Augustine and the Fall

The Augustinian view of the fall involved the belief that a change occurred in humans' physical characteristics, for example the development of being able to suffer physical pain. From that moment the condition was passed down genetically to all Adam and Eve's offspring.

The following extract from The Cambridge Companion to Augustine illustrates his views:

Adam and Eve’s fall ushered into the world original sin, which is not an event
but rather a condition (De pecc. merit. et remis. 1.9.9–1.12.15). It is the condition
imposed by God as punishment on Adam and Eve for disobedience.
According to Augustine the condition includes dispossession from a naturally
perfect environment, the loss of natural immortality and the acquisition of susceptibility
to physical pain, fatigue, disease, aging, and rebellious bodily disorders,
especially sexual lust (De Gen. ad litt. 11.32.42; De civ. Dei 14.16–19). The
condition is not only pathological, it is inherited, infecting every descendant of
Adam and Eve. The condition is innate, not acquired; as Augustine puts it, it is
transmitted by propagation, not imitation (De pecc. merit. et remis.
1.9.9–1.12.15). Augustine’s view, then, is that our first ancestors squandered their
patrimony and our inheritance and – as if that were not bad enough – thereby
contracted a suite of infirmities that is passed on to all their progeny.

It is quite an understandable position for the time, and it does follow on from a naively literal reading of Genesis 2 & 3, but it loads onto the text a great deal more than what the words actually say. This tends to come out in the interpretations of Young Earth Creationists today (e.g. vegetarian lions).

Take the example of the curse on Eve's pain in childbearing. The pain involved in this is a direct result of the anatomy of the female pelvis and the size of a baby's head. For there to be no pain in childbirth one of the two would have to have been dramatically different previously. So an Augustinian view of the fall involves a whole re-design of human biology for a start. This seems to be a great deal more than the passages are actually saying, and recent science (particularly the findings of anatomically modern humans that pre-date Adam and Eve) confirms that it isn't actually true.

So in other words, the fall needs to be seen in a much more figurative way than Augustine thought all those years ago.