The Abrahamic faiths teach that humanity fell from a primordial state of unity with God, and similar beliefs are found the world over.
Christianity links the Fall with the doctrine of Original Sin, as the sin of Adam and Eve is imputed to all humanity, causing an enduring separation between humans and God, which can only be remedied by Christ.
In Islam, on the other hand, Adam’s sin was his alone, and he, like all human beings, could return to a position of acceptance by submission (Islam) to God.
Still, the Fall brought into existence Satan, setting up for all humanity a trial which only some are able to endure.
Finally, in Judaism, we find a mixture of beliefs: passages gathered in this section affirming that the fall of Adam and Eve brought a curse into the world are counterbalanced by other passages emphasizing individual responsibility and denying that we are culpable for the sins of our first ancestor.
The human fall explains the discrepancy between the cosmos’ pure origin and its present state of suffering. It is logically necessary for religions in which (1) God is the only Creator, (2) the Creation was purposed to be good, and (3) evil is regarded as real and contrary to the purpose of creation.
These postulates hold in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. They do not obtain in Buddhism, which lacks a doctrine of Creation, nor in Hinduism, which regards matter as base and a limitation to be overcome on the path to self-realization.
Nevertheless, we find even in these religions speculation on a primordial fall from grace to explain the origin of evil karma. The biblical and Qur’anic accounts of the Human Fall are full of symbolism and open to varying interpretations.
The serpent—variously called Satan, Lucifer, or Iblis—instigates Adam and Eve to disobey God’s commandment, often with the hint of sexual misconduct. Father Moon directly attributes the Human Fall to sexual immorality, teaching that it poisoned the potential of humans for true, godly love.
Other accounts of the origin of evil that ascribe or hint at a sexual transgression are presented from Greek myth, Buddhism, Shinto, and African tradition.
1. Adam and Eve’s Transgression
The Lord God took the man [Adam] and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate.
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of Thee in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I ate.”
The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you above all cattle, and above all wild animals; Upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing, in pain you shall bring forth children, Yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” And to Adam he said, “Because you have lis- tened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them.
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. Genesis 2.15-3.24
It is We who created you and gave you shape; then We bade the angels, “Bow down to Adam,” and they bowed down; not so Iblis, he refused to be of those who bow down. [God] said, “What prevented you from bowing down when I commanded you?” He said, “I am better than he; You created me from fire, and him from clay.” God said, “Get down from this place; it is not for you to be arrogant here; get out, for you are of the meanest of creatures.” He said, “Give me respite till the day when they are raised up.”
God said, “Be among those who are to have respite.” He said, “Because you have thrown me out of the Way, lo! I will lie in wait for them on Your Straight Way: Then will I assault them from before them and behind, from their right and their left: nor will You find, in most of them, gratitude.”
God said, “Get out from this, disgraced and expelled. If any of them follow you, I will fill hell with all of you. “And Adam, dwell, you and your wife, in the Garden, and enjoy its good things as you wish, but approach not this tree, or you will run into harm and transgression.”
Then Satan began to whisper suggestions to them, bringing openly before their minds all their shame that was previously unnoticed by them. He said, “Your Lord only forbade you this tree, lest you should become angels or such beings as live forever.”
And he swore to them both that he was their sincere advisor. So by deceit he brought about their fall: when they tasted of the tree, their shame [private parts] became apparent to them, and they began to sew together the leaves of the Garden over their bodies. And their Lord called unto them: “Did I not forbid you that tree, and tell you that Satan was an avowed enemy unto you both?”
They said: “Our Lord! We have wronged our own souls. If You do not forgive us and do not grant us Your mercy, we shall certainly be lost.” God said, “Get you down, with enmity between yourselves. On earth will be your dwelling place and your means of livelihood, for a time. Therein shall you live, and therein you shall die; but from it shall you be brought forth at last.”
O Children of Adam! We have bestowed raiment upon you to cover your shame, as well as to be an adornment to you. But the raiment of righteousness—that is the best. Such are among the signs of God, that they may receive admonition. O Children of Adam!
