Athiest question and Answer

Why would God place a forbidden tree in the garden so close to his innocent creation and allow Satan to tempt them into eating from it, all the while looking on without doing a thing to prevent it?

Genesis 2: 17

" but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die."

A common response is that God placed the tree of knowledge in the garden of Eden, to give mankind freewill. Freewill was actually already inherently given after the creation; Adam and Eve were not puppets or manipulated; they freely did as they wished in the Garden of Eden. What God gave Adam and Eve, was a commandment - a simple one, do not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; they were even warned by God, what would happen if they ate of the tree anyway, and that was death.

Both Adam and Eve knew the consequences beforehand, and had the freedom of will to obey or disobey. However, this is not a matter of freewill; God intended for Adam and Eve to eat from the tree, or else it would have never been placed in the garden. God knew way ahead of time that they would eat of it; God knew the Devil would tempt them...God created the Devil. God was in control of this entire enfolding of events and still is.

Some may think God cruel, but actually God began his perfecting of his creations the moment we, ( Adam and Eve represent the sinners on Earth metaphorically,) sinned. But why did God intend for us to consume the fruits of good and evil?

For our own understanding.

Take a look at life on Earth; my roommate is an Atheist, and she even noticed that the Earth consist of two outstanding forces; Good and Evil. Evil cannot be identified without Good, and Good cannot be understood without evil. Had the " tree" of knowledge never been consumed, how ignorant would we have been to everything? The Devil even toyed with Adam and Eve by making it seems as if God was hiding something from us; God wasn't hiding anything, God wanted us to gain the knowledge so we could be made into wholesome beings. We would have been like robots, forced to love God even though we could never truly understand love, for we never would have understood God's good, without witnessing the Devil's evil.

I've posted other Atheist question and answers on my online blog but do not know if it's against the forum rules to share the link.

~Alen, TisMe :tongue3: