God names the trees

When it comes to naming the things that God created, Adam was allowed to name all the animals, but it was God who named two trees specifically. It is also interesting that God did not name either of the special trees, an Apple tree or an Orange tree for example, that is, he did not name them according to the fruit that grew on them. Instead he called one tree The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the other The Tree of Life. The trees were named according to the effect on the person that ate of its fruit, further signalling to Adam and Eve that these two trees were different from all the rest.

Not just the tree of knowledge

Many articles have referred to the tree merely as the tree of knowledge, when God in fact called it the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and this distinction is important as it can lead some sceptics to ask why did God forbid man to eat from the tree of knowledge, does God want man to be ignorant and stupid? Of course this kind of accusation is preposterous and not well thought out; not only does God encourage man to be wise and knowledgeable (see the book of Proverbs), but if God wanted to deprive man from the virtues of knowledge and wisdom, he could just as easily have created man without the ability to reason and limit his understanding in the first place. God called it the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, because the effects of eating the fruit would open the eyes of the consumer to the existence and understanding of evil, whereas before, both Adam and Eve only knew and understood good. One can only image what that must have been like. Of the two special trees, eating from tree of life provided eternal life, whilst eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil provided death, so given that choice why did Adam and Eve choose death?

Was it to have something they didnt have already, i.e. knowledge of evil? Was it to have more than what God had already given them, a desire to have what was forbidden and not being content with what they had?

Eve saw the fruit was a tree to be desired to make one wise and was told by the serpent that ye shall be as gods and you shall not surely die; clearly these temptations and deceptions were enough to dismiss Gods commandment and warning of the consequences. Pride indeed comes before destruction (Proverbs 16:18), but the consequences on this occasion had far reaching effects on the whole of Gods creation.

It is irrational to believe that god would command man not to eat of a fruit tree, which was put there to demonstrate man had free will, this is paradoxical. The only way to test free will then, would be to go against gods will and do something he commanded you not do. Of course Adam, and by extension mankind, was condemned to death (loss of eternal life) not because they ate some fruit, but because they broke the commandment of god, and breaking gods commandment is sin. Eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was the only thing god commanded they could not do, there was just one commandment.