Original sin, original fault

The earthly paradise and the fall of Adam and Eve - Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens

Original Sin is the sin committed by Adam and Eve, the first parents of the human being. This event is recounted in the Book of Genesis. Placed in the Garden of Eden, God forbids Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil. Seduced by the serpent, Eve ate the forbidden fruit and then offered it to Adam who also ate it.

This fault caused the loss of Grace in Adam and Eve and in all their descendants. The nature and physical state of human beings were greatly altered: work, childbirth in pain, fatigue, and death entered Creation.

The Redemption by Jesus-Christ allows reopening of Grace to every Soul who receives Baptism, thus enabling a renewed intimacy with God, nurtured by the Sacraments of the Church. This union can be broken by a mortal sin, and restored by the sacrament of confession.

Although the spiritual consequences on the soul of Original Sin are erased by Redemption, natural consequences such as illness, suffering, and death remain, while becoming means of sanctification for those who follow Christ.

In "The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me"

• The disobedience of Eve: the earthly Paradise, the forbidden tree, Original Sin.
• The virginal Maternity, also granted to Eve before her fall. Satan’s song of deceit to Eve.
• If you were to commit this disobedience now, you who have from them this heritage, it would be less grave than it was for them.        
• Eve’s fourfold sin: Pride, greed, gluttony, lust and the fourfold sacrifice of Mary.
• Original Sin.
• "Love, be pure, be good. Because you come from God, and from His hand nothing came out evil or impure. – But, my Lord, the herbs still do. And so do the animals. Man... why doesn’t he, who is the most perfect? – "Because the bite of Satan entered only into man. He tried to destroy the Creator in His greatest marvel, in that which was most like Him."
• You already know how Eve was corrupted, and Adam through her.
• Original sin is common to all, Israelites or not. It is not a prerogative of pagans. Pagan worship will be guilty once the Law of Christ is spread throughout the world.        
• Original sin will be erased in those who believe in Me. But the spirit will retain a tendency to sin that, without Original Sin, it would not have had.      
• We have other individual sins besides original sin, and those need to be washed by the Redeemer and the faith of him who turns to Him as his Savior.

In Other Works of Maria Valtorta

The Notebooks of 1943

• Catechesis of June 7 - On Original Sin: Lucifer’s first act of vengeance targeted my creatures Adam and Eve. His poisoned tooth marked the beastliness of his nature onto the perfection of my creation, communicating to it his own appetite for lust, vengeance, and Pride. And since then, your spirit Struggles within you Against the venom of the infernal bite [...] The world wants power at any cost, wealth at any cost, the satisfaction of the senses at any cost, all earthly joys at any cost; it rejects the Holy Spirit, blasphemes Against Him, and contests His truth, cloaking itself in prophetic garb speaking words that do not come from the bosom of the Most Holy Trinity but from the den of Satan.

Lessons on Saint Paul's Epistle to the Romans

• Lesson No. 23: "[...] The tree and the apple. Two small, insignificant things compared to the various riches that God had granted to man.
  And what then? God had given Himself and would want to prevent someone from touching one fruit? What then? He had given dust both natural and supernatural life, had given man His own breath, and now forbids him to pick one fruit? What then? He had created man king of all creatures, given him the status of son rather than subject, and now forbids him to eat a fruit?
  To those who do not know how to reflect with wisdom, this episode may seem inexplicable, like the capricious stubbornness of a benefactor who, after covering a beggar with riches of all kinds, forbids him afterwards to pick up a small pebble lost in the dust. But it is not like that.
  The apple was not only a reality: that of a fruit. The apple was also a symbol. The symbol of divine right and human duty(...)".

In Fundamental Christian Texts

In the Bible

• Genesis 3:1 and following.        
• Through the envy of the devil, death entered the world.        
• It is through a Woman that sin began; it is because of her that we all die.
• Thus, just as sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death, and so death passed to all men because all sinned.  
• For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.
• Eve was deceived by the cunning of the serpent.  
• Covetousness gives birth to sin.          
• The three worldly desires.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church

Original Sin in God's Plan

• The sin of our first parents did not interrupt the revelation of God.
• One must know Christ as the source of Grace to understand Adam as the source of sin.
• "Just as one man's offense brought condemnation to all men, so one man's act of righteousness (that of Christ) brings justification that gives life to all."

The Original State

• Man was intact and ordered in his whole being, because free from the triple concupiscence which subjects him to the pleasures of the senses, to the desire for earthly goods, and to self-assertion Against the demands of reason.
• This harmony was lost by the sin of our first parents.
• Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature: by yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected human nature which they would transmit in a fallen state.
• CCC 1781 and following.
• CCC 1846 and following.
• CCC 1956.
• CCC 2072-2073.
• CCC 2125.
• CCC 2183.
• CCC 2269.
• CCC 2272.
• CCC 2284.
• CCC 2291.
• CCC 2354 and following.
• CCC 2383 and following.
• CCC 2477 and following.
• CCC 2513.
• CCC 2845.

The Course of the Fault

• The account of the Fall uses figurative language, but it asserts a primordial event, a fact that took place at the beginning of man’s history.
• Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents is a seductive voice, opposed to God, who envyingly causes their fall into death.
• "The tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil" symbolically evokes the impassable limit that man must freely recognize and confidently respect.
• Man, tempted by the devil, let trust in his creator die in his heart, and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command.

The Consequences

• The gravest in consequences of the works of the devil was the deceitful seduction that led man to disobey God.
• Harmony is destroyed; the mastery of spiritual faculties of the soul over the body is broken; the union of man and Woman is subjected to tensions; their relations will be marked by desire and domination. Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become, for man, alien and hostile. Because of man, creation is subjected "to the bondage of corruption". Finally, the explicitly announced consequence of disobedience will be realized: man "will return to the dust from which he was formed." Death enters the history of humanity.
• Although proper to each, original sin does not have the character of personal fault. Human nature is inclined to sin (this inclination to evil is called "concupiscence").
• "Seduced by the Evil One, from the beginning of history, man has abused his freedom". He succumbed to Temptation and committed evil. He retains the desire for Good, but his nature bears the wound of original sin.