This event cannot be located geographically or historically, but it still is our most satisfactory means of accounting for the existence of evil in the world. One does not have to believe that Adam and Eve were historical figures to know that people universally find it easier to do wrong than right, think they know better than God, and prefer their own will to God's will.
Robert A. Bennett and O. C. Edwards
The Church's Teaching Series: The Bible
for Today's Church
"I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. . . . For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. . . . So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand."
The Apostle Paul
Romans 7:15, 19, 21 (NRSV)