Liahona, “The Choice that Began Mortality,” August 2002; “As Latter-day Saints, we believe that Adam and Eve’s choice to partake of the forbidden fruit was ultimately a good thing—an essential act for our growth.
President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876–1972) taught: “When Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden, they did not have to die. They could have been there to this day. They could have continued on for countless ages. There was no death then. But it would have been a terrific calamity if they had refrained from taking the fruit of that tree, for they would have stayed in the Garden of Eden and we would not be here; nobody would be here except Adam and Eve. So Adam and Eve partook.” 9” – Jess L. Christensen
Genesis 1:27-28; “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
1 John 1:8, 10; “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
In the mountains of wrong doctrines within Mormonism, this subject matter has always been near the top of my list of ‘why’ questions.
Chronological events in Eden aren’t that difficult to figure out. God put man and woman in the Garden, told them to be fruitful and multiply, and not partake from the tree of knowledge.
Nowhere in the script do we see God telling them to sin so they could reproduce. This is a lie Satan put into the head of Joe Smith and he pronounced it as gospel truth from God. For the record, this thought process has plagued many others in the history of mankind, so Joe wasn’t alone in being fooled by Satan.
Did God Trick Them?
To paraphrase Professor Work from Westmont College, the Edenic narrative produces no compelling evidence God set them up, nor does it give us reason to believe we should focus upon free agency. On the contrary, the point to Eden is to reign. Only when the story is dressed in the cloak of choices does it become a ‘temptation narrative’.
God put the tree there because it was beautiful. That’s it. Just as parents have to teach kids not to touch hot stoves to protect their wee ones from harm, God warned Adam and Eve as well. He doesn’t owe them an explanation, He just did it.
The most compelling argument for this thought is Work’s comment about the story of Eden ‘ending in loss, not gain’. The whole narrative lends credence to the biblical dogma of man’s depravity and has definitely given me a new view of events in Eden. Sometimes we (I) get so caught up in the drama that we can’t see the forest for the trees. (No pun intended!)
Leave a Reply