Of course, we could argue that ignorance is no excuse, but then, to be fair, we must keep in mind, Adam and Eve both were very simple. They had no ability to discern right from wrong, nor did they have knowledge or wisdom.
We know by reading Chapter 3 that Eve was not ignorant of God's command that they were not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Man, like the angels, was gifted with free will and had to undergo a probation. God gave them a command by which they could freely choose Him or against Him. That command stands with each and every one of us today.
In a very real sense, Adam and Eve were not complete human beings. They could not distinguish between right and wrong, in other words they had no moral autonomy, they lacked any sort of judgement, and by today's standards they would be complete morons, with a functional IQ of zip.
God created them in His image and likeness, their soul in a state of sanctity and their physical natural body was immortal. God raised them above everything else with gifts of intellect and reason, made them to rule over all the creatures and the world. Adam was given charge to name all the animals, etc. It takes knowledge for that. God gave man reason that he might know right from wrong.
But they did not become divine in the sense we ordinarily think of it.
There were never to become divine. As long as they remained in a state of grace, that is they obeyed God's one command, they would not have died, but would have been translated, body and soul, from the earthly paradise to the heavenly paradise.
Once they ate they did not die, in the sense we ordinarily think of it. Their innocence died. They became aware. They awakened, so to speak.
Yes, they died a twofold death. Almighty God threatened them with a twofold death, the death of the soul and the death of the body. The last one didn't take place immediately after the sin was committed, for Adam lived on earth till he was 930 years old, but all the same from the moment he sinned, his body became liable to death. The death of the soul took place the very instant the sin was committed. The soul cannot lose it's natural life becasue its an immortal spirit, but it lost its supernatural life founded on supernatural grace and friendship with God. The loss of supernatural grace is the soul's supernatural death, and leads to eternal death as a result of grevious (deadly) sins.
It was their succumbing to temptation, I suspect. Yet God knew very well they would succumb if tempted: he made them that way, afterall.
God knew that they would fall, but that wasn't the only thing GOd knew. He knew that they would not be compelled to fall for sin is an evil choice of free will and God will not coerce the will of Adam and Eve in favor of fidelty. Our first parents remained in control of their destinies and they were fully responsible for their choice. God knew also that granted sin side by side with His justice, His mercy would so provide for mankind that good would result from the evil, so much so that it would be infinitely better for mankind to have been created and to fall from grace, than not to have been created at all.
Mercy did grant ultimate forgiveness to them, for Scripture tells us that God drew them from their sin. Wisdom 10:2. But mercy itself demanded that this should only be after they had learned humility from consequent miseries.
I suspect God's children had to grow up. It is, afterall, what children do. One way of looking at the so-called "fall" is that the children of God helped God by completing His work. Partnering with Him to set the stage for the drama to follow.
The sin of Adam and Eve didn't produce the Atonement. God produced the atonement in order to repair the sin of our first parents and of all subsequent generations.
As God's children, we have to grow up by making correct use of our mind and free will in accordance with God's law.
