Unfortunately, Eve was seduced by Satan and, through her, Adam was also seduced into disobedience of God through Pride. This Original Sin was a catastrophe for mankind well beyond human description. Banished from the Garden of Eden and from entering Heaven, fallen mankind since then has had to live in a flawed Universe and to contend with the sinful effects of Original Sin. Fortunately, God did not leave us in such wretched condition. In due course, our great Creator Himself paid the ransom for fallen human beings, taking on human form as the only way that God could suffer, and He obediently subjected himself to humiliation, torture and death out of love for mankind. How dearly must we be loved by the brilliant Designer of the Universe! How can we grasp this fully! Does it not draw us onto our knees in awe!
The evidence of a global Flood is all around the Earth. We live upon a vast museum of death, including huge deathpits with immense numbers of entombed creatures. The existence of polystrate tree-trunks, standing vertically through various strata, provides evidence of a cataclysmic, rapid, global flood. Fossilised fishes found at mountain tops and fossilised jellyfish found in hundreds on the central Australian desert are just some evidences left by Noah’s Flood. It seems likely that all the coal and oil deposits come from vegetation smothered during the Flood events. Christ himself spoke of his unhesitating belief in the Flood of Noah; why should we doubt him?
The Catholic Church has long taught that Genesis is revealed history and was not drawn from mythologies of pagan tribes. Genesis contains neither mythology nor errors. How could it, since God is the principal author of Scripture? Nor should we give credence to the false notion of the Documentary Theory of the Pentateuch, which was rejected by the Pontifical Biblical Commission (it was then an official arm of the teaching Magisterium) early in the 20th Century. And, as Cardinal Ruffini pointed out in the 1940’s, what plainer words could God have used to inform us about the creation days? How can modern scholars place doubt on the historicity of Genesis and assert that the first mention of the first Creation Day is metaphor; there is no prior basis for comparison. Again, this is not to assert fundamentalism or to be overly literalist, nor does it make Scripture say what is does not say. It is simply giving due regard to the benchmark encyclical teaching of a modern successor of St. Peter.