Claim. The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolizes Eve’s love — specifically, the capacity for love-act that could bear either good (God-centered) or evil (Satan-centered) lineage. “Eating the fruit” symbolizes consummating that love sexually.
Elaboration. Per 1.4. The Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: “As a tree multiplies by its fruit, Eve should have borne good children through her godly love. Instead, she bore evil children through her satanic love. Eve was created in an immature state; she was to reach full maturity only after going through a period of growth. Thus, it was possible for her to bear either good fruit or evil fruit through her love.”
The eating-imagery is the assimilation-imagery of love-consummation: “When we eat something, we make it a part of ourselves. Eve was to have eaten the fruit of goodness by consummating her God-centered love. Then she would have received the essence of God’s divinity and multiplied a good lineage.” Instead she consummated the evil love-relationship with the archangel — received the essence of his evil nature — and multiplied an evil lineage.
The serpent’s curse — “upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat” — DP reads as the angel becoming unable to function in his original ministering service and reduced to subsisting on evil elements from the fallen world.
This atomic completes the symbolic-key cluster from §1.1: tree-of-knowledge = Eve, fruit = Eve’s love-act, eating = consummating sexual love. The literal-fruit reading is dissolved.
See also. dp-tree-of-knowledge-symbolizes-perfected-eve, dp-spiritual-fall-eve-lucifer-illicit-sex