The Lord honored the agency of Adam and Eve after teaching them the consequences of partaking of the forbidden fruit. God said, “Thou mayest choose for thyself” (Moses 3:17). The plan was designed so that Adam and Eve would need to use their agency to bring about the Fall.
President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876–1972) helps us understand the Lord’s instructions to Adam and Eve about the forbidden fruit:
“Just why the Lord would say to Adam that he forbade him to partake of the fruit of that tree is not made clear in the Bible account [see Genesis 2:17], but in the original as it comes to us in the Book of Moses [see Moses 3:17] it is made definitely clear. It is that the Lord said to Adam that if he wished to remain as he was in the garden, then he was not to eat the fruit, but if he desired to eat it and partake of death he was at liberty to do so” (Joseph Fielding Smith, 1963)