What is original sin?

Lo then wherefore it was that He delayed when He gave him no eyes. He did not give what He could give, He did not give what He knew He should give, when need was. Yet do not suppose, Brethren, that this man’s parents had no sin, or that he himself had not, when he was born, contracted original sin, for the remission of which sin infants are baptized unto remission of sins. But that blindness was not because of his parents’ sin, nor because of his own sin; “but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” For we all when we were born contracted original sin: and yet we were not born blind.

Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 88

This being the case, ever since the time when by one man sin thus entered into this world and death by sin, and so it passed through to all men, up to the end of this carnal generation and perishing world, the children of which beget and are begotten, there never has existed, nor ever will exist, a human being of whom, placed in this life of ours, it could be said that he had no sin at all, with the exception of the one Mediator, who reconciles us to our Maker through the forgiveness of sins.

Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants 2.47

The weight of original sin dragged me downwards, and the insupportable burden of God’s judgment bowed down my back, and mine enemies the devils pressed hotly upon me, that, so far as in them lay, they might make me to sin yet more and so bring upon myself a greater condemnation. … Thou didst cast away the leaden weight that dragged me downwards, and the burden that was heavy upon my back, and the enemies that urged me to destruction, because Thou didst take away the sin wherein I was born and conceived, and the condemnation thereof, and didst forbid the wicked spirits to do any violence to my soul.

Anselm of Canterbury, The Devotions of Saint Anselm 6

In this sense original sin is a habit. For it is an inordinate disposition, arising from the destruction of the harmony which was essential to original justice, even as bodily sickness is an inordinate disposition of the body, by reason of the destruction of that equilibrium which is essential to health.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II.Q82.A1

As regards the substance of the act, actual sin can cause a bodily defect: thus some sicken and die through eating too much. But as regards the fault, it deprives us of grace which is given to us that we may regulate the acts of the soul, but not that we may ward off defects of the body, as original justice did. Wherefore actual sin does not cause those defects, as original sin does.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II.Q85.A5

If any one asserts, that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone, and not his posterity; and that the holiness and justice, received of God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone, and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has only transfused death and pains of the body into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul; let him be anathema:—whereas he contradicts the apostle who says: By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.

Council of Trent, Canons and Dogmatic Decrees of the Council of Trent Session 5, can. 1–2

I have no intention, however, to discuss all the definitions which different writers have adopted, but only to adduce the one which seems to me most accordant with truth. Original sin, then, may be defined a hereditary corruption and depravity of our nature, extending to all the parts of the soul, which first makes us obnoxious to the wrath of God, and then produces in us works which in Scripture are termed works of the flesh.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion II.1

We believe that by the disobedience of Adam original sin has been spread through the whole human race. 30 It is a corruption of all nature— an inherited depravity which even infects small infants in their mother’s womb, and the root which produces in man every sort of sin. It is therefore so vile and enormous in God’s sight that it is enough to condemn the human race, and it is not abolished or wholly uprooted even by baptism, seeing that sin constantly boils forth as though from a contaminated spring.

Reformed Churches, Belgic Confession 15

A. From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise. 1 This fall has so poisoned our nature 2 that we are all conceived and born in sin.

Reformed Churches, Heidelberg Catechism 7

Q. 26. How is original sin conveyed from our first parents unto their posterity? A. Original sin is conveyed from our first parents unto their posterity by natural generation, so as all that proceed from them in that way are conceived and born in sin.

Westminster Assembly, Westminster Larger Catechism 26

Sin is either original or actual. Original sin is the habitual inconformity of our natures unto the holiness of God expressed in the law of creation.

John Owen, Pneumatologia 4.4

Our first parents, by this sin, fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and we in them whereby death came upon all: 3 all becoming dead in sin, 4 and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.

London Baptist Assembly, 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith 6.2

Use two: Let us lay to heart original sin, and be deeply humbled for it. It cleaves to us as a disease, it is an active principle in us, stirring us up to evil. Original sin is worse than all actual sin; the fountain is more than the stream.

Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity 4.3

Use one: If original sin be propagated to us, and will be inherent in us while we live here, it confutes the Libertines and Quakers, who say they are without sin. They hold perfection; they show much pride and ignorance; but we see the seeds of original sin remain in the best.

Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity 4.3

Sin is the shame of sinners: The simple, who love simplicity, get nothing by it; they inherit folly. They have it by inheritance, so some. This corruption of nature is derived from our first parents, and all the calamities that attend it we have by kind; it was the inheritance they transmitted to their degenerate race, an hereditary disease.

