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Footnote:
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil represented the knowledge that God had reserved unto Himself of the existence of that which, if known to Adam, would have subjected him to temptations that might cause him to cease to be all good, as the serpent explained to Eve, "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing Good and Evil" (Genesis 3:5). And so God sternly warned our First Parents, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17). And when Adam ate of the fruit of this tree - that is when he disobeyed God and sought the knowledge of those things which subjected him to the temptations that might cause him to cease to be all good - God took away the potentiality of Adam becoming one with Him and immortal.
With his soul, God had given man the possibility of obtaining God's own nature, through the longings of man's soul for At-onement with Him. Pride and the desire to master the physical surroundings, which he thought would insure him immortality, led to the withdrawal of the Divine Love and man's potentiality for becoming at-one with God was lost until the advent of Jesus. Man wanted to be free of dependence upon God and sought to be co-equal with God in power and wisdom and immortality without paying homage to his Creator, so that pride and arrogance and independence were the first sins that entered the soul of men. Although it was God who withheld the possibility of man's obtaining the Divine Love after his fall, man's condition became such when sin entered that the Divine Love could not be sought for in that, in his pride and independence, he willed that is should be removed as an indication of God's protecting influence. When man sinned because of his desire to be independent of God, he showed God that he did not want God's help in his progress through life as a mortal and when he came to the spirit world, the same sense of independence of God was evidenced. God did withdraw His privilege of the possibility of obtaining the Divine Love, but man had shown he did not want it if it meant acknowledging God as his Creator and upon Whom he was dependant for his good gifts, and he was determined to live without them for the sake of being his own soul master.
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