[Cal]

The tree of life means dependence on God. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil means attempting to navigate your existence morally or otherwise outside of dependence on God. After all, why do you need God? You know good and evil. The first instance of knowing good and evil was to surmise that God was mistaken in prohibiting the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve surmised that "good" was actually eating of that tree. Thus she actually ate of it before she ate of it. Or said another way, her eating of it was deciding independent of God that she should eat of it.