Let not Satan seduce you in the same manner as he got your parents out of the Garden, stripping them of their clothing in order to expose their private parts. He and his tribe watch you from where you cannot see them! We have made the devil's friends only to those without faith. Qur’an 7.11-27
If I have covered my transgressions as Adam, By hiding my iniquity in my bosom, Job 31.33 (NKJV)
Why does the scripture not place the verse “And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin” (Genesis 3.21) immediately after “And they were both naked, and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2.25)?
It teaches you through what sin that wicked creature inveighed them: Because the serpent saw them engaged in their natural relations, he conceived a lust for her. Midrash Rabbah, Genesis 18.6 (Judaism) The serpent followed Eve, saying, “Her soul comes from the north, and I will therefore quickly seduce her.” And how did he seduce her? He had intercourse with her. Bahir 199 (Judaism)
What was the wicked serpent contemplating at that time? He thought, “I shall go and kill Adam and wed his wife, and I shall be king over the whole world.” Talmud, Avot de Rabbi Nathan 1 (Judaism)
The first man of our race did not bide his time, desired the favor of marriage before the proper hour, and fell into sin by not waiting for the time of God’s Will. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 3.14.94 (Christianity)
Dreams of falling are most frequently characterized by anxiety. Their interpretation when they occur in women offers no difficulty, because they nearly always accept the symbolic meaning of falling, which is a circumlocution for giving way to an erotic temptation. Nothing can be brought to an end in the unconscious; nothing is past or forgotten. Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams.
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Could the Human Fall have been the result of eating a fruit of a tree? Adam and Eve fell by the sin of illicit love, a transgression that violated God’s ideal of true love.
Prior to the fall, when they were constrained by the commandment [not to eat the fruit], Adam and Eve were in an imperfect state, that is, in their growing period.
The archangel Lucifer, symbolized by the serpent, tempted Eve, and she spiritually fell with him. She then tempted Adam to eat the fruit before the time was ripe, and they fell physically. Adam and Eve had been living in joy in the Garden of Eden and conversing with God.
The only possible sin that they would be tempted to commit at the risk of their lives was a sin involving wrongful love. The consummation of human ancestors’ first love was also to be God’s own completion.
Therefore, it naturally should have been the moment of joy and jubilation for God, Adam and Eve, and all creation. They were to have rejoiced together in continuous festivities of love and blessing. On that joyous occasion, God’s love, life and lineage was to be firmly settled in the first human ancestors.
Instead, Adam and Eve covered their lower parts and hid in the bushes, trembling with fear. By their illicit act, they had violated the Way of Heaven, forming a relationship that was the origin of false love, false life and false lineage.
Consequently, all humankind ever since, as descendants of fallen Adam and Eve, came to be born with original sin, from generation to generation. The reason why every person experiences inner conflict between the mind and the body is due to the Fall.
The reason why human beings act against their original mind, and form societies where the order of love is corrupted, is also due to the Fall. (277:200, April 16, 1996)
What was the forbidden fruit? What sort of fruit could cause countless generations of humanity to groan in misery? Why would God create a fruit that could cause misery, destruction and war?
My teaching is logical: the fruit is a symbol for love. So many evils spring from love. From love can spring either good or evil fruit, therefore it is called “the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.” (128:86, June 5, 1983)
We read that before the Fall, Adam and Eve were both naked, and were not ashamed. (Gen. 2.25)
After the fall, however, they felt ashamed of their nakedness and sewed fig leaves together into aprons to cover their lower parts. If they had committed a crime by eating some actual fruit from a tree called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then they certainly would have covered their hands or mouths instead.
It is human nature to conceal one’s faults. Thus, the act of covering their lower parts shows that these parts, and not their mouths, were the source of their shame. In Job 31.33-34, it is written, “If I have concealed my transgressions like Adam, by hiding my iniquity in my bosom.”
Adam concealed his lower parts after the Fall; this indicates that his blemish was in his lower parts. Adam and Eve’s sexual parts were the source of their shame because those were the instruments of their sinful deed. In the world before the Human Fall, what act would one be willing to carry out even clearly at the risk of one’s life?
