When Adam was created, he was created in the State of Original Holiness and Justice. Thus, it is proper to say that Adam was without sin. However, the gift of immortality was an extra gift given by God. .
Yes, as was the state of original justice.
Genesis 2: 15-17 clearly demonstrates that Adam knew the difference between good and evil. .
No, that’s conjecture if you’re relating those verses to the meaning of the term “knowledge of good and evil”; evil was something foreign to them; they had no reason to
know evil in Eden, in the experiential way that Aquinas reports they’d come to know it if they disobeyed. They were given the knowledge of what to do-and what not to do: the moral law.
Trust in God was all that was necessary in order to obey His law. And, according to the Catechism, Adam somehow let that trust die in his heart, believing a lie instead which carried with it the promise of making him like God. *Adam thought that disobedience of God would make him more like God. *Maybe there was a logic in this however, since God, after all,
need not obey anyone. It’s also interesting to note that A&E also lacked the direct, immediate, knowledge or experience of God, known as the Beatific Vision. And to speculate, it’s possible that since by eating of the Tree of Life A&E would’ve been acting in such a way as to draw nearer to Him, they’d have at some point gained that experience or immediate knowledge. In any case, since good was all they experienced in Eden, God having created nothing else, the experience of evil was foreign; they could not have known good and evil as disparate aspects of the reality they were familiar with; they only knew the singular existence/reality they were given or created in.
The reason this is important is because it helps explain why God would’ve created Adam & Eve knowing that they would fall, fall into the world that we have now, where a new “knowledge” or experience would be had. While eating of the tree was against His will, and while the “knowledge” gained was worthless in itself as it constitutes the experience of evil along with the good already present, it could nonetheless help propel humanity to it’s final end, indirectly: it could play its part in ultimately getting humanity to choose to align itself with God’s will, to choose
God, IOW, unlike Adam’s original choice. Disobedience of God kills.
We’re now in a half-way house between life and death, good and evil, heaven and hell;
we’re meant to choose life. Adam was meant to choose life to begin with but he chose otherwise. But God didn’t abandon Adam; He allowed him to learn the hard way that God is trustworthy and true. When the time was ripe Jesus proved this truth in no uncertain terms. The option, between life and death, is still there, but the impetus to choose life is greater now since humanity has tasted death, the ultimate evil that flows from disobedience of God, along with tasting life, the ultimate good that flows from obedience, definitively demonstrated, proven, and offered to us by Christ,
In any case, along with Aquinas Scripture affirms that this “knowledge”, whatever is meant by the term, was gained* after* eating the fruit.
According to the Catholic Church, human nature was not corrupted; it was wounded. This is an essential difference between some other Christian Faiths and Catholicism.
Actually the Catechism teaches that human nature was not
totally corrupted. para 405
