Gen. 2:7-3:6, God Should Have Known That Adam Would Disobey.

God was omnipotent, and God must have known the properties and tolerances of everything he created, just like a baker and just like an engineer.

If he was omniscient, then he had foreknowledge and if he didn't have foreknowledge (for whatever reason), he could have made reliable predictions based on his intimate knowledge of his creation and its properties and tolerances. To refute this would necessitate showing why God cannot be expected to have the same capabilities as any other Engineer or Baker. Stipulating that the story of the Fall of Man is true in some sense, God was an expert in how to make Adam. He understood Adam intimately. God made Adam as a Man in Gods image, whatever that means. Since god made Adam as a man, Adam necessarily possessed all the qualities that qualify Adam to be classified as a man. From the story, we can see that Adam had desire, cognitive biases (such as trusting someone he liked) but he didn't posses the Knowledge of Good and Evil. So from Adams perspective all options were more or less equal. These choices he made from the options and characteristics that he possessed guaranteed certain outcomes were more likely than others. 6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Since Adam had no family, no history, no education, no culture, no frame of reference with which to view the world, he had to make decisions based on information he picked up from the time of his inception or from what God instilled in him at creation. Since God made him without the Knowledge of Good and Evil, his options would be determined by that frame of reference. If God made him without language, his options would be limited accordingly. If he made him without an opposable thumb his options would be limited accordingly. Based on Adams properties, Adam could be expected to behave in certain ways. For example, we don't expect Adam walked on all fours even though he could have. We expect and assume he walked upright because of his body structure. He, like us, had parameters that made it more comfortable to walk upright than on his hands and knees. He, like us, had desires that made it more likely that had the ability to place value on things and have a hierarchy of preferences. In fact, he did not choose a helper. While its strange that God did not make woman when he made the animals once Adam gave up trying to choose, God made Eve in such a way that it was likely that Adam was going to accept her as a his helpmate. If God had made woman when he made the animals, Adam could have avoided wasting time looking for a suitable helper from the animals. 2:20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 2:21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 2:22 The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. If certain conditions are met, we can reasonably expect a certain outcome. An example from close to home. My grandmother was an expert about what she cooked. When my grandmother used to make biscuits, she used only a certain type of flower, and she added Crisco and other ingredients to make the best biscuits ever. When I asked her for the recipe she said it was in her head, and when i asked her to dictate it to me is was full of dashes and pinches of this and that. She did that with everything and she was a great cook. She knew exactly how each ingredient would affect the outcome of the texture, taste, consistency etc. I imagine that God would have been like my grandmother with Adam. He would have known exactly how each ingredient in each proportion would affect the outcome of Adam and Eve and all the animals that he made from scratch. Another example are engineers for the space program. They used engineering principles to make predictions and test them to find solutions to problems that never existed before. They used mathematical models to derive solutions, then tested them empirically, and when their collective confidence was strong, they put their plan into action. Without any foreknowledge or omniscience, engineers put men on the moon by ensuring certain conditions were met, and they enjoyed many successful outcomes. Adam worked with what he had. Generally, a small number of mistakes are expected. When Adam disobeyed Gods order not to eat the fruit, he was making decisions based within the boundaries of his frame of reference. Being the first human, mistakes should have been expected. Using myself as a standard, with my life experience, and generally knowing Good from Evil, I cannot see myself disobeying a God that I was confident existed. I know this about myself because I choose to abide by the Law and the Law is something less than a God. Since I choose to abide by the Laws of my society, I would likewise choose to abide by the Laws of a God that I believed existed. To me it is obvious that Adam made a mistake because he did not understand what he was doing. In fact, Adam did not, on a whim, decide to disobey God. There were many other factors that led to that act that should be considered. There is no doubt that he knew that God said not to eat the fruit, but he could not have known it was wrong to trust Eve's new information and revise his options and choices. People that are not capable of flexibility in their decision making are severely handicapped in life and in business. Of course revising opinions and making decisions on the information at hand can lead to mistakes, generally it guarantees more successful outcomes. Adam and Eve revised their thinking based on new information but because they were missing the component that enabled knowledge of Good and Evil, they were mentally incompetent as detailed in the article "Gen. 2:16-3:24: Adam and Eve Were Mentally Incompetent". They did not have knowledge of Good and Evil before they ate the fruit, they possessed desire, exhibited preferences, and exhibited several cognitive biases that put enabled them to be persuaded by the snake. A list of factors follows leading up to Adams disobedience. 1. Adam Existed 1.a. Adam and Eve had desire built in (Gen. 3:6) 1.b. Adam and Eve were missing some cognitive processes (Knowledge of Good and Evil, experience with bad people) (Gen. 3:7) 1.c. Adam and Eve had Cognitive Bias built in (trusting someone they like) (Gen. 3:6) 2. Adam was put in the Garden 3. Eve existed 3.a No Warning about the snake 4. Snake Existed 5. Tree Existed These were the factors involved in causing Adam to disobey God. If any one of these factors had not existed, the likelihood that Adam would have disobeyed God would decrease. This is obvious in hindsight, but since God is supposedly Omniscient, and he engineered everything, if he didn't know it, he should have been able to reliably predict it. Causal Diagram of Adams Transgression.