It could be nothing else but the act of love. God’s purpose of creation, described in the blessing “be fruitful and multiply,” (Gen. 1.28) can be achieved only through love. Accordingly, from the viewpoint of God’s purpose of creation, love should be the most precious and sacred act.
But because the sexual act was the very cause of the Fall, people often regard it with shame and even contempt. In conclusion, human beings fell through an act of illicit sexual intercourse. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Fall 1.3.2)
Everything in the universe is created to be governed by God through love. Thus, love is the source of life, the key to happiness, and the essence of the ideal to which all beings aspire.
The more one receives love, the more beautiful one appears to others. When the angel, created as God’s servant, beheld Eve, the daughter of God, it was only natural that she looked beautiful in his eyes.
Moreover, when Lucifer saw that Eve was responding to his temptation, the angel felt the stimulation of her love to be deliciously enticing. At this point, Lucifer was seducing Eve with the mind to have her, regardless of the consequences.
Lucifer, who left his proper position due to his excessive desire, and Eve, who wanted to open her eyes and become like God before the time was ripe, formed a common base and began give and take action.
The power of the unprincipled love generated by their give and take led them to consummate an illicit sexual relationship on the spiritual plane. All beings are created based on the principle that when they become one in love, they exchange elements with each other.
Accordingly, when Eve became one with Lucifer through love, she received certain elements from him. First, she received feelings of dread arising from the pangs of a guilty conscience, stemming from her violation of the purpose of creation.
Second, she received from Lucifer the wisdom which enabled her to discern that her originally intended spouse was to be Adam, not the angel. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Fall 2.2.1)
How did Eve feel while the archangel Lucifer was raping her? She felt pangs of conscience. She disliked what was happening, but let herself be pulled along as he seduced her.
When we make love, we are supposed to feel joy with every cell in our body. Our passion should be like a flower at the height of spring. Eve, however, grimaced as she made love, her heart shriveling and her every cell withering. (33:330, August 23, 1970)
Eve was to become the future wife of God. This is because Adam was to be one body with God—that is, God Himself… From this perspective, the Fall was Satan violating God’s wife. (22:208, February 4, 1969)
Once Eve had united with the Archangel through their illicit sexual relationship, she stood in the position of the Archangel concerning Adam. Thus, Adam, who was still receiving God’s love, appeared very attractive to her. Seeing Adam as her only hope of returning to God, Eve turned to Adam and tempted him, playing the same role as the Archangel had played when he had tempted her.
Adam responded and formed a common base with Eve, and they began give and take action with each other. The power of the unprincipled love generated in their relationship induced Adam to abandon his original position and brought them together in an illicit physical relationship of sexual love.
When Adam united in oneness with Eve, he inherited all the elements Eve had received from the Archangel. These elements in turn have been passed down to all subsequent generations without interruption… and humanity has multiplied in sin to the present day, perpetuating the lineage of Satan. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Fall 2.2.2)
2. Catastrophic Consequences of the Human Fall
When Zeus was angry with mankind, he devised the worst punishment he could think of, and invented Woman. Hephaestus, the smith of the gods, was instructed to form her from the earth and make her irresistibly beautiful. Each of the gods gave her his own special gift of skill, and from this she was called Pandora, “all gifted.” When she was perfected with every gift and arrayed in all her loveliness, this treacherous treasure was taken down to earth by Hermes, the messenger god, and given to Prometheus’ foolish brother Epimetheus.
Now Prometheus had warned his brother not to accept anything from Zeus, even if it looked like a gift sent in friendship; but Epimetheus as usual acted first and thought afterwards. He accepted the maiden from Hermes and led her into his house, and with her a great jar—some say a box or chest—which the gods had sent with her, telling her to keep it safely but never open.
