I view the Fall account as being allegorical, as well as the Creation accounts. IMO, it’s the Christian repudiation of the much larger and earlier Babylonian creation account, also explaining that we have “free will” and the consequences of making immoral decisions.
Yes, God obviously allowed the Fall and all moral evil/sin that followed, for His purposes, in order to bring an even greater good out of it all at the end of the day, knowing the beginning from the end as only He does. From the larger perspective God made his world “en statu viae”, “in a state of journeying” to perfection as the Church teaches. Man’s own perfection is realized to the extent that he wills rightly, in line with the truth, in line with God’s will to put it another way. Adam introduced humanity to another orientation, away from truth and God. We’re here to learn how wrong he was, and to begin to reverse that orientation within ourselves, with the help of revelation and grace. From the catechism:
If by ‘allegorical’, you mean “it really happened, but not literally in the way the narrative describes”, then you’ve hit the Catholic teaching on the nose. If, on the other hand, you mean “it’s a nice story, but no ‘fall’ ever happened”, then that’s problematic, since it asserts that there’s no need for a savior.
I get that, in the context of the creation account (scholars tend to assert that the narrative of Genesis 1 stands as a refutation of the Babylonian creation account), but the fall of man?
Does the fact that God could have forced Adam and Eve to make a decision that they didn’t want to make, mean that God is responsible for their decision?
The Church teaches this. It doesn’t teach that Genesis is literal. It doesn’t teach that the forbidden fruit is literal. It does however insist that our two prime ancestors, “Adam” and “Eve” committed the Original Sin and that their fall from grace is the cause of our sinful nature as humans.
“Savior” can be taken different ways, thus even a literalist perspective doesn’t necessarily change that.
Even though chapter divisions were put into our Bibles much later than when they were written, the reality is that the Creation accounts continue on into and through the Fall.
That they were the actual and only ancestors of the human race.
The Church doesn’t teach us anything about Adam’s heritage other than God created us Man from “the slime of the Earth” and gave us a soul.
If you believe in Evolution you at least have to believe the parents of Adam and Eve had no immortal, human soul. God is Our Father, no matter how you choose to see it, though.
So the Devil did us a favour by making us sin? Or he did God’s will? I’m not sure I entirely agree with you there, if that’s what you’re saying.
What’s there to explain?
You have a good question. Even us do our best to stop a crime when we know it is going to happen.