Original sin, original fault

See also: Sin, Fault, Blasphemy, Adam and Eve, New Eve.

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The Garden of Eden 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 sin led to the loss of Grace in Adam and Eve and in all their descendants. The nature and physical state of human beings were greatly altered: labor, childbirth in pain, fatigue, and death entered into Creation.

The Redemption brought by Jesus-Christ opens anew the way to Grace for every Soul who receives Baptism and thus can once again experience intimacy with God, nourished by the Sacraments of the Church. This union can be broken by mortal sin, and restored by the sacrament of confession.

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

In "The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me"

• The disobedience of Eve: the Garden of Eden, the forbidden tree, Original Sin.
• The virginal Maternity, also granted to Eve before her debasement. The song of Satan's lie to Eve.
• If you were to commit this disobedience now, you who have from them this heritage, it would be less serious 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 bad or impure. - But, my Lord, the herbs will still do. And so will the animals. Man... why doesn't he, who is the most perfect do it? - "Because the bite of Satan entered only into man. He tried to demolish the Creator in His greatest miracle, in what 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 the pagans. Pagan worship will be guilty from the moment when the Law of Christ is spread « in the world.        
• Original sin will be erased in those who believe in Me. But the spirit will retain a tendency towards sin that, without Original Sin, it would not have had.      
• We have other individual sins in us in addition to original sin and these need to be washed by the Redeemer and the faith of the one who turns to Him as his Savior.

In the other works of Maria Valtorta

The Notebooks of 1943

• Catechesis of June 7 - On Original Sin: Lucifer’s first act of vengeance was against my creatures Adam and Eve. His poisoned tooth marked the sign of his bestiality on 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 that infernal bite […] The world wants power at any cost, riches 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 denies His truth, dressing itself in prophetic garments while 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 riches of all kinds that God had granted to man.
  And what then? God had given Himself and would He forbid touching a fruit? What then? He had given to dust the natural and supernatural life, He had transmitted to man His own breath, and now He would forbid him to pick a fruit? What then? He created man as king of all creatures, granted him the status of son rather than that of his subject, and now He forbids him to eat a fruit?
  To those who cannot think with wisdom, this episode may seem inexplicable, like the capricious stubbornness of a Goodfather who after covering a beggar with all sorts of riches forbids him afterwards to pick up a small pebble lost in the dust. But it is not so.
  The apple was not only a reality: that of a fruit. The apple was also a symbol. The symbol of the divine right and of 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 was through a Woman that sin began; because of her we all die.
• So then, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin... And so death spread to all men because all sinned.  
• For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man. And as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.
• Eve was deceived by the cunning of the serpent.  
• Covetousness brings forth sin.          
• The three worldly cravings.

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 know Adam as the source of sin.
• "Just as the fault of one caused condemnation for all men, so also the act of righteousness of one (that of Christ) brings justification to all, life-giving."

The original state

• Man was intact and ordered in his whole being because free from the triple concupiscence that submits him to the pleasures of the senses, to the craving for earthly goods, and to self-assertion Against the dictates 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 affects human nature which they will transmit in a fallen state.
• CEC 1781 and following.
• CEC 1846 and following.
• CEC 1956.
• CEC 2072-2073.
• CEC 2125.
• CEC 2183.
• CEC 2269.
• CEC 2272.
• CEC 2284.
• CEC 2291.
• CEC 2354 and following.
• CEC 2383 and following.
• CEC 2477 and following.
• CEC 2513.
• CEC 2845.

The course of the sin

• The account of the fall uses figurative language, but it asserts a primordial event, a fact that took place at the beginning of human history.
• Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents is a seductive voice, opposed to God who, through envy, causes them to fall into death.
• "The tree of the knowledge of Good and evil" symbolically evokes the insurmountable limit that man must freely recognize and trustingly respect.
• Man, tempted by the devil, let confidence 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 deceptive seduction that led man to disobey God.
• Harmony is destroyed; mastery of the spiritual faculties of the Soul over the body is broken; the union of man and Woman is subject to tensions; their relations will be marked by lust and domination. Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become strange and hostile to man. Because of man, creation is subjected "to the bondage of corruption". Finally, the consequence explicitly announced for the case of disobedience is realized: man "returns to the dust from which he was formed". Death enters into human history.
• Although proper to each person, 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.

Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992).