This was too much for Pandora, who among her gifts was endowed with feminine curiosity. After restraining it for a little while, she at last gave in and lifted the lid from the jar, and from that moment began the sorrows of mankind. For each of the gods had stored in it the worst thing he was able to give, and wonderful as had been the gifts with which they endowed her, just as dreadful were the evils that rushed eagerly from the jar in a black stinking cloud like pestilent insects—sickness and suffering, hatred and jealousy and greed, and all the other cruel things that freeze the heart and bring on old age.
Pandora tried to clap the lid on the jar again, but it was too late. The happy childhood of mankind had gone forever, and with it the Golden Age when life was easy. From then on man had to wrest a hard living by his own labor from the unfriendly ground. Only one good thing came to man in the jar and remains to comfort him in his distress, and that is the spirit of Hope. Myth of Pandora’s Box (Hellenism)
In the olden days, when God still lived among men, Death did not live among men. Whenever he happened to stray onto the earth, God (Imana) would chase it away with his hunting dogs.
One day during such a chase, Death was forced into a narrow space and would have been caught and destroyed. But in his straits he found a woman, and promised her that if she hid him he would spare her and her family. The woman opened her mouth and Death jumped inside.
When God came to her and asked her if she had seen Death, she denied ever seeing him.
But God, the All-Seeing One, knew what happened, and told the woman that since she had hidden Death, in the future Death would destroy her and all her children. From that moment death spread all over the world. Hutu tradition (African Traditional Religions)
If Adam had not sinned, he would not have begotten children from the side of the evil inclination, but he would have borne offspring from the side of the Holy Spirit.
But now, since all the children of men are born from the side of the evil inclination, they have no permanence and are but short-lived, because there is in them an element of the ‘other side.’
But if Adam had not sinned and had not been driven from the Garden of Eden, he would have begotten progeny from the side of the Holy Spirit—a progeny holy as the celestial angels, who would have endured for eternity, after the supernal pattern.
Since, however, he sinned and begat children outside the Garden of Eden, these did not take root. Zohar, Genesis 61a (Judaism) After [they fell] God clothed Adam and Eve in garments soothing to the skin, as it is written, “He made them coats of skin (עוֹר, ‘or) [Gen. 3.21].
At first they had coats of light (אוֹר, or), which procured them the service of the high- est of the high, for the celestial angels used to come to enjoy that light; so it is written, “For you made him but little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor” [Psalm 8.5]. But after their sins they had only coats of skin, good for the body but not for the soul. Zohar 1.36b (Judaism)
The deities Izanagi and Izanami descended from Heaven to the island Ono-goro and erected a heavenly pillar and a spacious palace. At this time Izanagi asked his wife Izanami, “How is your body formed?” She replied, “My body, though it be formed, has one place which is formed insufficiently.” Then Izanagi said, “My body, though it be formed, has one place which is formed to excess. Therefore, I would like to take that place in my body which is formed to excess and insert it into that place in your body which is formed insufficiently, and thus give birth to the land. How would this be?” “That will be good,” said Izanami. “Then let us, you and me, walk in a circle around this heavenly pillar and meet and have conjugal intercourse,” said Izanagi. “You walk around from the right, and I will walk around from the left and meet you.” After having agreed to this, they circled around; then Izanami said first, “How delightful! I have met a lovely lad!” Afterwards, Izanagi said, “How delightful! I have met a lovely maiden!” After each had spoken, Izanagi said to his wife, “It was not proper that the woman should speak first.” Nevertheless, they commenced procreation and gave birth to a leech-child. They placed this child into a boat made of reeds and floated it away. Then the two deities consulted together, “The child which we have just borne is not good. It is best to report this before the heavenly gods.” So they ascended together and sought the will of the heavenly gods. The gods thereupon performed a grand divination, and said, “Because the woman spoke first, the child was not good. Descend once more and say it again.”3 Kojiki 4.1-6.1 (Shinto)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
How could the original sin arise from eating a literal fruit? If the first ancestor committed sin by eating a fruit, what could bequeath that sin to thousands of generations of his descendants? The generations are related through lineage.
