To have knowledge and to know the substance of that knowledge is meant for the benefit of mankind, of which, it is never in the knowing that is the substance of error, but rather it is in the misapplication of knowledge that mankind becomes personally responsible for that misuse and thereby must make it right. That is to say, anytime that knowledge is used incorrectly, for example, to benefit someone at the expense of another, or to deceive another, than that person doing such, has taken knowledge and used such for a wrong purpose of having that knowledge.
Another way of putting it, is that the true purpose of knowledge is not to “hold over” on someone else, or to take unfair advantage of another, but rather the purpose is to do good and to be of benefit to others. So that, when it comes to Adam and Eve, and the tree of knowledge, the warning against eating from that tree, is not that by doing so, Adam and Eve, would by that act, become agents of evil or sin, but rather that when provided with the awesome responsibility of knowledge, Adam and Eve, to their discredit, could not handle that knowledge in a responsible manner and thereby they fell from grace, by their willful lack of that responsibility.
This so indicates that the more knowledge that each of us has acquired, the greater our responsibility is to utilize that knowledge as agents of good deeds and good acts; as opposed to doing those deeds and acts that would be negative or evil. In addition, those that seek knowledge for knowledge’s sake, will often lose sight of who and what they really are, and having lost that focus to the source of all that is, will not be able to comprehend that the greatest attribute of any one being, is not knowledge, itself, but rather oneness with our Creator, of which, knowledge, improperly handled, separates our being from that unification.
It has been said that knowledge is a form of power, and it most definitely is, so that, ideally such knowledge should be under the control only of a power that is omnipotent, just, and infallible, which ultimately is true; for if that knowledge is held in the hands of an entity that knows not that their responsibility incurs a obligation to all, then the result will be a land of confusion. So that, when it comes to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the inability of Adam and Eve to thereby become infallible when biting into the awesome insight of true enlightenment is the very reason why earth is not a paradise.
So then, the fall of mankind is not in the eating of that fruit, but rather the fall of mankind is in the fact that so many are keeping their eyes shut and thereby living purposefully in ignorance, rather than recognizing that the die has already been cast, and thereby mankind’s only true mission is to utilize their knowledge in a manner in which all will find their way back to that of which it all originated from.