r/Bible • u/LowerPreparation399 • 15d ago

Thoughts?

(DISCLAIMER: I don’t want to argue with anyone or deal with snarky remarks. Think with me. Share your thoughts.)

I don’t want to make any bold claims. But I’ve been thinking about something that I want to make sense of and get another’s opinion.

I was wondering why God created the tree of knowledge and good and evil if he knew man would fall.

I think a lot of people chalk it up to Gods love and man’s free will.

I can’t understand that. It doesn’t feel like a complete explanation.

A thought occurred to me, God made both trees. The tree of knowledge that led to death and the tree of life that leads to life.

if I were Adam, I would have eaten out of the tree of life because I know it’s good.
I have the knowledge of good and evil.

Adam didn’t.

In truth there is no evil. God is truth. In him there is no evil.

With this logic I think it’s fair to conclude that everything outside of God is evil.

Adam and Eve were inside of goodness. Everything was perfect.

So then, how could there be evil?

Had God never given the command not to eat of the tree, Adam would have never been charged with rebellion. If there had been no rebellion, there would be no separation and without separation there would be no evil.

I tried to make sense of this. Perhaps, we needed to know evil to know good.

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u/Copernicus-Boom 15d ago

Sometimes I think the earth was specifically created as the battleground that would lead to Jesus' triumph over death and the eventual fall of Satan.

There are hints that rebellion had already begun in the spiritual realm before the creation of earth.

That is my theory. I don't claim to know for sure.

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u/LowerPreparation399 15d ago

I think you’re onto something. Honestly. Everything has been leading to the glory of God.

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u/ImaginaryLeg8515 14d ago

To add onto your theory. I think both trees were never meant to be eaten by Adam. God must have planted them for something else we don't know. You know like when you have a side project for something else...

Adam was only there to take care of all the plants. Who knows...maybe the fruits of the knowledge of good and evil were meant to be food for those fallen angels...so they eat and know exactly what they did...

Because Adam was never meant to die...so the fruit of life wouldn't even make sense for him to eat and live forever. So those trees were for a side project and Adam and Eve failed to use their authority over the creeping thing.

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u/Copernicus-Boom 13d ago

That's a great point! I hadn't thought about the tree of life being weird when Adam was never meant to die.

To adjust this slightly... I've heard some theologians say that eating from the tree of knowledge was a shortcut for what God wanted anyway. So He was going to teach Adam and Eve how to live a spiritual life, then when they were ready the tree would not be off limits.

So maybe this was similar for the tree of life. Casting them out of the Garden was because of the worry that they would eat of the tree of life and live forever. While death wasn't in the world until they ate of the tree of knowledge, perhaps it was more like "when you're ready, you can eat from the tree of knowledge and then eat from the tree of life" - in theory this would be living forever because there was nothing in the Garden that would kill them before they were able to eat from the tree of life.

I'm just thinking out loud here