If the root of sin is planted in the lineage, the sin continues forever by the law of heredity. Only a problem of love could make this happen. Wrongful love was the cause of the Human Fall. (23:167, May 18, 1969)
Love is supposed to bring human beings to perfection. However, when something goes wrong with love, even God steps back. Then it becomes a serious problem. In this respect, we discover that something went wrong with love.
Nothing else could become such a serious problem for God, for humankind and for history. The failure of love was the greatest catastrophe in the whole universe. (128:87, June 5, 1983
Were you to truly know love, you would be well acquainted with everything. You would not only know the facts of the earth plane, but also your spiritual eyes would be open and you would understand the cosmos in all its dimensions.
You would reach the level where you could experience God directly. God endowed human beings with the potential to develop their senses of love to that degree. However, Adam and Eve fell before they could reach that level. (137:129, January 1, 1986)
When Adam and Eve were in adolescence, at the age of 16, 17, or 18, their eyes were not supposed to wander about. They were supposed to look into each other’s eyes and say, “You are the one I have been looking for! It was you all along!”
Gazing into each other’s eyes filled with mystery and touching each other’s noses, they would have felt a spark of electricity.
Would their minds and body have been completely united at that moment? Yes they would have been. When a man and a woman become one in the mind and the body and establish goodness in the universe, they are like flowers in full bloom.
The fragrance of their love fills the entire universe, enthralling all its creatures. Every creature stretches its body and perks up its nose to smell the alluring scent.
What about God? He would exclaim, “Wow! This is awesome!” Even God is captivated. He is naturally drawn to them. He gives them all His attention. He urges them on. Up to the moment when God joined Adam and Eve, they were not prepared to experience the electricity of love.
They would have felt clumsy around each other; their physical touch would have come as a shock. But once their minds and bodies would be totally united in God’s love, once the three—God, Adam and Eve—would be united as one, they would have experienced love like a flash of lightening.
At that moment, they would have become the nucleus of the universe. They would have orbited about each other in love, forming the nucleus for governing all things by love.
Yet Adam and Eve were derailed from this orbit… Had Adam and Eve become the nucleus, God would have nestled them in His bosom. He would have been with them always.
Even if His body tried to leave, His feet would have stayed with them. The couple would have been inseparable, ever embracing each other. Their sons and daughters would have been connected to them by cords of love, and wherever they went they would come together again…
The families, tribes, peoples, nations, and world descended from them were supposed to be established from that nucleus. As descendants of a man and woman in complete oneness, they too would have embraced one another in true love as they built their own families, tribes, peoples, nations and world.
What a wonderful world it would be! Everything would be marvelous. It would be the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Don’t you think so? Am I a dreamer, or do I speak truth?
My elucidation of the Human Fall as the reason for the [corruption] of love is logical and correct, based upon a proper assessment of history. Knowing it, we can resolve all human problems.
Even so, it is not an easy task. Because the nucleus of love was not established, and instead the Fall occurred, the whole world became contrary to God’s ideal, its unity shattered into pieces.
Stemming from that initial disorder, all human beings became separated from one another. We cannot deny that the world today is beset by divisions. That is to say, we are all fallen. It is only appropriate to conclude that we are living in a world that resulted from the Fall. Since people live in a condition of separation, they deny that God exists.
Moreover, they deny their parents, their brothers and sisters, their husband and wives. The world is in chaos. In such a state, human beings can never achieve oneness by their own efforts. Although there are always people who seek for the ideal, they cannot possibly attain it…
Meanwhile, others despair, saying that humanity is facing destruction, that there is no hope, and that utopian ideals are merely vain figments of the human imagination. (128:88, June 5, 1983)
If the first human beings did not fall, they would have received God’s vertical love, and they would have become, as it were, the bodies of God. It would be as if God were the bones, and Adam and Eve the flesh.
God would be the internal Parent in the internal position, and Adam and Eve the external parents in the external position. The internal and the external would become one through love… Without the union of vertical and horizontal love, no one can be perfected.
Our first ancestors should have become the human beings whom God intended to create according to His original Will. We should have descended from such persons. We should have been born from persons with a divine nature. Then we would possess both God’s divine nature and our parents’ human nature.
