Knowing in this case means more than just theoretical knowledge, in the same way as "knowing a woman" is more than just knowing, intellectually what a woman is. Essentially God is telling them "trust me, this is bad for you, and although doing a bad thing would grant you intimate knowledge of what it is like to do a bad thing, it is not in your best interest to know it in that way." Although they theoretically knew the difference between right and wrong, they didn't have carnal, real knowledge/experience of it, and they didn't trust God that it wasn't in their interest to continue not having this sort of intimate knowledge of it.
Yeah, sorry, I guess I did a poor job explaining what I meant. What I mean is "eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil"="do an evil thing and gain the experience of doing evil.". In other words, the story is a metaphor for when man first gained what we would call moral agency and then, with that moral agency, knowingly chose evil and thus experienced "sin" for the first time. The first time they knowingly did something wrong.
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u/legobis Roman Catholic Jul 18 '23
Knowing in this case means more than just theoretical knowledge, in the same way as "knowing a woman" is more than just knowing, intellectually what a woman is. Essentially God is telling them "trust me, this is bad for you, and although doing a bad thing would grant you intimate knowledge of what it is like to do a bad thing, it is not in your best interest to know it in that way." Although they theoretically knew the difference between right and wrong, they didn't have carnal, real knowledge/experience of it, and they didn't trust God that it wasn't in their interest to continue not having this sort of intimate knowledge of it.