The Fall was a planned event, and it was a noble thing Adam and Eve did. Otherwise they would have remained in the Garden, and they would have had no children (“the family of all the earth”). That would have frustrated the whole plan of God to provide for his children’s education a probation—a time of testing, learning, experiencing, growing, and becoming like the Father and the Son. Living innocently in Eden would have denied them the opportunity to acquire godlike goodness and real joy.
So Adam and Eve purposefully brought about the Fall to provide mortal life for all the Father’s children and to facilitate their opportunity to learn joy. Notice in Moses 5:10–11 that both Adam and Eve specifically refer to their potential for joy:
“And in that day Adam blessed God and was filled, and began to prophesy concerning all the families of the earth, saying: Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God.
“And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we … never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.”
Undoubtedly, a knowledge of the great change that Adam and Eve brought about caused Lehi to feel gratitude for God’s plan: “Behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.”