Dear friends:
Recently a friend has asked me about the 'Tree of Knowledge'. If God didn't want the man to eat the fruit from it why did He plant it in the Garden of Eden in the first place?
So I have restudied this topic and collected a couple links and a few paragraphs below to share with you. For the original articles, you may click the links for yourself.
...Skeptics often complain that God set Adam and Eve up to fail. However, God had to give Adam and Eve a choice. Without free will to choose, Adam and Eve would have been mere puppets. True love always requires choice.God wanted Adam and Eve to choose to love and trust Him. The only way to give this choice would have been to command something that was not allowed. Since God had planted in the garden all the different trees from which we now get fruit,1the test was not too difficult. Adam and Eve had plenty to eat and a large variety of fruits from which to choose, and could have chosen to believe God. They were only commanded not to eat from one tree out of the many.
Why did God choose the knowledge of good and evil?
Since everything else God planted in the garden was good, the natural choice of something to choose from would be knowledge of evil. God's plan for Adam and Eve was to enjoy each other and their fellowship with Him without the influence of evil. God did not want Adam and Eve to experience evil or even know about it. However, Satan had already rebelled against God and then tempted Eve to join him in rebellion against God. Satan used the oldest ploy in his playbook of deceit - God is a cosmic killjoy who is trying to keep something good from you. Satan first asked Eve about the tree from which they were told not to eat.3 Eve told Satan they were not to eat of the forbidden fruit or they would die. Satan's reply indicated that God was a liar and that He just wanted to keep something good (the fruit) from them, saying, "God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."3 So, Adam and Eve gained knowledge of the difference between good and evil through direct experience, instead of through instruction by God. The text suggests that Adam and Eve had enjoyed daily walks with God through the garden prior to their fall (Genesis 3:8). The knowledge of evil brought fear and shame to Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:10).4 So, the knowledge of good and evil wasnot a good thing, since it ruined their innocent relationship with God and each other.
Return to innocence?
This is somewhat speculative, but I believe that we believers will lose our knowledge of evil in heaven. Isaiah 25:85 says that God will wipe all the tears from us and our reproach will be removed (see also Revelation 7:17 and 21:4).6 We will be able to experience and enjoy God directly7 without influence or knowledge of sin and evil.
Conclusion 
Skeptics claim that God set up Adam and eve to fail by giving them a test that was either too difficult or deceptive. However, the Bible makes it clear that God gave Adam and Eve all they needed - with lots of different trees from which to eat fruit. It is clear that Eve knew she should not eat from the one tree in the middle of the garden that she was instructed to avoid. Instead of believing God and trusting Him, after all He had done for them, Eve chose to believe the lies of Satan (in snake form), and believed that God was lying to her. She ate the forbidden fruit and convinced her husband to do the same, resulting in their loss of innocence and a broken relationship with God and each other. Yes, they now had knowledge of good and evil, but it wasn't quite as originally advertised by the snake. We still have the same choice as Adam and Eve. We can gain the knowledge of evil by directly participating in it or we can believe God and avoid the things He has said are bad for us.
...I don’t know if there is AN answer to that question, but I do have some thoughts which may be helpful. The prophet Isaiah reminds us that God’s ways are not our ways, his thoughts are not our thoughts. He said that God’s thoughts are as high above our thoughts as the stars in the heaven. So whatever God had in mind when he did it is not available to us, unless God’s chooses to reveal it to us plainly. Genesis 3 tells us what God did but not why.
Of all God’s creatures human beings are made in His image. This means, among other things, that we have a will of our own and make choices. Animals cannot choose. A species of bird driven by instinct to build a nest in the trees cannot decide to burrow beneath the ground for its home. Human beings, though, uniquely fashioned from the earth are not only able to make decisions, they must. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was there, in part, to provide humans with a choice: to obey the Voice of God or not. Had there been no choice, there could be no obedience. The ongoing question for us is whether we will choose to follow, love and obey the One True God. Yes, I think God knew that some people would choose to follow. Others would choose to follow their own desires. That is not a failure in God but in us. Had God made us so that we could only love him, then it would be no love at all. Love is at the heart of creation.
Another matter which comes to mind. The knowledge of good and evil seems like a good thing to have, but the question is: where should this come from? The “sin” of Adam and Eve is that they want to be “like God.” This means that they do not want to depend on God for the guidance of what is good and evil. They want to know it for themselves, which makes them the judge. They want the option in the future to say what is good and what is evil. In fact, God is the only judge in these matters. The Hebrew word translated “knowledge” may imply “knowledge by experience” rather than theoretical knowledge. God did not want young Adam and Eve to know evil by experience. As a parent, I can understand that. I want my adult son to “know” that adultery is evil and will harm him and his family, but I don’t want him to have to experience it to know it. Adam and Eve, however, chose disobedience; they apparently wanted to experience for themselves good and evil. That experience changed them and the world in profound ways.
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