A good question people often ask is why did God place the tree of knowledge of good & evil in the Garden of Eden in the first place? In the Bible, we are told that in the garden, God placed a tree called the tree of knowledge of good and evil (or also sometimes called the “conscience tree.”
God then commanded Adam & Eve that “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2: 16-17)
So Why Did God Put the Tree in the Garden if He Didn’t Want Them to Eat It?
This is a great question! Why did God even give Adam & Eve the chance to sin in the first place? Why not just never put the tree in the garden? The answer is simple. God wanted to see if Adam & Eve would accept or reject his command. God wanted to see if Adam & Eve would truly live by his command & love Him, or whether they would reject it if they were given the opportunity.
Remember, even some of the former angels rebelled against God & joined satan to be cast out of heaven. Perhaps God wanted to see whether or not His new creation would accept & follow His command, or reject it.
God also wanted to see if He created a human with total free will, whether or not that human would obey His command. God didn’t want to create a “robot.” Just like I don’t want my wife to love me or respect me because she HAS to do it. If she didn’t have the option to NOT love me, then it wouldn’t be true love. So God gave Adam & Eve a “test” to see if they would obey His command.
Keep in mind, that Adam & Eve had it made! Forget about today’s life. It is a complete joke compared to the way Adam & Eve had it. They were designed to live forever. Isn’t that amazing! They would have never died! Also they lived in a beautiful place, with all the food & beauty & things to do in the world! They could make love, have kids, and do anything they wanted. It was a literal paradise, and they were the first & only humans at that point.
They had no government or jobs or illness. They simply had to “tend” to the garden, which was very little work & not intense labor. The fruit & vegetables sprouted abundantly, and there was no sweat in Adam’s forehead from labor at this point. It was so beautiful & peaceful. They had no fears about anything.
But we all know what happened, even with all the glory & freedom they had–Adam & Eve made a bad choice, and even today we are still paying the price for it. For in the day Adam & Eve ate that fruit, they died. They not only died spiritually, but they also died physically (later on). They experienced immediate spiritual death after eating the fruit because they disobeyed God. They also died a physical death later, because God banned them from the garden & didn’t eat the fruit of the tree of life any longer, and removed their ability to live forever.
They broke their relationship with God, and set in motion a massive set of events that would continue until the end of time.