I'm always wondering the same thing--why do we need to have an adversary if our minds are already feeling deep hatred toward God and are prone to disobey and are in fact already disobeying and far from Him?
A weak mind doesn't want to die. It wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants to live the life of glory. They weren't about to touch that tree after God told them they "might" die.
But we know that in order to be made in God's image we have to die (to self) first. But the flesh / the carnal mind never thinks this way - the thoughts of a carnal man are much lower than the thoughts of God and it thinks it loves God when it really hates God.
They think they love Him because they are doing exactly what He tells them to do; eat of all the trees in the garden and never eating of the tree of knowledge.
They were doing exactly what he said to do, too. And that's all they could see.
But they didn't really love Him. He knew that. But how do you get prideful people who live by sight and not faith, to admit that? Did their pride ever blind them?
(And their eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked ... and blind....)
Eve wasn't even touching the tree! She must have thought she was being such a good little girl.
I can see how Eve, in talking with the serpent, drew close to God with her lips, but her heart was far from Him.
She sounds like Jane Curtin in the Coneheads:
"Of.all.the.trees.we.are.eating.but.of.the.tree.in.the.
middle.God.said.do.not.eat.do.not.even.touch.it.lest.you.die."
She was bored and lonely or something. Just the same way Adam was bored and lonely before the excitement of Eve came to life.
Adam was lonely and bored out of his skull before Eve came to town.
He's like:
Wow! Flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone!
He's not:
WOW! I've finally got a friend I can talk to for a change!!!
All he saw was her body. Flesh and bone. Bone and flesh.
But he couldn't help it. He was by nature a physical / visual creature.
She was no different.
She too needed some sort of helper meet, I imagine.
I mean, before children or hardships or Satan enters the picture, there's not much a good girl can talk about with an "obedient God-fearing" carnal minded man.
Nice day, idn't it. Yep, sure is.....
She was bored!
But Adam had all he ever wanted! Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. "MY flesh" "MY bone."
It comes across to me as a either a great comfort to him and/or a great source of pride to see this beautiful thing coming toward him or laying next to him after he woke up from that deep sleep, and knowing that THAT CAME FROM ME?
WOW, I am something, aren't I?
Nah, just kidding.
I bet Adam wept like a baby when he saw Eve. Like women weep when we meet our children for the first time. We're like, Oh my gosh - look at this sweet little thing!! So sweet!!! I can't believe that came out of me!? Awwww. So sweet.
I think God thought they were both really sweet.
Otherwise, I don't see why God wouldn't just reach out and "smite them." He doesn't really need Satan for that.
"God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked."
(God's like: I'm not about to kill my children myself - they're so darn cute! Look at them!! No, way, I just can't do it. I'll have to make something else to do it. )
"Let no one say when he is tempted that he is tempted by God, because God tempts no one, neither can God be tempted.)
And apparently Adam and Eve were pretty tough to crack. Eve wasn't going down so easy. She must have been very hard to outwit. Fleshly minded? Yes. Are there carnally-minded people in the world who are pretty blessed in the brains department? Sure!
So God had to make her opposition the subtlest of all field life, the slickest clown in town was the only thing that could take her down. I guess. I don't know.
But I bet that selfish act of Satan's went directly to his head. I bet Satan was so proud of himself for that. Nom-nom-nom....gulp!