Why would Adam and Eve desire & take from the tree of good & evil?

[grannymh]

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This refers to the spam – not the thread.

 

[grannymh]

Well, satan told them if they ate of that tree they would be like God, knowing the difference between good and evil. So Eve ate. Satan also lied to her saying; ‘No. If you eat that fruit you will not die.’ But eating it brought death to all mankind. So Jesus came and brought te Resurrection.

I have read that Adam ate the fruit ignorantly, because he said to God, ‘The woman whom you gave me, gave me the fruit, and I ate.’ (there’s a theory that Adam did not know this was the forbidden fruit,)

He had the usual christian response, blame the wife, haha

It’s probably just like why do any of us sin and we have all of God’s gifts around us, temptation, disobedience, and the lie from satan that the temptation is a ‘good’ thing without consequences. I agree pride was a part of it, satan told them eating the fruit would make them like God.

However, Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich wrote that they were a little ignorant of the the whole thing also. Yes it was an act of disobedience to God. The fruit gave knowledge of good and evil. Meaning we could be tempted and that this disobedience to sin would be passed along the whole bloodline of mankind.

But: St Emmerich believes: they did not know the serpent was satan.
They did not know this would have them kicked out of Eden, and all the other consequences.

On the other side of things:
When the angels disobeyed they immediately lost heaven because angels have more knowledge and wisdom of the eternal consequences due to their higher angelic nature, so the angels knew well what they were doing. There was no excuse for the angels.

Blessed Emmerich said of her visions that if Adam and Eve knew the serpent was satan, and then had listened to him, there would have been no hope of redemption.

Their act was disobedient enough to taint the whole bloodline of mankind with original sin and have the gates of Heaven closed until Jesus could pay the price of the sins of mankind on our behalf though.

Just a general comment. Not every word of Saints and Early Church Fathers automatically becomes a Catholic doctrine. It is the Holy Spirit’s wisdom which guides the Catholic Church.

For example, while we try to answer the question of this thread, we cannot ignore the fully-complete human nature of Adam. Therefore, he knew both the difference between good and evil and the subsequent consequences of disobedience before he freely intellectively committed Original Sin.

(Genesis 1: 26-27; Genesis 2: 15-17; Genesis 3: 8-11)

 

[Frankenfurter]

From John Paul II, Fides et Ratio: vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html

*This is the human condition vividly described by the Book of Genesis when it tells us that God placed the human being in the Garden of Eden, in the middle of which there stood “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (2:17). The symbol is clear: man was in no position to discern and decide for himself what was good and what was evil, but was constrained to appeal to a higher source. *

So Adam and Eve did possess the original God-given knowledge of good an evil, but by eating from the tree (against God’s command), they claimed to be able to discern good and evil themselves. This is the power that they were offered and succumbed to.

 

[fhansen]

Hi,
Why would Adam and Eve desire & take from the tree of good & evil if they had all that was good? If they walked with God and even had preternatural gifts (which I don’t know much about)? What can be more?
Thank you,
Brian

God wanted them to learn for themselves of their absolute need for Him-that they could be like Him, and increasingly so, only by remaining in communion with, by partaking of, Him; they could only participate in His goodness and happiness in that way, they never be Him, or be His equal.