Augustine thought that original sin was transmitted to the child through the sexual act, but the idea that it has such a genetic character is difficult for us to make sense of today. (It also lacks scriptural basis, unless one forces Psalm 51:6.) It may be more helpful to use an ecological metaphor. We cannot fully understand living organisms without their environment, and we cannot fully understand a human being except as part of the whole human community. This is true even -- or perhaps especially -- before birth. And the problem is that we are conceived and born in a human environment in which sin is unavoidable. We participate from the start in an ecology of sin.

What about the idea that death was caused by the first sin? The existence of sin, of separation from God, casts a different light on death, including death that took place before there was sin. Now it is seen as something more than, something worse than, the stopping of biological machinery. The meaning of death has been changed by sin.