Claim. The Fall was not the eating of a literal fruit but the egocentric misuse of love through the sexual organs — Adam and Eve united self-centeredly rather than altruistically, against the structure for which they were created.
Elaboration. §1.1 sets out the core SMM thesis on the Fall: the literal-fruit reading is theologically inadequate. “We cannot deny our origin of being born because of love. It was not the altruistic love in which man and woman were created to be intertwined, but rather the egocentric love in which they became enmeshed that constituted the Fall. All things God created are in a pair system, born for mutual coexistence. Human beings were also created to enter a world of such values, but they went in the diametrically opposite direction self-centeredness, and that was the Fall. Upon what was the Fall centered? The act of destruction took place through misuse of the love organs, which both woman and man value most” (1.1. The Fall was a misuse of love, 243-269, 1993.1.28). And: “The Fall of Adam and Eve originates in their going against the iron rule: their sexual organs did not belong to themselves” (ibid, 279-246, 1996.9.15). The implication is that the Fall is at once moral, ontological, and bodily — it ruptures the law that the sexual organs are owned by one’s spouse, which is the law that gave creation its altruistic structure.