VictoryinJesus: I believe your last couple of lines are a little 'off-course.' Let me explain a bit..
The ‘tree’ of knowledge (good and evil) is not evil in itself. It is a tree or spirit for use in discernment or justice (judging). It is not a spirit or power to gain knowledge per se as many folks believe.
Scripture records this spirit of God that provides the power of judging in 2 Sam 14:16-17; I Kings 3:9 and Heb 5:12-14. It is designed to be given to mature persons in God’s sight and timing - not of our own timing.
Adam was forbidden to take this power for himself as he was then too immature in spirit to know of its consequences. It’s consequences of overriding God’s guidance and discernment into his own hands ‘at that time’ proved fatal. Allowing Adam to then take the spirit of life would make him permanently separated from the will of God. He would be definitely his own god.
The power of this knowledge dangled in front of Adam revealed that he desired his own moral autonomy over the lead of his master’s morality. He took the power of judgement very carelessly and improperly as an incapable child and became ‘like’ God and the angels in this knowledge and use of this power of discernment. Gen 3:22
(Gen 3:22) Yahweh God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever…(NEV)
Disobedience thus led to sin and then to submission to God through Christ as we know. We now as believers obtain this power of discernment and judgement as God desires us to have it, in his timing, as a precious gift.
Bless you,
APAK
The point here is that there is no good outside of what God deems as good. There is no learning to judge when it comes to life. The knowledge of good and evil comes after taking the fruit of the forbidden tree...in that you only learn what is evil...by experiencing evil. So then the evil is the loss of contact with eternal life due to the subtlety of the devil. They were tricked into losing their lives with God. The good is learned when they realize what they once had. But always we retain the choice to choose between what we think is good and evil...and the will of God. Apart from God speaking...there is no good. There is no such thing as morality. Everything becomes relative when taken away from God. It becomes..."says who?!!!
Can truth exist apart from God? No. He is truth. Neither is there any good apart from God. Only One is good.