The Ten Commandments, given by God, are a display of his goodness and mercy. In Paradise, there was no need for the commandments to be written on tables of stone, for the law of God was written on the heart. However, when Adam transgressed the command of God and ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the image of God whereby man knew the law in his heart, became corrupt. We see how the knowledge of the law has completely deteriorated by the wickedness of the first world, the wickedness that followed upon a renewed world, after the flood, and when we look at the world around us.