Usually we think Adam fell into sin because he was created with freewill...really? I mean frewill means the capacity to choose (unforced by anyone) between two things whose meaning you know...you can not choose beween things that are unknown off, right? But in Adam's case that's exactly what happened...he didn't know what sin is, what evil is so he's not accountable for his actions. I'll give you an example: suppose you have a three years old who's playing with the matches and you expect from him to exercise his freewill in order to quite playing otherwise he can burn the house. But the problem is this: if he doesn't know what fire is, what danger is how can he exercise his freewill and make a choice? You understand my point? In my opinion Adam was "forced" to make a choice not knoing what sin was and in this case we can not talk about frewill.
Free will in the context of Adam and Eve was connected to a departure from natural instinct about 6000 years ago. This time scale coordinates with the first sustained civilizations and the invention of written language. The 6000 year time scale, of the latter two, is science dated. The first is bible dated.
If you were a natural animal, your instincts will help you make choices. The Panda Bear eats only Eucalyptus leaves. so it never has to make a choice in terms of what to eat for dinner. The Lion eats the easy game put in front of its by chance or nature.
Adam and Eve begin in paradise, as two natural human animals, with natural human instinct. Paradise is not just a pretty place, but also a place where your needs are met, proactively via integrated ecosystems and instinct. Paradise is blissful since you are integrated with nature. It likely going to a nice resort where the staff is on top of your needs. They will bring you your favorite drink, proactively, without you having to ask. Or is like a small child who is in the care of caring parents, who anticipate for them.
When Adan and Eve willfully chose to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, their instinct would be lost, since the ability to make free choices will undermine the resort staff; instincts, who are hospitality experts. When the small child reaches the terrible twos it is hard to maintain their little paradise, since he/she undermines.
This symbolized of fall from paradise, due to free will, is about a new type of human attitude due to a new set of human needs, that forms connected to civilization. Unlike natural man where instincts worked perfectly, civilization is an unnatural world where decisions need to be willfully made, since instincts is only tuned to nature. It is like going home from vacation and the spar treatment, and now you got to deal with all the problems. even making choices that could be the lessor of evils; not optimized.
The symbolism of the tree of knowledge with all its branches, amounts to all those choices you now have to make due to the loss of instinct and paradise. When the Bible claims that Adam and Eve were the first humans, they were not taking about human DNA. The natural human; hunter gatherers in paradise, also had human DNA. Instead is was talking about this new human situation of living, within the unnatural environment of civilization, where instinct could no longer work properly. Once farming appears, you are stuck in place for months at a time.
It also symbolized a second center of consciousness forming; ego, which separated from the natural center; inner self. All animals have an inner self. Only human have an ego. Modern humans no longer have natural instincts. This is symbolized by the tree of life taken away.
Free will is relative to natural instinct, which is repressed, so all our choices are free willed, by default. This is why we tend to weight options and not just act without thought like the natural animal man.