Matthew Henry, Commentary on Proverbs 14.18 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3)

Note, Actual transgressions are the natural product of habitual corruption, which is therefore called original sin, because it is the original of all our sins.

Matthew Henry, Commentary on Job 14.1 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3)

By Original Sin, as the phrase has been most commonly used by divines, is meant the innate sinful depravity of the heart. But yet when the doctrine of original sin is spoken of, it is vulgarly understood in that latitude, which includes not only the depravity of nature, but the imputation of Adam’s first sin; or, in other words, the liableness or exposedness of Adam’s posterity, in the divine judgment, to partake of the punishment of that sin.

Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin Defended 3

The truth of the doctrine of original sin is very clearly manifest from what the Scripture says of that change of state, which it represents as necessary to an actual interest in the spiritual and eternal blessings of the Redeemer’s kingdom.

Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin Defended 5

Original sin is a natural bias to evil, resulting from the first apostasy, leading invariably and certainly to actual transgression. And all infants, as well as adults, in order to be saved, need redemption by the blood of Christ, and regeneration by the Holy Ghost.

Presbyterian Church, Auburn Declaration 6

In the Acts of the Synod at Giasion, in condemning Cyril Lucar for holding that “all had been guilty of actual mortal sin,” it professed that the teaching of the Church was that none was exempt from original sin.

E.B. Pusey, An Eirenicon 5.6

When it is said that we derive a sinful nature from Adam, and that guilt as well as pollution attaches to the nature of fallen men, the doctrine is, that we, and all who derive that nature from Adam, are personally sinful and guilty. We are born, as the Apostle says, the children of wrath. It is not an impersonal nature which is guilty, for this would be a contradiction, but persons whose immanent, subjective state is opposed to the character and law of God.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology III.7.7 (Vol. 2)

Augustine, as we have seen, answered the first of these questions by saying that original sin consists not only in the loss of original righteousness, but also in concupiscence, or disorder, or corruption of nature, which is truly and properly sin, including both guilt and pollution.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology II.8.6 (Vol. 2)

I say, then, that “sin,” speaking generally, is, as the Ninth Article of our Church declares, “the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that is naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone (quam longissime is the Latin) from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth alway against the spirit; and, therefore, in every person born into the world, it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation.” Sin, in short, is that vast moral disease which affects the whole human race, of every rank, and class, and name, and nation, and people, and tongue; a disease from which there never was but one born of woman that was free.

J.C. Ryle, Holiness 2

What may be called the starting point of Christian theology, the doctrine of hereditary guilt and sin, through the fall of Adam, and of the consequent entire and helplesss corruption of our nature, is entirely unknown to Rabbinical Judaism. … In short, all the various consequences which Rabbinical writings ascribe to the sin of Adam may be designated either as physical, or, if mental, as amounting only to detriment, loss, or imperfectness.

Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah 1.4

Calvinists, of course, hold that the doctrine of original sin applies to infants as well as to adults. Like all other sons of Adam, infants are truly culpable because of race sin and might be justly punished for it.

Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination 22

In the sight of God his sin was the sin of all his descendants, so that they are born as sinners, that is in a state of guilt and in a polluted condition. Original sin is both a state and an inherent quality of pollution in man. Every man is guilty in Adam, and is consequently born with a depraved and corrupt nature.

Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology 2.2.4

Original pollution includes two things, namely, the absence of original righteousness, and the presence of positive evil. It should be noted: (1) That original pollution is not merely a disease, as some of the Greek Fathers and the Arminians represent it, but sin in the real sense of the word. Guilt attaches to it; he who denies this does not have a Biblical conception of original corruption.

Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology 2.2.4

Of the mortal are mortals born; from immortals we are become mortals. From Adam all men are mortal; but Jesus the Son of God, the Word of God, by which all things were made, the only Son equal with the Father, was made mortal: “for the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”

Augustine of Hippo, Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 13

When Adam sinned, he was changed from that pure olive, which had no such corrupt seed whence should spring the bitter issue of the wild olive, into a wild olive tree; and, inasmuch as his sin was so great, that by it his nature became commensurately changed for the worse, he converted the entire race of man into a wild olive stock. The effect of this change we see illustrated, as has been said above, in the instance of these very trees. Whenever God’s grace converts a sapling into a good olive, so that the fault of the first birth (that original sin which had been derived and contracted from the concupiscence of the flesh) is remitted, covered, and not imputed, there is still inherent in it that nature from which is born a wild olive, unless it, too, by the same grace, is by the second birth changed into a good olive.

