i was reading an article about the value of knowledge today that referenced the creation story from genesis (specifically the one about adam and eve) and i had a thought that i had never considered before.
so, according to this creation story, god had forbid adam and eve to eat from the tree of knowledge because that would give them the knowledge of good and evil (and literally would be like gods as the bible says). i'm assuming we all know this story.
this story suggests that god created humans (adam and eve), and his original plan was for them to just live in the garden of eden forever. we can surmise this from the fact that the only reason they are kicked out of eden is because they disobeyed god and ate from the tree of knowledge (damn you eve! just blame the snake.)
after eating the apple and gaining the knowledge of good and evil (which as far as we can tell god never actually wanted us to have), humans were cast out of paradise and forced to endure many hardships (that's right ladies, painful childbirth for all!).
so my thought was, according to this story, god never intended humans to have a choice between good and evil. when he first created us, humans were never supposed to make such decisions. however, after adam and eve screwed it for all of us now we must make these decisions all the time. my point is that god literally made us and planned for us to NEVER make moral decisions about good and evil so how can he expect us to make proper decisions after we were cast out of paradise? seems kind of a tall order if you ask me considering he made us to never have to do it.
EDIT: btw, here's the link to the article if anyone is interested
The value of knowledge | OUPblog