness of God. God knew that through disobedience man would be exiled from this controlled and protected environment and from his fellowship with God. By violating God’s prohibition, man challenged the sovereignty of God. Man does not have the authority to mandate a standard of moral conduct. The text of Genesis shows us that this level of knowledge belongs exclusively to God. Because man chose to behave sinfully, he is now confronted with a new reality. Adam is now aware of a particular type of knowledge that will forever change the way mankind represents the relationship he has with the natural world and with his God. It also laid a foundation by which humanity would forever be forced to choose between these two epistemologies. Should we represent reality based on revelation from God or should we rely on those things learned from pragmatic experiences? Which one will we depend upon to tell us the truth about what is relevant?
Now, man has access to the knowledge of good and evil. This presents two problems: First, man does not know the difference between good and evil and secondly, history shows us that when man is left to his own, he will more often than not choose the evil to his own destruction, even when revelation is present. In Genesis 6:5, we see that by the time Noah comes on the scene, “every imagination of the thoughts of the heart is only evil continually,” (RSV). The fact that revelation was available to that generation is evident in the character of Noah. God regarded Noah as “righteous in his generation.” Righteousness is the result of submitting one’s self to revealed constraints. This deterioration of a divinely established ethic shows a complete reversal of a revealed epistemology. This is what happens when the mind of man becomes isolated from the revelation of God. This isolation was willful, deliberate, and fatal. When man is left to himself without a desire for revealed knowledge, he is characteristically self-destructive. If man is to survive spiritually in a cursed environment, it will require a revealed ethical standard that will enable him to represent properly his assigned place within creation.
When Satan approached Eve in the garden, he confronts her about the tree of knowledge. Eve rehearsed the commandment that God had given to them about this tree saying, “from the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but of the tree that is in the midst of the garden you may not eat from it or touch it lest you die.” This represents a revealed language structure about certain truths concerning this tree that she could not know any other way. Satan then introduced a new way of thinking about what is true. He portrays this revealed grammar as unreliable and not to be trusted. “You shall not surely die for God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil.” The idea obviously appealed to Eve but the force of the temptation was more than just a desire to be like God. This new way of representing truth offered a means by which control could be shifted from God to man.
She relies upon an unrevealed method for making decisions. Rather than consulting God and relying upon revelation which, by her own admission she understood, she relied instead upon her five senses operating in this natural world to formulate her epistemological base. She “rationalizes” why it would be acceptable to eat that which had been forbidden. This reveals a distorted ethic in the misappropriation of things that belong to God. She contemplated stealing that which belongs to God and then attempted to justify the rightness of it in her own mind.
Satan’s temptation was two-fold based upon the decision matrix of the woman. This would imply that Satan understood something of the psychology of the woman and he capitalizes on her naiveté. Experientially, Eve knew nothing of Satan, temptation, evil, craftiness, the pain of disobedience, or death. The serpent created doubt in her mind about the motives, character, and purpose of God. He accused God of lying and planted the seed of evil ambition. “God knows that in the day you eat of it you will become like God.” The reality was that she was already like God. He creates suspicion in the mind of the woman by implying that God is deliberately withholding something from her that is both desirable and beneficial. It implies that, 1) man is just as good as God is, 2) God is unjust in this prohibition, and 3) man has the right to be God. This is a challenge of God’s sovereignty. At the heart of this, is the question of who has the right to be in control? Who has the right to decide what is best for man? A worldly epistemology says that man has the wisdom to decide what is best for him. A revealed epistemology says that God not only knows what is best but he is also able to supply it.
Satan then makes an appeal to the empirical and aesthetic observation. Eve saw that the fruit was good for food and was pleasing to the eye. He also appeals to the subjective impulse; it was desirable to make one wise, which the text defines as knowing good from evil. Where then was the sin? The sin was allowing human logic and rationalization to overrule the revelation of God. This is a propensity of humanly derived standards of ethics. The decision was made by appealing to an uninspired epistemology rather than to the words of the Lord. Human logic and rationalization are not valid determinants for deciding what is right or wrong. God said, “Don’t touch it.” This alone determines what is right or wrong.
I have a slightly different take on why God put the forbidden tree in easy reach in the garden.
