What went wrong with Adam and Eve in Eden?
When God created Adam and Eve they were innocent, having aligned with neither good or evil. They had no experience in the world, and so God gave them a simple framework for living and some tasks for exploring and learning. (Genesis 2) God gave them a single command: don’t eat from one tree of knowledge of good and evil. The consequence of that was death.
Quite soon, another being primed their thinking with the new-to-them idea that they could choose good or evil for themselves. They chose to rebel against God‘s instructions, and eat from the prohibited tree. They were then cursed by God and forced out of the garden. (Genesis 3) Why did God enforce these large-scale punitive measures just for the simple eating of an available - though prohibited - tree fruit?
Also, Adam and Eve continued alive after they ate the fruit. They were on the earth for many, many years after leaving Eden. Was God lying to them about the consequences?
Answer
God made Adam and Eve in his own image. This meant he gave them consciousness and agency. They could think and reason; they could make their own free choices and choose their own future. God intentionally did not make them puppets of his will. They could freely choose to love like God, but they also could choose against God.
Death is best understood relationally. When someone you know physically dies, the most significant effect is that relationship with the person is cut off. But also in the case of severe failure of relationship with a living human we would describe that person as being dead to us. This is an accurate description because we no longer have anything in common with them on which to build relationship.
All relationships are built on common values. That is, values we share in common with someone else are the essential foundation on which the relationship is built. If there are no shared values, then there is no relationship; there is death instead.
The value system of God is unselfish: it is sacrificial love for the benefit of others. All God's other values derive directly from this primary central motivation. The question about Adam and Eve was, what value system would they choose?
Knowing Death
First, their deceiver seeded doubt about God's truthfulness to them and God's care for them. Then, this deceiver pushed the lie that choosing their own value system apart from God was wise. Adam & Eve bought the lie, and chose selfish value systems for their motivation. ("Even though it is not mine to have, I want this food and will take it for myself.")
By this they put themselves at odds with God, breaking their relationship with God. In multiple ways they died as a natural consequence of their choice. God had told them what would happen and he was bound by his promise to fulfill what he had said.
Could they really have understood the consequences of their actions? Did they understand death? The story in Genesis is very short and we are not told if they asked God more about what death was. Was there anything somewhat like death already in their context?
Certainly, we know that the man and woman ate plant food. They would have observed that plants which are picked begin to lose vitality. They had been tasked with taking care of the garden. If that work was like what we do today, then they already knew that plants which are removed will die. For a time the plant will hold life, but removed from the context for growing it certainly dies. And, a dead plant could no longer be experienced as what it had been. Plant death is substantially different than animal death, but as an object lesson this would have been sufficient for them to understand key parts of the concept of death.
By their choices, Adam and Eve removed themselves from the context for growing. God is the source of life and they struck away from him.
Leaving the Garden
But why were they forced away from the garden? Remember that God is motivated by the value system of love for others. Out of this comes his mercy, and being prohibited from the garden was an act of mercy.
I have a theory that the fruit of the tree of life contained an anti-aging nutritional supplement. Eaten regularly its fruit would thoroughly counteract the effects of aging. (Foods with very modest effects of that type are available to us today.)
Originally the tree of life was not off-limits to Adam and Eve. The single tree that had been prohibited them was a different one. At the beginning they had been given express license to eat from every other tree, therefore this certainly included the tree of life. It is reasonable then to think that they already had eaten fruit from the tree of life.
As part of the curse, Adam was told he would return to dust. This means that mortality was in the curse, although mortality also was a blessing. Life on this earth became toil and pain, and God put a limit on how long humans would have to endure it. A key part of this was preventing access to the tree of life. And so, the man and the woman were evacuated from the garden where this tree grew.
In the curse, God discussed with them results from broken relationship. Some aspects had already happened and God was explaining what they had experienced. Some were relationship effects that would come later. The other significant part of the curse was about physical systems that now were degraded. (Childbirth and agriculture are specifically mentioned. Generally all material systems would not work as well-integrated as when first made by God.) •••
The curse was addressed to specific separate persons, but aspects pronounced to one sometimes applied more widely: The man was cursed to toil, but the woman got the same curse. The woman was cursed with enmity to the deceiver, but the man was also included there. The man was cursed to mortality, but the woman got that too.
Note that work itself was not a curse because they had been tasked from the beginning with working the garden, but now work would also be toil.
So generally now material things would degrade; the curse outlined that the entropy of all physical things would increase.
Aligning of Value Systems
The value systems Adam and Eve chose did not align with the value system of God. They did not even align with each other. They each chose a selfish value system for the benefit of themself. This can be seen in their excuses and incriminations against each other when God found them. Instead of taking responsibility for their choice, they blamed others, including God. So they died to God and they died somewhat to each other. This is the nature of selfish value systems. They cannot be shared with anyone because all have a different beneficiary.
The value system of God is different. It is a value system that can be shared because it is not proprietary. Since it does not seek self, it can align with others. It is the one value system that puts life into relationships. And God is unique because he is totally integrated in his values. He is not motivated by any other value system (holy).
Value Systems Affecting our World
Although we are natively selfish, we are actually motivated by a mix of values (not holy). We do include some components of unselfishness because we are made in the image of God and have heritage from God. (It is enough to enable the basic functioning of families, cultures and civilizations.)
When Adam and Eve chose a value system apart from God, their world followed from that choice. Their choice resulted in broken relationships, and it established the pattern for what all their descendents would struggle with. Additionally, their choice resulted in damage to the very physics of the world. (Everything material falls apart and degrades.)
Likewise, the world we experience will also follow from the values that we choose to motivate us. Our value system will have relationship and physical effects, both for good or ill, both for us and those that come after us. We could choose a value system that brings life (the value system of God). Or, we could remain with our selfish native values and continue to experience the death that it brings.
We will need God's help to become deeply motivated by his value system. When we live with others who are also seeking harmony with the same value system, we are enabled to have good relationships. The foundation of our value system is shared and we have much in common with them and of course with God. This is renewed life.
When Godly unselfish values motivate us, we show love for others in tangible ways. When we take care of the physical needs of people, we repair the brokeness of our physical world. It is this which also shows everyone that we love God.
The value system perspective used here is based on ideas from the work of Darren Twa.