Augustine of Hippo, On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.37

How are we restored to Paradise if we have never been there? Or how have we been there, except because we were there in Adam? And how do we belong to that “judgment” which was spoken against the transgressor, if we do not inherit injury from the transgressor? Finally, he thinks that infants are to be baptized, even before the eighth day; lest “by the contagion of the ancient death, contracted in the first birth,” the souls of the infants should perish.

Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 4.24

I wish that you, My children, should know that the road was broken by the sin and disobedience of Adam, in such a way, that no one could arrive at Eternal Life. … But, after sin had closed Heaven and bolted the doors of mercy, the soul of man produced thorns and prickly brambles, and My creature found in himself rebellion against himself.

Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue 3.7

Should any one again object, that no suffering was imposed on men which did not also belong to women: I answer, it was done designedly, to teach us, that from the sin of Adam, the curse flowed in common to both sexes; as Paul testifies, that ‘all are dead in Adam,’ ( Romans 5:12 .)

John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1 3.1

For as Adam at his creation had received for us as well as for himself the gifts of God’s favor, so by falling away from the Lord, he in himself corrupted, vitiated, depraved, and ruined our nature; for having been divested of God’s likeness, he could not have generated seed but what was like himself. Hence we have all sinned; for we are all imbued with natural corruption, and so are become sinful and wicked. Frivolous then was the gloss, by which formerly the Pelagians endeavored to elude the words of Paul, and held, that sin descended by imitation from Adam to the whole human race; for Christ would in this case become only the exemplar and not the cause of righteousness.

John Calvin, Commentary on Romans 5.6

There was no more moral evil in the eating of this fruit, as considered distinct from the command, than in eating of any other fruit in the garden: had there been no prohibition, he might with as much safety have fed upon it as upon any other. No law of nature was transgressed in the act of eating of it, but the sovereignty of God over him was denied by him; and for this the death threatened was inflicted on his posterity: for though divines take notice of other sins in the fall of Adam, yet God, in his trial, chargeth him with none but this, and doth put upon his question an emphasis of his own authority: “Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded ye that thou shouldest not eat?”

Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God 13

By this first hereditary sin we have lost communion with God. Adam was God's familiar, his favourite; but sin has put us all out of favour. When we lost God's image, we lost his acquaintance.

Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity 4.4

God, in righteous judgment, continued to absent himself from Adam after he became a rebel; and withheld from him now those influences of the Holy Spirit, which he before had. And just thus I suppose it to be with every natural branch of mankind: all are looked upon as sinning in and with their common root; and God righteously withholds special influences and spiritual communications from all, for this sin. But of the manner and order of these things, more may be said in the next chapter.

Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin Defended 7

The philosophical cause, or the true origin, of Adam’s defection, was his liberty in union with his passive power. For an explanation of these terms, and the proof of the proposition just laid down, we must refer the reader to our notes on the first volume of this work, where the subject is professedly discussed. 4. The true and ultimate cause of the first sin of Adam, of all his subsequent sins, and those of his posterity, whether infants or adults, is not essentially different.

Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin Defended 7

As this doctrine of original corruption was constantly maintained in the church of God from the beginning; so from thence, in all probability, as well as from the evidennce of it in universal experience, it was, that the wiser heathens maintained the like doctrine.

Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin Defended 7

What Adam, therefore, suffered for breach of covenant, was a privation of chartered benefits. The unavoidable effect of this was, DEATH; a privation of spiritual life—which continued is death eternal—and a privation of that protection and care which would have preserved from temporal death.

Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin Defended 7

As therefore, the evils which men suffer on account of the sin of Adam, are inflicted in execution of the penalty threatened against him, they are as truly penal in our case as they were in his; and he was consequently treated as the federal head and representative of his race.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology II.8.9 (Vol. 2)

And we say that nothing solves the complicated problem of man’s condition but the doctrine of original or birth-sin and the crushing effects of the fall.

J.C. Ryle, Holiness 2

The fall of the human race into a state of sin and misery is the basis and foundation of the system of redemption which is set forth in the Scriptures, as it is the basis and foundation of the system which we teach. Only Calvinists seem to take the doctrine of the fall very seriously. Yet the Bible from beginning to end declares that man is ruined—totally ruined—that he is in a state of guilt and depravity from which he is utterly unable to deliver himself, and that God might in justice have left him to perish.

Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination 11

Adam yielded to the temptation and committed the first sin by eating of the forbidden fruit. But the matter did not stop there, for by that first sin Adam became the bond-servant of sin. That sin carried permanent pollution with it, and a pollution which, because of the solidarity of the human race, would affect not only Adam but all his descendants as well. As a result of the fall the father of the race could only pass on a depraved human nature to his offspring.

Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology 2.2.1

As we find throughout Scripture, the sin of Adam is evermore in the Divine view. “Thy first father sinned,” is God’s continual testimony. The consequent translation of this aorist hēmarton in 5:12 is, “all sinned”—that is, in Adam’s act; and also in 3:23; “all sinned [in Adam] and [consequently] are falling short of the glory of God”: the history of the whole race since.

William R. Newell, Romans Verse-by-Verse 3

The earliest Church Fathers do not speak very definitely on the origin of sin, though the idea that it originated in the voluntary transgression and fall of Adam in paradise is already found in the writings of Irenæus. This soon became the prevailing view in the Church, especially in opposition to Gnosticism, which regarded evil as inherent in matter, and as such the product of the Demiurge.

Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology 2.2.1

The first man fell, and all who were born of him from him derived the concupiscence of the flesh.

Augustine of Hippo, Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 4

That all the posterity of Adam is guilty in him of his disobedience, infected by his corruption, and fallen into the same calamity with him, even the very infants from their mothers’ womb, whence is derived the name of original sin.

Waldensian Church, Waldensian Confession 10

As all in Adam died, so all in Christ are made alive. Such is the nature of the union in both cases, that the sin of the one rendered certain and just the death of all united to Adam, and the righteousness of the other rendered certain and just the salvation of all who are in Him. The sin of Adam did not make the condemnation of all men merely possible; it was the ground of their actual condemnation.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology III.8.2 (Vol. 2)

Peter was clean, but he must wash his feet, for he had sin by succession from the first man, when the serpent overthrew him and persuaded him to sin. His feet were therefore washed, that hereditary sins might be done away, for our own sins are remitted through baptism.

Ambrose of Milan, On the Mysteries 7

The question now before us does not concern the nature of human seed, but its corruption. Now the nature has God for its author; it is from its corruption that original sin is derived. If, indeed, the seed had itself no corruption, what means that passage in the Book of Wisdom, “Not being ignorant that they were a naughty generation, and that their malice was inbred, and that their cogitation would never be changed; for their seed was accursed from the beginning”?

Augustine of Hippo, On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.20

I answer that, The subject of a sin is chiefly that part of the soul to which the motive cause of that sin primarily pertains: thus if the motive cause of a sin is sensual pleasure, which regards the concupiscible power through being its proper object, it follows that the concupiscible power is the proper subject of that sin. Now it is evident that original sin is caused through our origin.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II.Q83.A2

We were born sinners; how then can we cut off our sinful heredity? Seeing that we were born in Adam, how can we get out of Adam? … Bondage to sin came by birth; deliverance from sin comes by death—and it is just this way of escape that God has provided.

Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life 2.4

To this infantine imbecility the first man did not fall by his lawless presumption and just sentence; but human nature was in his person vitiated and altered to such an extent, that he suffered in his members the warring of disobedient lust, and became subject to the necessity of dying. And what he himself had become by sin and punishment, such he generated those whom he begot; that is to say, subject to sin and death.

Augustine of Hippo, City of God 13.3

The actual sins then, that are commonly committed by men, take away some good from the person of the sinner, such as grace and the due order of the parts of his soul: hence they are personal, and not imputable to a second party beyond the one person of the sinner. But the first sin of the first man not only robbed the sinner of his private and personal good, namely, grace and the due order of his soul, but also took away a good that belonged to the common nature of mankind.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles 4.51

From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, 11 do proceed all actual transgressions.

London Baptist Assembly, 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith 6.4

In view of its pervasive character, inherited pollution is called total depravity. This phrase is often misunderstood, and therefore calls for careful discrimination.

Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology 2.2.4

Captives you are; for “of whom a man is overcome,” as the Scripture says, “of the same is he brought in bondage;” and no one except by the grace of the great Liberator is loosed from the chain of this bondage, from which no man living is free. For “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for in him all have sinned.” Thus, then, God is the Creator of those that are born in such wise that all pass from the one into condemnation, who have not the One Liberator by regeneration.

Augustine of Hippo, On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.8

We do not say that by the sin of Adam free will perished out of the nature of men; but that it avails for sinning in men subjected to the devil; while it is not of avail for good and pious living, unless the will itself of man should be made free by God’s grace, and assisted to every good movement of action, of speech, of thought. We say that no one but the Lord God is the maker of those who are born, and that marriage was ordained not by the devil, but by God Himself; yet that all are born under sin on account of the fault of propagation, and that, therefore, all are under the devil until they are born again in Christ.

Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 2.9

Christ appears to say nothing more here than what was formerly said by philosophers, that they who are devoted to their lusts are subject to the most degrading slavery . But there is a deeper and more hidden meaning; for he does not argue what evil men bring on themselves, but what is the condition of human nature. The philosophers thought that any man is a slave by his own choice, and that by the same choice he returns to freedom . But here Christ maintains, that all who are not delivered by him are in a state of slavery , and that all who derive the contagion of sin from corrupted nature are slaves from their birth.

John Calvin, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Vol. 1 8.6

As Aquinas adopted very nearly the doctrine of Augustine concerning original sin, he approached more nearly to Augustinianism in his views concerning grace and predestination than the majority of the schoolmen. He held that man since the fall had lost all ability to anything spiritually good; that, without grace, he could do nothing acceptable to God or which secured salvation.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology III.14.7 (Vol. 2)

The third great point included in the Scriptural doctrine of original sin, is the inability of fallen man in his natural state, of himself to do anything spiritually good. This is necessarily included in the idea of spiritual death.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology II.8.15 (Vol. 2)

If original sin involves spiritual death, and spiritual death implies utter inability to spiritual good, and to all coöperation in the work of regeneration, it follows that regeneration is exclusively the work of the Spirit, in which the subject is entirely passive.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology III.14.7 (Vol. 2)

As to original sin, and the consequent utter inability of man to any spiritual good, the doctrine of Luther was retained in its integrity.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology III.14.7 (Vol. 2)

What doth Baptism wash off? what doth that Grace loose? There is loosed the offspring of sin. For if that infant could speak to thee, it would say, and if it had the understanding which David had, it would answer thee, Why heedest thou me, an infant? Thou dost not indeed see my actions: but I in iniquity have been conceived, “And in sins hath my mother nourished me in the womb.”

Augustine of Hippo, Expositions on the Book of Psalms 51

On the contrary, The medicine should be proportionate to the disease. Now we contracted original sin without willing to do so. Therefore it is not necessary that we should be cleansed from it by an act of the will, such as contrition is.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica Suppl..Q2.A2

I say therefore that the mark alone of original sin remains, which sin you take from your father and your mother when you were generated by them. But this mark is removed from the soul, though not altogether, by Holy Baptism, which has the virtue of communicating the life of grace by means of that glorious and precious Blood. Wherefore, at the moment that the soul receives Holy Baptism, original sin is taken away from her, and grace is infused into her, and that inclination to sin, which remains from the original corruption, as has been said, is indeed a source of weakness, but the soul can keep the bridle on it if she choose.

Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue 3.5

Since God declared, that if there had been found but ten righteous in Sodom, he would have spared the whole city for their sakes, may we not well suppose, if infants are perfectly innocent, that he would have spared the old world, in which there were, without doubt, many hundred thousand infants, and in general, one in every family, whose perfect innocence pleaded for its preservation?

Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin Defended 3

All the descendants of Adam, except Christ, are under condemnation; all the descendants of Adam, except those of whom it is expressly revealed that they cannot inherit the kingdom of God, are saved. This appears to be the clear meaning of the Apostle, and therefore he does not hesitate to say that where sin abounded, grace has much more abounded, that the benefits of redemption far exceed the evils of the fall; that the number of the saved far exceeds the number of the lost.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology Intro.2.3 (Vol. 1)

We must either deny that infants are saved through Christ, which is such a thoroughly anti-Christian sentiment, that it has scarcely ever been avowed within the pale of the Church; or we must deny that redemption, in the Christian sense of the term, includes deliverance from sin. This is the ground taken by those who deny the doctrine of original sin, and yet admit that infants are saved through Christ. They hold that in their case redemption is merely preservation from sin.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology II.8.13 (Vol. 2)

Do you not hear the words of Scripture saying, "No one is clean from sin in Thy sight, not even the infant whose life is but of a single day upon the earth?" For whence else is it that one hastens even with infants to seek remission of their sins? Do you not hear the words of another Scripture, "In sin did my mother conceive me?"

Augustine of Hippo, Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist 4.102

Hast Thou not taken account even of him, and caused him to enter into judgment in Thy sight? For who shall be pure from uncleanness? Not even one, even if his life should be but of one day upon the earth.” