Genesis 2:17 and free will

If 'freewill' was so important, the bible would speak of it often and in detail.

We only have a lot of opinion of an alleged FW. Where this premise comes from I do not know, nor much, do I care.

God is more interested in obedience, hence the garden setup. Their choice was not based on all available knowledge, it was simply a matter of trust and a resultant obedience.

Jesus too 'learned obedience from the things he suffered'. Heb 5:8 His will was brought to conform with God's will through that trusting and obedience. This was tested beyond our apprehension until his final breath on the cross.

Once obedience is established, FW has an opportunity to be exercised, and enjoyed.

Truth will set us free, until it does, we are slaves to deception and true choice is impossible.

Jesus was saying to the Jews having believed in Him, “If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples. 32And you will know the truth, and the truth will set free you.”

33They answered unto him, “We are Abraham’s seed, and to no one ever have we been under bondage. How do you say, ‘You will become free’?” 34Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you that everyone practising the sin is a slave of the sin. 35Now the slave does not abide in the house to the age; the son abides to the age. 36So if the son shall set you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:31-

While deception remains, even in part, FW is only an illusion. Without the ability to clearly see both side of the matter, we cannot make an informed choice. Therefore, true FW is non-existent.

Through Jesus, deception is gradually removed and truth begins to change our focus. We selfishly think FW is for our benefit, but this is a lie and a crucial part of the way of the world and its master. FW is for enjoyment and necessary for our created destiny. It will be at the very core of who we are once we enter the Kingdom as 'born from above' saints.

Then, we will always choose good and right and will not want to sin ever again. We will be like God, made finally in His image through Christ and the following verse will finally be true.

No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. 1John 3:9

Now to the Question...

**Why would God create a world where he allows evil, because free will is so important to him, and then "manually" try to suppress evil by suppressing free will? **

He didn't allow evil. He expressly included evil in His brand new creation. Without it, He wouldn't have been able to develop the perfect character that He has. The character that knows evil and its consequences and chooses to do good at all times. If this reality is hard to accept, note the Genesis information we are provided.

• God could have prevented the serpent from being there. He didn't.
• the serpent didn't sneak in! God didn't restrain his interference.
• we are told he was very cunning. Adam and Eve were not and easily misled.

While God could make people who were already perfect if He chose, the results would not be permanent. Like the angels, they could turn to evil at any time.

++++++++++ The OP refers to, "what I know of the Christian views on this matter." It must be said that there are many and varied 'Christian views' on every matter!

Free Will

The short answer to your question is, God wasn't trying to suppress free will; if anything, he elevated its significance by raising the stakes, as previously free choice had no consequence and any choice was fine.

You've stated/implied in a couple of places that "Free will is the ability to decide on your own between good and evil", but I think you will find that is not at all what free will (specifically libertarian free will, which is what people generally advocate) is; rather, it is simply the ability to decide between two or more options without deterministic cause. No knowledge of whether a given option is good or evil is required for that choice to be free. Regardless, though, Adam and Eve had been told by God not to eat from the tree; this was sufficient knowledge for them to know not to do it. They may not have known good from evil, but they still knew who God was.

I would also submit that your understanding of how free will relates to the problem of evil may be flawed; it is not that free will is impossible without evil, but rather, freely loving God is not possible if every possible choice is in accordance with his will. To put it another way, in order for us to truly love him, we have to have the option of not loving him, which is essentially evil: neither confessing Him as Lord, nor obeying his commands. As with the tree in the garden, evil does not enable free will, but it gives free will meaning and consequence.

Moral Significance

After discussion, your question seems to be more about the necessity of evil for moral significance; this is separate to the idea of libertarian free will, although certainly related.

If I understand you correctly, a better way to summarise your question might be: Why, if evil is necessary for moral significance, did God try to prevent Adam and Eve from finding out about/committing it?

My answer to that would be, He didn't try to prevent them. Prevention would have been putting a wall around the tree. His telling them not to eat is simply what gave the choice moral significance, and in fact directly led to the rebellion which otherwise could not have occurred - one cannot break rules that don't exist. If he had said nothing to them regarding the fruit, it seems entirely plausible to me that it would not have been sinful for them to eat it.

Bear in mind that throughout all this, God in his omniscience knew exactly what they would do, further evidence that he was not trying to prevent them from eating. If He had been trying to prevent them, one would have to say He failed, which is impossible for God to do.

I encourage you to look into libertarian free will, 5 minutes' Googling should demonstrate that no knowledge of good or evil is required. As mentioned, I would be interested in any source that claims good and evil are part of it; there seems to be a great deal of conflation occurring.

First of all, remember that the heavens existed and God had created angels long before he created the physical universe (Job 38:7). We can be sure that he created the angels with the same free will because some of them went on to practice evil (Gen 6:2). The issues related to free will and to good/evil may well have already been tested before the creation of man, and perhaps that is why the tree was placed in the garden as a 'test' from the outset.

Using your own analogy of a parent - knowing that children will be born with free will and the capacity to do good or bad does not stop parents from having children. Good parents hope that they will be able to raise their children to be moral adults. Any good parent knows their children, their personalities, their tendencies. When a parent tries to help a child work out a 'negative' personality trait, it isn't a 'suppression of their free will', but rather something for their benefit. For example, teaching a child to be appreciative, to say 'thank you' etc isn't just to serve the parent's ego but to help that child grow into an appreciative adult who will have better human relationships for it. So, the idea that God doesn't know his own creation and their tendencies doesn't really make sense, as his understanding far exceeds any human parent.

Also, the idea that Adam and Eve didn't understand the concepts of free will, and of good and evil, is shown to be incorrect by the scriptures. 'Free will' is defined as "the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded". Eve ably explained to Satan that she understood the tree could be eaten from, but that it would have consequences (Gen 3:3). In most philosophies, 'free will' is also closely linked to the concept of moral responsibility, and again, Eve's explanation to Satan shows that she understood it was her moral responsibility towards God, her creator, that held her back from doing so. Satan's lie to Eve (Gen 3:4,5) attacked her relationship with God and diminished her moral responsibility towards him, and without that, she ate from the tree.

Clearly, Eve already had 'knowledge of good and bad'. That was not something suddenly and miraculously bestowed on her upon eating from the tree. Remember that the 'knowledge' promised to Eve if she ate off the tree was a lie from Satan. God told her it would lead to death, which it did, proving God to be true.

The question "why would God create free will and then suppress it" is a logical fallacy. If he didn't want anyone to have free will, he wouldn't have created it in the first place. It is apparent that God is benevolent and he chose to share his own life and free will with all that he created. But with free will comes moral responsibility. As the creator of all things, God gets to set the parameters for everything, including 'good and bad'. Like a parent, he tries to steer his children in a positive direction for their benefit and he warns them of the consequences of misusing their free will.

In response to comments raised about the above:

• You questioned Eve's preexisting grasp of right and wrong, quoting Kohlberg and likening her recall of God's instruction to his 'stage 1' of moral development. This is non sequitur. 'Understanding right and wrong' and 'moral development' are not the same thing. For example, do all murderers believe that murder is 'right'? Outliers aside, most people who commit crime know that it is wrong, but their moral development allows them to justify it. Eve must have known that it was 'wrong' to disobey God. Satan did not challenge that - rather he contradicted what God had said, claiming that they "will not die" as a consequence of disobedience. The 'knowledge of good and bad' he promised was tied to a lie that they would "become like God". Eve must have understood what this meant. If she didn't have a grasp of 'good and bad', the promise that she would gain knowledge of it would be no temptation. Also, 'stage 2' of Kohlberg's theory of moral development is 'Individualism and Exchange', in which a child understands that there is "not just one right view". The challenge of God's authority is not comparable to the existence of different human views. Satan did not offer Eve an 'alternative view' of what would happen if she broke God's rule - he lied, and the actions of Adam and Eve followed by the consequences proved that. Further, it is a fact that even adults with a 'developed' morality sometimes have a disconnect between their actions and consequence. Impetuous actions are often followed with the rhetorical question "what have I done?". Of course, they know what they did, but only afterwards do they reconnect it with the consequences.
• Adam and Eve's "eyes were opened" after their disobedience, but not in the way Satan had promised. He said, "your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil". But what actually happened was "their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness" (New Living Translation). They didn't suddenly evolve a new sense of morality - they felt shame. Returning to my example above - do you think that a criminal, after committing their first crime, suddenly develops a new sense of morality? Or do you think that they may feel a sense of regret and shame because of their existing understanding that they did something 'wrong'? Adam and Eve evidently did not feel ashamed of being naked in front of each other - Genesis 3:10 says that Adam hid from God because he was ashamed. So this shame was clearly over their disobedience and not because the fruit they ate supernaturally bestowed the concept of nakedness onto them.
• Lastly, the 'logical fallacy' I referred to was not a contradiction in the Bible, as I don't believe there is one. I called your question, as written, a logical fallacy. Asking "why did God create free will and then suppress it" in earnest is a logical fallacy because creating free will and suppressing it are exclusionary. If God suppresses free will then he has not created it at all. If the question is disingenuous then your question is in fact "why did God create an illusion of free will", which I hope my answer explains isn't the case.

Your words:

If Adam and Eve do not know about good and evil, they are not free to choose. They > do not have free will without the knowledge that there is even a choice to make in this dichotomy. Yes, they had the possibility to take the fruit (as we see), but God tries to actively sway them away from it. God actively tries to keep them deprived of free will, which does not seem to fit what I know of the Christian views on this matter.

I have a few problems with your three sentences. First, since when does not knowing something deprive someone of free will? A parent telling his or her child not to touch the stove or they'll get burned does not deprive that child of free will. The child does not even have to know what a stove is. The child does not even know what getting burned is all about. The child is simply expected to obey and not touch the stove.

Second, God did not try actively to sway them away from partaking of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Since when is describing the consequences of disobeying an act of moral suasion? It is not. Going back to the parent who warns the child of the consequences of touching a hot stove, all the parent needs to say is, "If you touch the stove you will get burned." Not knowing what touching a hot stove entails does not mean the child is being deprived of free will; rather, it is giving the child a choice either to do as the parent says or not to do as the parent says. Again, informing the child about consequences is not moral suasion.

Third, in laying down the law and informing our first parents of the consequences of disobeying, God is neither depriving them of anything nor is he actively trying to keep them deprived of free will. How could God deprive them of something he gave to them in the first place, and by his own design?

In short, I believe your definition of free will is flawed. While a case could be made that our first parents did not have the "full picture" of what disobedience entailed and what it would cost them, they did experience guilt and shame after disobeying God. What God told them would happen, happened, and they immediately became aware of, at least in part, what evil is and how it affected them. The proof: They hid from God, they experienced shame, and tried to cover up their nakedness. In other words, they had guilty consciences.

He is trying in a “soft” way (i.e. not with absolute impossibility) to suppress freedom of choice by prohibiting to obtain the required knowledge to choose.

There was no suppression of the freedom of choice:

• God said "don't do this".
• Adam and Eve now know that they have a choice about whether to obey God or not.
• If they obey, they have freely chosen to obey.
• If they disobey, they have freely chosen to disobey.
• They are free to choose either course of action (and the resulting consequences).

As a symbol of free will, the fruit tree itself is both literal and figurative. By eating the fruit:

• Adam and Eve literally chose to disobey God.
• Adam and Eve figuratively earned the ability to decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong.

Eating the fruit gave them the ability to decide, but in choosing to eat the fruit they had already demonstrated that they could decide.

why would God create a world where he allows evil, … and then 'manually' try to suppress evil by suppressing free will?

I see no evidence of this premise of suppressing free will.

Consider an analogy.

• Parents tell their children not to climb the tree in their backyard, because if they do they might fall and hurt themselves.
• The neighbour tells them to go ahead, they just don't want you to have any fun.
• Should the children choose to climb the tree and as a result fall and hurt themselves, it would ultimately be their use of free will to make a bad choice that hurt them; they were not being punished for it.

The parents are trying to guide and to protect their children, not to suppress their free will. Their ultimate goal is to train the children to use good judgement, to grow into responsible adults, to develop their free will, not to suppress it.