God had them walking in the Garden knowing full well what the outcome would be....
The problem some have is they fail to see that God was teaching angels, and using man as a means to get them to see reality.
The teaching below is Williamson's belief on man's free will and how our reasoning was impacted by that fall. I find that there seems to be much truth in what he wrote.
Free Will – G.I. Williamson – liberty vs ability
In his study guide, Williamson does a very good job of explaining that no other system of teaching safeguards true human liberty and responsibility as does the Reformed Faith.
In doing this he says that that we must carefully note what freedom of the will
is and what it
is not. By free will we mean that man’s will is not coerced. That he is not forced by some external force greater than himself to do something he does not want to do. We mean that man is free to do what he wants to do within the
limits of his
ability. However, we must carefully note that
liberty is not identical with
ability. Many people really mean
ability when the say
liberty. They speak of man being free to do good or evil when they really mean to say that men are able to do good or evil. This is a serious error! The Bible clearly and consistently teaches (1) man is free to do good or evil, that he is at liberty to do either, but (2) that he is able to do only evil because of his fallen condition. The will cannot escape the moral character out of which it comes. If the soul is entirely corrupt so that its knowledge and desire are defective and rotten, it follows that it will ever
will to do that which is evil.
Man originally had a sinless personality. He desired only what was good and well-pleasing to God. He was free to do that which was according to his on desire. And because his nature was wholly uncorrupted his desires were only good. He had absolute
liberty and also
ability to do good. He had no more
liberty to do good than has fallen man, but had complete
ability which is totally absent in fallen man. With sin’s entrance man lost
ability to do good, not
liberty. Before the fall, man was at
liberty to do either good or evil and he was
able to do either. After the fall he remained free to do either good or evil, but was
able to do only evil. Now “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5). He is
able to do good only as he is regenerated in order that he may again possess the good heart and will and to do God’s good pleasure (Eph 2:1ff, John 3:3, Phil 2:13).
The regenerate man possesses the same absolute
liberty as did Adam before the fall and sinners after the fall. The difference between unregenerate man is one of
ability, not
liberty. Both are free to do good, but only one is
able to do good. And he is
able because God the Holy Sprit has given him a new heart (Eph 2:10). Therefore, he has
ability to will and do what is good. Yet his
ability is not identical with that which Adam originally had. The regenerate man is not yet
able to do God’s will perfectly. He does truly delight in the will of God. He does persist in the way of righteousness. Sin cannot prevail in him as it formally did. But sin is present with him (Rom 7:21). The reason for this is that we are in the process of being made holy.
By and by his work in us will be done (with glorification). But even then, man will possess essentially the same
liberty that he now has. The difference again, will be in the measure of his
ability, not
liberty
