Critically assess Augustine’s interpretation of Genesis 3. Discuss.

The Fall is most persuasive as an account of disordered love

Augustine's interpretation gains depth by refusing to treat the forbidden fruit as an arbitrary dietary offence. Adam and Eve possess created goods—reason, desire and freedom—but pride turns the will from the higher good of God towards a lesser good on its own terms. Evil is therefore privation, not a rival substance created by God, and concupiscence names the resulting disorder in which desire no longer follows reason. This illuminates Genesis 3 as a pattern repeated in human life: mistrust of God produces fractured relations with self, neighbour and creation. It also preserves responsibility because the first sin proceeds from a will that was initially able not to sin. The difficulty begins when this theological anthropology becomes a mechanism of inherited guilt. Genesis itself does not clearly teach that every descendant was seminally present in Adam, and holding a newborn culpable for another person's act appears inconsistent with individual justice. Augustine more convincingly identifies an inherited condition—damaged relationships, disordered desire and a social world already shaped by sin—than inherited personal blame. His interpretation should therefore be retained as a profound account of humanity's need for grace but revised where solidarity becomes transferred guilt.