Adam and Eve could become perfect and bear perfect fruit only when connected to the love of God. Without that connection, it is not possible. The connecting point of God’s vertical love and Adam and Eve’s horizontal physical love was to be the very root of our ancestors’ lineage.
All of humanity was supposed to have arisen from that beginning point. The Fall, however, severed man’s love, woman’s love and God’s love. Because of the Fall, man’s love, woman’s love and God’s love were not connected.
If there had been no Fall, man and woman would be tied together by God’s love—without doubt. Why do a man and a woman try to become one? They do it for love.
What do they want after uniting in love?
They want to receive God’s blessing. That is the purpose. (184:71, November 13, 1988)
3. Corruption of Sexual Love
Lust requires for its consummation darkness and secrecy; and this not only when unlawful intercourse is desired, but even such fornication as the earthly city has legalized. Where there is no fear of punishment, these permitted pleasures still shrink from the public eye…
Even the parental duty, done as it is in accordance with Roman law for the procreation of children, and, therefore, is both legally right and morally good, looks for a room from which all witnesses have been carefully removed.
It is only after the best man and bridesmaids, the friends and the servants, have gone from the room that the bridegroom even begins to show any signs of intimate affection… Not even the children who have been born because it was done are allowed to be witnesses while it is being done.
Yes, it is a good deed; but it is one that seeks to be known only after it is done, and is ashamed to be seen while it is being done. The reason can only be that what, by nature, has a purpose that everyone praises involves, by penalty, a passion that makes everyone ashamed…
Now, in the Garden, before the Fall… the passions of anger and lust were never so roused counter to the commands of the rational will that reason was forced, so to speak, to put them in harness. It is different now, when even people who live a life of moral and religious self-control have to bridle these passions.
This may be easy or difficult, but the bit and bridle are always needed. Now, the present condition is not that of healthy human nature; it is a sickness induced by sin…
No one, then, should dream of believing that the kind of lust which made the married couple in the Garden ashamed of their nakedness was meant to be the only means of fulfilling the command which God gave when He “blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth.” (Gen. 1.28)
The fact is that this passion had no place before they sinned; it was only after the Fall, when their nature had lost its power to exact obedience from the sexual organs, that they fell and noticed the loss and, being ashamed of their lust, covered these unruly members.
But God’s blessing on their marriage, with the command to increase and multiply and fill the earth, was given before the Fall. The blessing remained even when they had sinned, because it was a token that the begetting of children is a part of the glory of marriage and has nothing to do with the penalty for sin…
We conclude, therefore, that, even had there been no sin in the Garden, there would still have been marriages worthy of that blessed place and that lovely babies would have flowered from a love uncankered by lust. Unfortunately, to show just how that could be we have no present experience to help us.
Nevertheless, when we consider how many other human organs still obey the will even after the Fall, we have no reason for doubting that the one unruly member could have done the same, as long as there was no defiance from lust. After all, we move our hands and feet to their appropriate functions whenever we choose and with no rebellion on their part…
But the peculiarity of the passion of lust which we are here discussing is that the soul can neither sufficiently control itself so as to be free of lust, nor in any way control the body when lust takes over the control of sexual excitement in defiance of the will. This defiance is precisely what makes both lust itself and the organs it controls such sources of shame. Saint Augustine, City of God 14.18-23 (Christianity)
You must know, monks, that after the floods [that put out the conflagration that ended the last cosmic cycle] receded and the earth came back into being, there was upon the face of the earth a film more sweet-smelling than ambro- sia. Do you want to know what was the taste of that film?
It was like the taste of grape wine in the mouth. And at this time the gods of the Abhasvara Heaven said to one another, “Let us go and see what it looks like in Jambudvipa now that there is earth again.” So the young gods of that heaven came down into the world and saw that over the earth was spread this film. They put their fingers into the earth and sucked them.
Some put their fingers into the earth many times and ate a great deal of this film, and these at once lost all their majesty and brightness. Their bodies grew heavy and their substance became flesh and bone.
