The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil According to the Holy Scriptures

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[Saint] Augustine, in book 14 of De civitate Dei On the City of God, Chapter 26, writes: In Paradise, man lived as he wished, for as long as he wished, that which God had commanded. He lived enjoying God, from whose goodness he was good. He lived without any want, having the power to live in such a way forever. Food was at hand so he would not hunger, drink so he would not thirst. The tree of life was there, so that old age would not dissolve him. There was nothing of corruption in his body, nor did any bodily thing impose any discomforts upon his senses. No internal disease was feared, nor any external blow. There was perfect health in the flesh and total tranquility in the soul. Just as in Paradise there was no heat or cold, so in its inhabitant there was no offense to the good will caused by desire or fear. There was nothing sad at all, nothing vainly joyful. True joy was perpetuated from God, toward whom he burned.

If we weigh these things on the scales of sound reason, what else do they indicate but that Paradise was a truly terrestrial and corporeal place, founded by God in the beginning? Anyone who might wish to take these things in an otherwise figurative sense would clearly be dragging and twisting the plain letter of Scripture toward many exotic and absurd conclusions. Hence, Saint Augustine rightly says in book 8 of De Genesi ad litteram On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, Chapter 1, Number 4:

Augustine, Book 8 of On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, Chapter 1, Number 4.

Those of our time who have faith in these divine books, and who do not wish for Paradise to be understood according to the property of the letter—that is, as a most pleasant place shaded by fruit-bearing groves, and one that is great and fruitful—since they see that no human work makes so many and such great green spaces grow without the hidden work of God, I wonder how they believe that man himself was made in a way they have never seen. Or, if he too is to be understood only figuratively, who begot Cain and Abel and Seth? Were they also only figurative, and not men born of men? Therefore, let them consider to where this presumption leads, and let them endeavor with us to accept everything that is narrated as having happened at the beginning in its literal expression.