Dear reader, don't worry. What follows is just lay speculation about that oldest and biggest problem: original sin. Your correspondent today is neither a trained theologian nor an expert on human cognition. He's writing as an Idler (Dr. Johnson's name for himself when producing essays "as hastily as an ordinary letter") and a Rambler, Johnson's publication, wherein he asked his readers to pray "that in this undertaking thy Holy Spirit may not be withheld from me, but that I may promote thy glory, and the salvation of myself and others."
But to be safe, let's start on solid ground. About the story of the Fall in Genesis, the Catechism states that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil "symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust." Man let his trust in God die and preferred himself to God: "The harmony in which [Adam and Eve] had found themselves. . .is now destroyed: the control of the soul's spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions. . . . Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man. . . . Death makes its entrance into human history." [emphasis original]
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