"The Fall of mankind away from God is essentially a corruption of the will of man, making it difficult to choose what is right and pleasing in God’s sight." (Archimandrite Sergius)
“The word most often used for “sin” in the Bible is the Greek word hamartia, which literally translated means to “miss the mark.” With this understanding, the picture becomes clearer. Adam and Eve, whose target and end was to become like God, missed the mark of their goal and fell away from God and their calling. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and exercised their will to choose a path different from what came most natural to them. They chose to forge an existence independent of God. The result was cosmic. When they chose this path they found slavery instead of freedom, and death instead of life.” (Kevin Scherer)
“But before we decide to follow the voice of our conscience without question, we are to consider the requirements of love and the needs of others. We remember that fallen human conscience, like other aspects of our nature, is in need of healing and illumination. Therefore, we consider taking actions that introduce respect and justice from the domain of love. Christ our God, as Creator of all, made us in His image and dignified us with the gift of free choice. However, our choices may easily turn to self-seeking and a disdain for truth (Romans 2:8). Ironically, through our wrong choices, we may lose our freedom and fall under bondage to sin (Romans 7:19).” (Dynamis 7/21/2018)
“And anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but to him who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven (Luke 12:10). According to St. John Chrysostom and many other Fathers, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit would be forgivable if a person were to repent of it. Jesus never calls the sin itself “unforgivable.” Jesus makes this declaration knowing that those who blaspheme the Spirit are calling pure, divine goodness “evil,” and are beyond repentance by their own choice.” (Orthodox Study Bible, Luke 12:10)
“When we are self-centered, self-absorbed to the point where we are consumed with ourselves, there is no room for God and we are indeed empty and beyond all help because we can no longer even see or acknowledge the truth – all by our own choice.” (Sacramental Living)