Eve’s sin was to prefer the exploration of the world to obediance to God, taking the evidence of her senses as the final arbiter on good and evil. And the context of the incident is important: Eve could explore 99% of the universe with impunity. This freedom to explore a rational universe accounts for the contrast between the rise of the universities on Catholic soil and the stillbirth of the same in Muslim Spain.
We assert that the universe of the senses is really there, is rational, and is given by God to explore and understand (“tend the garden” in Genesis terminology). But we FURTHER ASSERT there is data in the moral life of man not gleaned from the senses, and that the intangible soul must deal with a creator. The relationship to the creator is the constraint on intellectual work.
TimothyOne 