There are responses – universal things – that spring from a deeper level than words, and therefore from a deeper level than understanding. Spontaneous smiling is an example. We all smile reflexively at the antics of toddlers, at hummingbirds, on sharing memories with old friends. These things pierce deep inside us, and engage something there, a primordial innocence at the bottom of the well of who we are, where wordy self-consciousness has not yet usurped the place of God’s voiceless wisdom.

The Fall is not the death of the soul, but rather its subordination to the self.