Why did god plant a tree of the knowledge of good and bad?

Question

Why did god plant a tree of the knowledge of good and bad if did not want us to eat from it?

Was the tree only ment for him?

Answer 1

The story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden is just a parable. It didn't actually happen.

Answer 2

There are several possible interpretations of this section of the Bible. Not knowing you I would be remiss in explaining the possibilities that even my humble mind might come up with in private, much less on a public forum.

Suffice it to say that to question the will of God has it's drawbacks.

A better question for you might be: Why does God make prime numbers so difficult for some people to find (perhaps because it might be fun to crack the encryption on a series of bank accounts?) Or what makes Aircraft parts flutter and is there a best way to stop this (perhaps because it's really fun to wallow in the money provided by making the best cruise missiles?) Or why can't a car be made to run 1000 miles on a single gallon of Gas (because it certainly isn't easy enough to move armies already ?) Or maybe you should consider long and hard on how you might take over some else's business' lands and property, starve him / her / them out and have a really fun time over populating the planet? After all, when a person knows everything...does it make him / her / it "justified" for him to remove the competition, even when doing so reduces the gene pool and makes all of creation that much more likely to come up with a germ that will indeed eradicate mankind (remember it was 14% of the gene-pool that saved Europe from the Black Plague - had not a few people been in charge of some-body's military back then that believed in pre-eruptive strikes who made those graced people a distinct minority maybe that group of people that had those genes would have been 80% ~ or ~ perhaps if more had been "intelligent enough in their competition" those few that saved Europe from oblivion would have been killed off all-together? As this same group seems resistant as well to AIDS perhaps this would have doomed all the world?)

But don't let that stop you. Your attitude shows me you might believe in utter dominance, and are perhaps willing to cheat to get it, even if God has shown us in our Anthropological history that being humble could be a species saver. Go on you he man woman hater!

Or, why is it always true that when you ask some people for a straightforward answer, they reply in sarcasm?

Answer 3

God planted the tree because Satan was there in the garden and the man would have to learn about this being that had opposed God. The justice of God did not allow for him to remove Satan from the garden without revealing God's own omnipotence to man and to all of creation. One way or the other, either by man yielding to temptation or resisting the devil, God would bring man to the point of knowing that he, God, alone is God, from the fall, or from knowing evil but not having succumbed to it, and to trust, not in his self as Satan did in himself, but in God alone.

Answer 4

God did not want us to eat from it, but he also gave us free will to CHOOSE. Essentially, the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" and the "tree of life" (both in the Garden of Eden) were Adam and Eve's test to choose between death and life, Satan and Jesus, from the very beginning. Unfortunatly they made the wrong choice and God had to rework things so that we could have another chance at choosing everlasting life in his kingdom.

Answer 5

no individual knows and the Bible would not say yet I truly have a gamble. i imagine that if Adam and Eve had matured and grown sufficient spiritually, then once they ate from the tree of life, they could were waiting to eat this fruit. the reason it type of feels logical to me is the undeniable truth that once they ate of the tree of the awareness of sturdy and undesirable, God had the angel with the flaming sword keep them from the tree of life.

Answer 6

without the temptation available how could Adam and Eve exercise free will?
God wanted them to choose to be obedient through free will.there could,nt be choice of obedience if there wasn't an equal choice to be disobedient.
digressing for a moment. do you remember the story of JOB?
well in the beginning God points out to Satan how obedient Job is.and Satan says "well of course he is,look how generous you are to him and how well protected he is"(my paraphrasing)read it for your self/ Take all this away and he will curse you!
Satan's point was Job had no occasion to sin against God.It served him well to be obedient to God.
To prove him wrong God allowed Satan to take away the things that were important to Job.and still he remained loyal to God.choosing to be obedient.
So if we apply this thought to the garden we have a paradise,where everything is supplied to them. without the tree of knowledge of good and evil .what choice did they have ,except that of obedience?
so i believe that the forbidden tree was there as a symbol us of Gods willingness to allow us freedom of choice .(freewill)

something that people seem to forget is that the tree of eternal life was in the same garden,and it was not forbidden.

Answer 7

The tree of the knowledge of good and bad symbolized the divine right or prerogative, which man’s Creator retains, to designate to his creatures what is “good” and what is “bad,” thereafter properly requiring the practice of that which is declared good and the abstention from that which is pronounced bad in order to remain approved by God as Sovereign Ruler.

Answer 8

because God didn't want to be unfair. If God hadn't even given them the option of morality, then the devil would have been right in saying "God's depriving you of a right" to Eve. So God, being Good, gave us choice, as we're beings too.

Answer 9

I believe that WE are upon this Earth to get a Physical body and to be tested to see if we will follow the commandments...

I also believe that Adam and Eve had to choose to eat of the fruit in order to become mortal and to have children to populate the world.. if they had not eaten, then we would not be here and they would still be in the Garden of Eden.. but then.. we don't know how long they were in the Garden of Eden before they ate of the fruit.

Answer 10

It was actually only a peach tree, but God was having a laugh.

Answer 11

It was for free will to be a reality and not an illusion. If there were nothing in the garden for God to say "no" to, then free will would be forced--and thereby meaningless.