To answer your question, I do believe that God put the Tree (of knowledge of good and evil) in Eden to test Adam and Eve's obedience. Many people here have raised the issue of moral agency. If God desired to create moral agents (those who have the ability to choose moral right or wrong) why then could he not test their loyalty via the tree? Scripture is plain that God allows us to be tempted. As far as the serpent, having fallen himself, his loyalty was anywhere but to God; consequently, he desires that others reject God as he did. Being in direct rebellion to God, he was justly punished, not rewarded...
I must admit that I am not a student of the bible and must rely on the kindness of strangers to enlighten me as to its content. You have certainly enlightened me with your response and taken this thread into some fascination new territory. So the snake, of his own evil volition directs Eve to disobey god, telling us that Adam and Eve are not alone amongst god's creatures with free will. If the snake, as you point out, is capable of thwarting god's will from his own initiative, then he must have free will and consequently a soul to be the base of that free will. If the snake has free will, then we can conclude that all the animals of god's creation have free will.
This in one fell swoop answers a lot of questions that have been raised in this forum: why does god drown all the poor innocent beasts of the field in the great flood? Because they are not innocent, but like man have a free will and soul that have become as corrupted as man's; Do animals have souls (the subject of a previous thread that I haven't taken the time to read)? Yes, for at least the snake has a soul and there is no reason to think him unique. This also explains why death and disease are rife throughout the animal kingdom. Not just the animal kingdom, since trees and plants were destroyed in the flood and are cursed with endless sorts of diseases and death. I now feel a lot better about the two beloved trees I recently lost to oak root fungus. I'm sure they now enjoy the blessings of their heavenly abode.
I'm not clear on how Noah knew which pairs of animals were sinless and deserved to survive the flood. Whenever I read about the flood story, I get this image that when the word got out that Noah was going to save one pair of unclean animals, but seven pair of clean animals, that there was a run on all the soap products at the local mini-marts. I can just see all those beasts of the field frantically scrubbing away.
Thank you for clarifying this issue for me. God puts the tree of knowledge in the garden as part of his plan to test Adam and Eve's obedience. This makes perfect sense. Why else would god even create the ToK? By tempting Eve, the snake helps god execute this plan, which is a vile and sinful thing for the snake to do. This also makes perfect sense. At least it makes perfect sense if you spend one full hour staring at Faith posts. I guess it makes sense in a Falwellian way, given that Falwell insists that the 9/11 terrorists were carrying out god's plan to punish the US for permitting feminism, but were still committing sinful acts that would destine them to hell. I guess my pathetic little mind just can't comprehend these higher logical constructs. Stupid neurons!
Regards, AnInGe
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All of Noah's grandchildren married their first cousins. Explains a lot about the human condition.
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