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ALEX - In Moses 2 it says
28 And I, God, blessed them, and said unto them: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth( Adam and Eve are still in a sinless state)
Then later
Moses 5:11 And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.
So it seems they would have to first transgress before she could have seed. So why did God command them to do something they couldn't do at the time?
JOEL - The commands God gave Adam and Eve seem contradictory, but we need to understand that at the moment Adam and Eve were created, they were still immortal beings who were able to converse with God and learn from Him about the premortal life and plan of salvation while in the garden. There was no veil between them and God before the fall. God walked and talked with Adam and Eve and likely made them aware of His plan. Even though in their innocent state they did not comprehend good and evil, they did have some knowledge of God's plan of salvation.
The situation God put them in is all about choice; an eternal principle that even God must obey. The commands God gave Adam and Eve were not necessarily contradictory; He was simply giving them the opportunity to choose for themselves. As God said; "Nevertheless, thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee;" (Moses 3:17). God was simply telling Adam and Eve that if they wanted to stay in the Garden forever they should not partake of the fruit of the tree. But He also gave them a greater charge; that they must multiply and replenish the earth; something they could not do if they remained in the garden.
The fall of Adam was not an accident nor was it an obstruction to God's plan. God knew that Adam would choose the way he did, but it was still important that Adam make the choice for himself, and not just be forced to do it. After Eve was beguiled by Lucifer to partake of the fruit, Adam, who was familiar with the plan of salvation, concluded that God’s command to remain with his wife (see Moses 4:18) was more important than His command to abstain from the fruit; so they made the decision to choose the greater of the two commandments; a transgression against one of the commands, but not a sin. Thus "Adam fell that men might be" (2 Ne. 2:25).
A possible example of this is in how we keep the Sabbath day holy. We have been commanded that we should do no work or cause others to work on the Sabbath day. Yet if we stop and help someone who ran out of gas and go buy some for them on the Sabbath day so they are not left stranded, we are committing a transgression against the Sabbath day, but not a sin. We have chosen to obey the greater law of loving and serving our neighbor, for which God would bless us.
Thus, there really is no actual contradiction or paradox; just a matter of choosing one over the other.
Even though it might be hard to understand why God did it this way, we should take comfort in the fact that God's will prevailed. Adam and Eve ultimately kept the greater commandment He gave them, to multiply and replenish the earth, and because of that we were able to come to earth and work towards eternal life with God.
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