If we consider that God is all knowing and that He is everywhere, all the time, then He knew what would happen in the garden since before the creation of the universe. It is my belief that He put that tree where He put it because of His love for me personally (and for you as well).
God could have created humans to be 100% obedient but He did not. Instead He gave us the free will to choose. I believe that since God is love He knows that forced love is no love at all. Since He wanted me to choose to love Him back (He wanted you to choose that as well) He allowed all that has ever occurred to happen just so I (and you) could come to a place where we would not only hear His Word but be in a position to accept it and start to love Him.
Remember, God is everywhere all the time and we who have accepted Him are now His adopted sons. His love for us is immeasurable. He knew before He created all there is that He would have to not only have allow man to fall in order to need a Savior but that He would have to be beaten and killed to atone for that fall. Think of it, Almighty God loves me(and you) so much that He willingly and knowingly sacrificed Himself to save us just so we would have the opportunity to choose to love Him.
That is how important we are to God, that all that has come before happened so that each one of us could come to a place where we could choose to love Him back. Each one of us personally has God's undivided attention and we have had it forever. What a mighty God we serve!
If we consider that God is all knowing and that He is everywhere, all the time, then He knew what would happen in the garden since before the creation of the universe. It is my belief that He put that tree where He put it because of His love for me personally (and for you as well).
God could have created humans to be 100% obedient but He did not. Instead He gave us the free will to choose. I believe that since God is love He knows that forced love is no love at all. Since He wanted me to choose to love Him back (He wanted you to choose that as well) He allowed all that has ever occurred to happen just so I (and you) could come to a place where we would not only hear His Word but be in a position to accept it and start to love Him.
Remember, God is everywhere all the time and we who have accepted Him are now His adopted sons. His love for us is immeasurable. He knew before He created all there is that He would have to not only have allow man to fall in order to need a Savior but that He would have to be beaten and killed to atone for that fall. Think of it, Almighty God loves me(and you) so much that He willingly and knowingly sacrificed Himself to save us just so we would have the opportunity to choose to love Him.
That is how important we are to God, that all that has come before happened so that each one of us could come to a place where we could choose to love Him back. Each one of us personally has God's undivided attention and we have had it forever. What a mighty God we serve!
i think that there is a difference in being deceived, and sinning. Im also thinking ( again just a thought considering your question in the op) did the serpent speak audibly to eve where adam could hear? or did He speak as satan does now, to her mind? either way adam listened to His wife rather than God. eve spread the lie whether by her word, or by the fact that she didnt die. because adam was with her clearly there. ( her husband with her) it doesnt necassarily mean he heard the deception and fell for it from the serpent. i think pauls point there in a way, is showing how one person can be deceived and then spread that to others which causes sin.
adam gets the blame though
romans 5:14 "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
adam was created and given the truth " if you eat this fruit, you will surely die" he then consciously disobeyed Gods Word. in essence He tested Gods truth. the deception passed from eve, to adam adam is the first sinner and the One who condemned and cursed the earth Not eve. Being one with adam, deception to eve became temptation to adam and temptation became sin when He followed eves lead. immediatley God says " He shall rule over you to eve" to adam He says " because you have done this...cursed is the earth for thy sake"
i find some good understanding in what God then says to cain regarding sin which agaion sort of helps me understand what paul is saying in romans 7 about sin being in the world before the Law and shows the beginning of the evolution of sin in man.
genesis 4:7 "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
sin is not simply what we do, its source is spiritual wickedness in our Minds and hearts, its an entity that dwells in and around us, when we sin its always because we are obeying sin, it rules over us. We must through Christ learn to rule over sin and subdue it through the Power God has given us in Christ. the truth is Jesus Word, and it is the cure for the deception in our minds we inherited through our parents. the evils work was deception and is deception He is clever but He runs the same game He started then...."God said this.....But listen to me instead"
i read a comment here earlier calling it allegorical, the pattern in eden which is real and actually happened, becomes the pattern of what comes after so while allegorical i wouldnt use that word, it is a lesson, a pettern of mankind, Gods Word, the devils scheme that persists even Now in the Mind and Hearts of People. we are warned so much to let no one deceive us, because deception was the vehicle for sin to reach into man and cause death.
we Have the truth Now, if we choose Jesus, we have to take His word for truth and that is the solution to deception and sin. to have a mind and heart full of truth, leaves no place for deception and our faith in Christ should assure us His word is true.
ultimately Man Had to fall in order to be redeemed and made in the Image of Jesus, who is the Image of God. this fulfills " let us make man in Our image, in Our Likeness."
sure they were made in Gods Image then, they fell from that and we are born anew and conformed to the Image of Gods Son. its all part of a plan and the Plan was always to exalt Jesus Christ as savior, if man hadnt fallen, there would be no redeemer or no lamb slain from the foundation of the earth. in order for us to be Like God, we had to learn good and evil. when we are in His presence again, we will Know better than to fall for such lies Knowing Gods is truth
adam gets the blame though
romans 5:14 "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
adam was created and given the truth " if you eat this fruit, you will surely die" he then consciously disobeyed Gods Word. in essence He tested Gods truth. the deception passed from eve, to adam adam is the first sinner and the One who condemned and cursed the earth Not eve. Being one with adam, deception to eve became temptation to adam and temptation became sin when He followed eves lead. immediatley God says " He shall rule over you to eve" to adam He says " because you have done this...cursed is the earth for thy sake"
i find some good understanding in what God then says to cain regarding sin which agaion sort of helps me understand what paul is saying in romans 7 about sin being in the world before the Law and shows the beginning of the evolution of sin in man.
genesis 4:7 "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
sin is not simply what we do, its source is spiritual wickedness in our Minds and hearts, its an entity that dwells in and around us, when we sin its always because we are obeying sin, it rules over us. We must through Christ learn to rule over sin and subdue it through the Power God has given us in Christ. the truth is Jesus Word, and it is the cure for the deception in our minds we inherited through our parents. the evils work was deception and is deception He is clever but He runs the same game He started then...."God said this.....But listen to me instead"
i read a comment here earlier calling it allegorical, the pattern in eden which is real and actually happened, becomes the pattern of what comes after so while allegorical i wouldnt use that word, it is a lesson, a pettern of mankind, Gods Word, the devils scheme that persists even Now in the Mind and Hearts of People. we are warned so much to let no one deceive us, because deception was the vehicle for sin to reach into man and cause death.
we Have the truth Now, if we choose Jesus, we have to take His word for truth and that is the solution to deception and sin. to have a mind and heart full of truth, leaves no place for deception and our faith in Christ should assure us His word is true.
ultimately Man Had to fall in order to be redeemed and made in the Image of Jesus, who is the Image of God. this fulfills " let us make man in Our image, in Our Likeness."
sure they were made in Gods Image then, they fell from that and we are born anew and conformed to the Image of Gods Son. its all part of a plan and the Plan was always to exalt Jesus Christ as savior, if man hadnt fallen, there would be no redeemer or no lamb slain from the foundation of the earth. in order for us to be Like God, we had to learn good and evil. when we are in His presence again, we will Know better than to fall for such lies Knowing Gods is truth
or was it to teach them that sin is death and righteousness is Life?
the new testament tells us this
ephesians 4 "But ye have not so learned Christ; 21If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: 22That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; <<< the events in the garden caused this.
23And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; 24And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."
How can one be truly righteous and Holy, if they have no Knowledge of sin and evil? and God says this after they eat the fruit
genesis 3:23 "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:"
if man never learned good and evil, which the Law expounds on, we could never be made in Gods Image. they were in the beginning, yet they were not truly Holy and righteous because they didnt understand good and evil. where there is freedom, there is choice, where there is choice there is concequence. if the choice is to believe God and obey Him there is Life. if the choice is to disbelieve His Word and disobey, there is death. man was told, but in Christ we Learn having known evil when we were sinners, and being redeemed through Jesus to be Like hIm to be made in His image in truth for eternity.
romans 8:29 "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
2 corinthians3 :18 " But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
Jesus is the Image of God, we are the image of Jesus Gods Son who is the Image of God, we were created in the Image of Gods Children through Jesus, if we never understood the effects of evil to destroy Life, we would have always been succeptable to it, Now we Know what sin does, but Like Jesus we choose to obey God and Live as adam did not do. The Holy bible is a lesson book its meant to teach us through things Like what happened in the Garden to turn us against sin forever and lead us onto the Kingdom freely because we accept Gods Word and understand sin is death Gaurds our Life
So what you are claiming is that mere illusions brought about universal disaster. Well that is the greatest illusion that Satan can plant in the minds of Christians. This is where people have to make up their minds. Do we take the Genesis accounts and subject them to human rationalism, or do we accept them as Divine revelations to be taken as historical, no matter how much they vary from rationalism?
The entire creation account is supra-rationalistic -- above and beyond human reason. So is the narrative of the Fall. One could ask dozens of humansitic questions about all of this, but God did not provide us with the answers.
1. Why create a man directly from the dust of the ground in the image of God, and then let him act like a fool?
2. Why create a woman who would take off on her own and listen to the Devil rather than God?
3. Why even create a serpent in the first place, knowing that he would deceive Eve?
4. When even create Lucifer in the first place, knowing he would become the Adversary?
God had His own reasons to ALLOW all of this, and the answers may come in eternity future.
The entire creation account is supra-rationalistic -- above and beyond human reason. So is the narrative of the Fall. One could ask dozens of humansitic questions about all of this, but God did not provide us with the answers.
1. Why create a man directly from the dust of the ground in the image of God, and then let him act like a fool?
2. Why create a woman who would take off on her own and listen to the Devil rather than God?
3. Why even create a serpent in the first place, knowing that he would deceive Eve?
4. When even create Lucifer in the first place, knowing he would become the Adversary?
God had His own reasons to ALLOW all of this, and the answers may come in eternity future.
Another thought to ponder.....if it is not of faith "belief" it is of sin....Adam watched Eve eat and she did not die per se...so maybe he did not believe he would die.......see....we cannot get away from the maybe statement....exactly why when it comes to the thread....all we can do is surmise as to the exact reason why he ate...... 
Since the serpent told them who were living that if they believed in him they wouldn't die then wasn't the sin of mankind listening to mankind and not to the serpent?
And unto mankind he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Genesis 3:17
And unto mankind he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Genesis 3:17
I'm thinking it is something along this line of thought, considering Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."
What was Adam missing was found in Christ? I think it must have been humility (Jesus only said (and did) what God gave him, and discernment (which the tree failed to provide along with the acquired knowledge, as only God's counsel does provide).
As to the opinion that Adam was a sort of shadow of Christ, that I am not totally convince of, considering this line of reasoning that Eve believed the wrong spirit, and Adam listen to Eve, the flesh of his flesh. I don't think he could stand to think that they might go forward with her knowing more than he knows (tbh, how many men, even now, absolutely cringe at the thought?).
After all, pride is what caused the serpent to fall, and is essentially what the serpent stirred up in Eve and, subsequently, in Adam. This is evidenced in the attempt in the transference of blame, and cause for shame. If the shadow of Christ was there, it was in the animal sacrifice in order to make their clothing that was a covering of their shame.
What was Adam missing was found in Christ? I think it must have been humility (Jesus only said (and did) what God gave him, and discernment (which the tree failed to provide along with the acquired knowledge, as only God's counsel does provide).
As to the opinion that Adam was a sort of shadow of Christ, that I am not totally convince of, considering this line of reasoning that Eve believed the wrong spirit, and Adam listen to Eve, the flesh of his flesh. I don't think he could stand to think that they might go forward with her knowing more than he knows (tbh, how many men, even now, absolutely cringe at the thought?).
After all, pride is what caused the serpent to fall, and is essentially what the serpent stirred up in Eve and, subsequently, in Adam. This is evidenced in the attempt in the transference of blame, and cause for shame. If the shadow of Christ was there, it was in the animal sacrifice in order to make their clothing that was a covering of their shame.
Perhaps they did not believe that they would die(turn back to dust) like God had told them. They believed a lie rather than the truth. Yes only Eve was decieved because the serpent came to her first, Adam was right there with her, his curiosity got the best of him too.,when he ate the fruit. Eve had lust in her heart because the fruit was very pretty and wanted to see if it would make her wise.. Lust got the best of her.,because she did not have to listen to the serpent. They were forbidden because God did not want them to have knowledge of Satan and his evil influence.,which had entered the world by way of his fall.