“The Fall Came by Reason of Transgression”
Adam’s partaking of he fruit of the three of knowledge of good and evil is properly referred was a transgression, not as a sin. Transgression in this instance centers our attention on a broken law, rather than on wilful disobedience (see Articles of Faith 1:2.) Joseph Smith taught that “Adam did not commit sin in eating the fruits, for God had decreed that he should eat and fall” (The Words of Joseph Smith, p. 63). “The fall of man came as a blessing in disguise,” Joseph Fielding Smith explained, “and was the means of furthering the purposes of the Lord in the progress of man, rather than a means of hindering them ... I never speak of the part Eve took in this fall as a sin, nor do I accuse Adam of a sin.” (Doctrines of Salvation 1:114.)