ether-ore
Active Member
I will tell you what my faith teaches me: I am eternally grateful for the choice that Adam and Eve made. For if they had not made it, I wouldn't have recieved this marvelous physical body which gives me the ability to manipulate matter and the ability to enjoy a hug. I believe we all existed as spirit children of God, before we came to this earth. You and I are eternal beings. We came into mortality for the express purpose of gaining these bodies and to learn how to control the temptations to which it is subject.
I believe our Heavenly Father granted us all agency and the ability to make choices. However choices cannot be made without conflicting things to choose from. So God placed the tree of knowledge and also gave a command that they should not eat of it. Thus our Heavenly Father gave them a choice of whether to gain knowledge of good and evil or to remain in a state of innocence. In gaining a knowledge of good and evil we progress both intellectually and in character as we learn to discipline ourselves in our various endeavors. Also, Since God said that if Adam and Eve partook of the tree they would surely die. In other words, I believe that eating of the fruit would cause a change within their bodies making them mortal and therefore subject to death.
I believe it was our glorious mother Eve who first came to the realization that she would not gain in further knowledge unless she partook. I can imagine that living in a perpetual state of innocence and in a paradise, with everything you need right at your fingertips, would get very boring. I think she also realized that without the change in her body, she would not be able fulfill the command to multiply and replenish the earth. I believe from the doctrine of my faith, that eating of that tree not only made them subject to death, it also caused that they pass from a state of innocence and become able to have children. We would not be here except for the choice Adam and Eve made.
By partaking first, Eve came to the realization that she had become dissimilar to Adam. She was now mortal, but he was still in his innocent state of immortality. For, when God creates something, it must remain in that state. The only thing that could change that state would be His children exercising their agency and thus change that state. The choice had to be Adam's. God could not make that choice for Adam, or Eve. Eve realized that without Adam, she could not have children, which meant that he had to become mortal as well. When Eve told Adam what she had done, Adam came to the realization that if he did not partake, we would never be. So he partook and by his partaking, we are here. Otherwise Adam would have remained in his state of innocence forever and we would never have had this opportunity to gain this wonderful physical body. So, I am grateful to our first parents for the choice they made. In essence, they sacrificed eternal innocence so that we could be.
The atonement of Jesus Christ provides the means whereby our Heavenly Father's children can become immortal again, but this time with physical bodies and then as an extra blessing, be able to return to our Father in Heaven depending on the choices we make and through the grace of Jesus Christ. In all of this, God, our Heavenly Father, is interested in our eternal progression. He has given us this opportunity so that we could ourselves grow in understanding and character through the challenges of mortality, but only in making the right choices in spite of those challenges. Our Heavenly father is to be praised for always wanting to bless His children. But it is our choices which determines which eternal blessings we get to enjoy. We can choose to give heed to the temptations of the flesh, or we can choose to be obedient to Jesus Christ and thereby avail ourselves of His atoning sacrifice which not only overcomes mortality, but enables us to return to our Heavenly Father.
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