Editing Fall of man (section)

==== Roman Catholicism ====
The [[Catechism of the Catholic Church]] says: "The account of the fall in ''Genesis'' 3 uses figurative language, but affirms [...] that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents."<ref>Catechism of the Catholic Church: 390</ref> [[St Bede]] and others, especially [[Thomas Aquinas]], said that the fall of Adam and Eve brought "four wounds" to human nature.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Summa_Theologiae/First_Part_of_the_Second_Part/Question_85#Art._3_-_Whether_weakness,_ignorance,_malice_and_concupiscence_are_suitably_reckoned_as_the_wounds_of_nature_consequent_upon_sin?|title=Summa Theologiae/First Part of the Second Part/Question 85 - Wikisource, the free online library|website=en.wikisource.org}}</ref> They are original sin (lack of sanctifying grace and original justice), [[concupiscence]] (the soul's passions are no longer ordered perfectly to the soul's intellect), physical frailty and death, and darkened intellect and ignorance. These negated or diminished the gifts of God to Adam and Eve of original justice or sanctifying grace, integrity, immortality and infused knowledge. This first sin was "transmitted" by Adam and Eve to all of their descendants as original sin, causing humans to be "subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin."<ref>{{Cite CCC|2.1|405}}</ref>

In the light of modern scripture scholarship, the future [[Pope Benedict XVI]] stated in 1986 that: "In the Genesis story [...] sin is not spoken of in general as an abstract possibility but as a deed, as the sin of a particular person, Adam, who stands at the origin of humankind and with whom the history of sin begins. The account tells us that sin begets sin, and that therefore all the sins of history are interlinked. Theology refers to this state of affairs by the certainly misleading and imprecise term 'original sin.'"<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ratzinger|first=Joseph|title=In the Beginning|publisher=Eerdmans|year=1986|isbn=978-0802841063|pages=72}}</ref> Although the state of corruption, inherited by humans after the primaeval event of original sin, is clearly called guilt or sin, it is understood as a sin acquired by the unity of all humans in Adam rather than a personal responsibility of humanity. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, even children partake in the effects of the sin of Adam, but not in the responsibility of original sin, as sin is always a personal act.<ref>''Catechism of the Catholic Church'', para. 404, 405.</ref> [[Baptism]] is considered to erase original sin, though the effects on human nature remain, and for this reason, the Catholic Church baptizes even infants who have not committed any personal sin.<ref>''Catechism of the Catholic Church'', para. 405.</ref>