Adam and Eve
At the serpent's prompting, Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Before they eat they have no knowledge of good and evil. That is they could not make a distinction between the categories of good and evil. They could not make a distinction because for them the categories did not exist. After all, they were in the Garden of Eden, a paradise in which the beneficence of God was directly and openly present. Not knowing about anything but the beneficence of God, they did not even have the awareness of receiving the beneficence. And without the awareness, no further development or evolvement is possible.
The eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is their expression of desire to be in a world in which the categories of good and evil are consciously present. And this is indeed what happens. Instead of the beneficence of God being so openly and directly present that it would not be perceived on a conscious level, Adam and Eve, exactly as they desired, become thrust in a world having good and evil. That is, they become thrust in a world in which the beneficence of God is not always perceived to be present. When it is perceived, that is the good. When the beneficence is not perceived, when it is concealed, that is the evil.
Now in actuality, the beneficence of God is always present. The only difference is in their perception. By sometimes perceiving and sometimes not perceiving, the perceived presence or absence becomes placed on a conscious level where the dynamics is experienced as a changing. But now that it is on a conscious level the situations in which it is not perceived are situations of perceived suffering, separation, and darkness. And in this way Divine beneficence, its perceived presence and absence, becomes part of the conscious experience of Adam and Eve.
So as soon as they eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, their conscious world changes. They are sometimes aware of the beneficence of God and sometimes not. Therefore, their perception is that they no longer are in the Garden of Eden. From their new point of view, in a reference frame in which at that moment there is no perception of the beneficence of God, God has punished them. This punishment, however, is really the fulfillment of their desire to be in a conscious world having the possibility of development and this means the world must have the categories of good and evil. For now instead of receiving the Divine beneficence, but not being aware of the benefit, they find themselves banished from the Garden and in a world involving hard work and suffering. Here they sometimes get conscious glimpses of the Divine beneficence but more of the time are aware of the lack of beneficence. However, nothing from the Divine side has really changed. For the Divine beneficence continues to be always present as in the Garden of Eden. Only now because its appearance is on a conscious level, it can only be fully appreciated when it is perceived. And when it is not perceived, it is as if we is dead for there is no life in being aware of a separation from God.
So to simultaneously have knowledge of good and evil and have life, we must transform all our perceptions of a lack of receiving Divine beneficence into perceptions of receiving the Divine beneficence. The only change occurring in this transformation being a change in our consciousness caused by our will to have life.
Once we realize that the only difference is a difference between our perception of the reality and the reality itself and that it is our perception which must change to bring the two into congruence, we realize that the Universe is a free lunch after all. That is, we can become more and more aware of the constant Divine beneficence in all our encounters. So being aware, we have life.