They lost their magic and could no longer fly. But there were others who ate only a little, and these could still fly about in the air. And those that had lost their magic cried out to one another in dismay, “Now we are in a very sad case. We have lost our magic.
There is nothing for it but to stay here on earth; for we cannot possibly get back to heaven.” They stayed and fed upon the film that covered the earth, and gazed at one another’s beauty. Those among them that were most passionate became women, and these gods and goddesses fulfilled their desires and pleasure in one another.
And this was how it was, monks, that when the world began, love-making first spread throughout the world; it is an old and constant thing… And the gods who had returned to heaven looked down and saw the young gods that had fallen, and they came down and reproached them, saying, “Why are you behaving in this unclean way?” Then the gods on earth thought to themselves, “We must find some way to be together without being seen by others.”
So they made houses that would cover and hide them. Monks, that was how houses first began. [Now the people] seeing this thing of husbands and wives had begun, hated and despised such couples and seized them with the left hand, pushed them with the right hand and drove them away.
But always after two months or maybe three they would come back again. Then the people hit them or pelted them with sticks, clods of earth, tiles or stones. “Go and hide yourselves! Go and hide yourselves properly!”
That is why today when a girl is married she is pelted with flowers or gold or silver or pieces of clothing or rice, and the people as they pelt her say, “May peace and happiness, new bride, be yours!” Monks, in former times ill was meant by these things that were done, but nowadays good is meant. Ekottara Agama 34 and Ch’i-shih Ching4 (Buddhism)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Sexual love caused human beings to fall. Therefore, our sexual organs are most fearful things. Religion holds adultery to be the cardinal sin. Is free sex in America and throughout the world the expression of God’s philosophy of the Kingdom or the devil’s philosophy of hell?
It is the philosophy of hell run rampant, creating hell both on earth and in heaven. Everyone who follows this trend is doomed. (261:304, July 24, 1994)
How can God’s love be linked to this world? True love coming down from above brings unity by the most direct and shortest path, making a 90-degree angle.
Once that direct connection is made with the vertical God, the love of human beings can correspond to it—true love traveling by the most direct and shortest path.
Induced by that vertical love, a man and a woman move on the horizontal plane toward the vertical line, creating a right angle: this is love’s final destination. What was the Human Fall? It bent this right angle. (218:219, July 29, 1991)
God’s purpose of creation, described in the blessings “be fruitful and multiply,” (Gen. 1.28) can be achieved only through love. Accordingly, from the viewpoint of God’s purpose of creation, love should be the most precious and sacred act. But because the sexual act was the very cause of the Fall, people often regard it with shame and even contempt. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Fall 1.3.2)
There is ample evidence which helps us recognize that the root of human sin stems from sexual immorality. We know that the original sin has been perpetuated through lineal descent from one generation to the next.
This is because the root of sin was solidified by a sexual relationship that binds one in ties of blood. Furthermore, those religions which emphasize the need to purge sin regard fornication as a cardinal sin, and they have taught the virtues of chastity and restraint in order to curb it.
This is an indication that the root of sin is found in lustful desires. The Israelites performed the rite of circumcision as a condition for sanctification. They qualified themselves as God’s chosen people by draining blood, because the root of sin lies in having taken in through an unchaste act the evil blood which permeates our being. Sexual promiscuity is a principal cause of the downfall of numerous heroes, patriots and nations. Even in the most outstanding people, the root of sin—illicit sexual desire—is constantly active in their souls, sometimes without their conscious awareness.
We may be able to eradicate all other evils by establishing moral codes through religion, by thoroughly implementing various educational programs, and by reforming the socio-economic systems that foster crime.
But no one can prevent the plague of sexual promiscuity, which has become increasingly prevalent as the progress of civilization makes lifestyles more comfortable and indolent.
Therefore, the hope of an ideal world is an empty dream as long as the root of all evils has not been eradicated at its source.
Christ at his Second Advent must be able to solve this problem once and for all. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Fall 1.5)
Sun Myung Moon