Why did God forbid Adam and Eve to eat from the fruit of knowledge?
In short: Not because God feared that man would know the good. In the Orthodox reading, the commandment was the first school of freedom: man was meant to receive life as a gift, not seize it against God.
The Orthodox nuance
The tree is not a trap placed in a garden. It is a simple boundary, set in a world full of gifts. Adam and Eve receive almost everything, but they are asked not to turn freedom into possession. The knowledge of good and evil here does not mean culture or intelligence, but the claim to decide alone, without God, what is good and what is evil.
The Fathers see here the drama of a distorted maturation. Man was called to grow into likeness with God, but through obedience, communion, and grace. The serpent offers the same goal by a shortcut: 'you will be like God,' but without God. That is what breaks the bond of life.
So the command does not punish the thirst for truth. Orthodoxy is not against knowledge. It says only that true knowledge begins with trust in God, not with the suspicion that God is hiding life from us.
Sources
- Genesis 2:16-17
- Genesis 3:5
- Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (on man's growth toward maturity)
- Saint Maximus the Confessor (on the misuse of freedom)