Dogs also exhibit all of these characteristics but we don’t (truly) regard them as beings capable of moral choice.

Right, animals choose within instinct, but humans choose in relation to the truth. We are made in God's image and should be aware of moral choices.

they didn’t “understand” they were naked until they ate the fruit

At the same time, the story still shows them responding to a command in a relationship. So even if they didn’t have reflective knowledge, they still had a real orientation: trusting or not trusting the one speaking to them. The tree showed their heart without a "right or wrong".

Does moral responsibility require experienced contrast… or is relational trust enough? I think that is our tension here.

So then why were we forbidden from the tree’s fruit? If the fruit is what allows us to align ourselves with God (or atleast, what allows us to “know” how aligned we are with God) it makes no sense that He would forbid us from it, no?

I think to understand a monistic lens, you have to see it through relationships. The tree behaves as a relational boundary. Think of it like giving someone a gift and asking them not to open it until a certain time. The gift itself isn’t harmful or creates any real contrast... its actually a good thing. Opening the gift beforehand isn't an "evil" act in itself either... it is not malicious, it can be entirely innocent. What matters is how the will engages with the relational boundary... whether it honors the trust inherent in the relationship.

When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, it didn’t suddenly make them capable of moral choice... they already had that capacity. What changed was that misalignment became visible: they felt shame, fear, and self-consciousness. The first time you realize you’ve broken someone’s trust or hurt someone, you suddenly feel the weight of it and the consequences thereof. The fruit revealed the orientation of their hearts in relation to God, rather than teaching them right or wrong in the abstract.

The tree does not provide the conditions for freedom, it just reveals how that freedom is already being exercised and how Adam and Eve see themselves in relation to God.

Were we always meant to eat of it?

Yes, it turns out the gift I mentioned earlier is a mirror. They were always meant to engage with it at least. The mirror doesn’t test them from the outside; it reflects the natural exercise of their will and shows how their hearts relate to the source. Adam and Eve could approach the tree and see themselves in full alignment with God, or they could see misalignment... the tree simply makes what is already there visible. Their freedom, trust, and relational depth exist independently; the tree just allows them to experience those qualities in a concrete, reflective way.

I just don’t see how that leads to the conclusion duality is “not real”

Well, you can absolutely acknowledge relational dualities in experience without them being ontological forces. The duality is derivative. Perhaps duality isn't being defined correctly here, perhaps duality is not Truth vs. Untruth as I think the monistic lens can even agree to that... alignment vs unalignment say... I think duality might more imply that there is Truth and Anti-Truth. For instance... the destructive interference in the double slit experiment isn’t a separate “anti-light”; it’s just the pattern created by the interaction of the whole system, not a self-standing opposing entity. Even with cold vs. hot we can experience as humans... but on the cosmic scale coldness is a relative absence of energy, it is not anti-energy say.

Spiritually, the tree doesn’t generate a negative path, and Adam and Eve aren’t actively choosing to be against God. The contrast isn’t an actual cosmic “evil” or anti-God force... It’s relational and perceptual.

What does moral awareness without God even look like? The only thing that comes to mind to describe such a scenario is something along the lines of “Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”…. I might give you something along the lines of “they had amoral awareness”, but “moral awareness”? Without the “knowledge of Good and Evil?” I don’t get how such as thing would be possible

Right... so, “moral awareness” without God is really amoral awareness. The monistic view grounds morality entirely in relationship to the Source, so moral awareness only becomes meaningful within that relationship. Adam and Eve, created in God’s image (Imago Dei), already had this awareness simply by being in relationship with Him. When that relationship is broken or misaligned, morality doesn’t disappear, but it becomes confused... is this what you mean or did I not understand?

forbidden

An example of a word not in the text but added later. God forbade the deluge from continuing (Gen. 8:2, kala'), but what he said about the tree wasn't to "bid against" by imperative (prescriptive) but was to educate about natural consequence and to persuade by designing that consequence. There may be a blurry line between force and persuasion especially as to God's and our freewill, but we have relative power to act, which increases with good choices, and I call it persuasion if it respects that relative power.

The text is actually declarative (decretive): You are not designed to do this because of its consequence; just like "Thou shalt not" is technically declarative and means "you are not to", e.g. "[There is] no stealing". We call it "command" in Gen. 2:16 but this word, mizhwah, refers to a charge or burden to carry willingly and not to a slavish contract where we choose to perform, or not, in exchange for some kind of wages or punishment.

All that's to say the Edenic life and post-Edenic life are both intentional parts of one story, that God righteously designs the fruit to show forth the nature of contrary will and to initiate the story of its conquest. At the same time the sinner is responsible for abusing that design by partaking with sinful motive. It seems to me the One who accepts without resistance the evil will of others that he partake of the Tree (by their nailing him to it) is then accounted as partaking of death but without sin. For us ordinary humans, having partaken sinfully, we enter a state of partaking of Knowledge without guilt by our union with the One who partook alone without guilt. That's the sense in which there is no tension between the charge and the fulfillment: our willing acceptance of death as part of life and our submission to God's will about it. We are meant to embrace it, in God's good will, and yet we are to reject that part of us that embraced it in our corrupted wills.

Dark is just as real as Light

Not what dual-slit teaches. Relative dark is lesser light, but when we speak of absolute darkness or evil we speak of that which is not. This spectrum is real but it's designed to show All on one side and Nothing on the other (unlike a contrasting spectrum of dual poles like up and down).

What does moral awareness without God even look like?

It is possible for angels, or Edenic humans, to consider counterfactual hypotheticals without embracing them sinfully: that's "temptation" (solicitation) and need not be engaged. That which is allows us to consider that which is not and to recognize that what is not could tempt us. It appears that Helel was tempted by that which is not and broke his own will at every level in order to test whether anything whatsoever could be blurred between is and is not. Thousands of years of testing and no result has been found, but he keeps trying. Meanwhile mankind has collectively learned that obedience is better and has made significant never-again steps forward by committing solely to what is. So we all continue the choice process and testing and approving what is good, and that's why I've locked my choice in and committed it to Another to maintain rather than myself. By doing so in fact I reflect the prior Edenic state by resolving not to countenance any other possibility than moral awareness without sin: not that I've attained but that I press forward and will attain. The latter state recapitulates the former and is not robotic at all but a confluence of my will and God's.