If God knew Adam and Eve would succumb to temptation, why did he allow them to be tempted in the first place?
The answer to this question is a matter of love.
God desired an eternal relationship with humanity, founded on mutual, unconditional love. This caliber of love emanates from the entwining of two wills.
To establish this volitional congruity, God had to present Adam and Eve with an opportunity to voluntarily wrap their malleable wills around his perfect will.
God’s command not to eat the forbidden fruit presented them with a binary choice: to either comply with his will or defy it.
Compliance would have entwined their wills with his, a trait they would have passed down to all future generations.
Unfortunately for them and us, they chose noncompliance.
God knew Adam and Eve would disobey his command. He foresaw the damage to his creation that would result. He knew Jesus would eventually have to die for their mistake.
Yet God so valued a personal relationship with them and with us that he risked nearly everything to make it possible. This is a remarkable concept!
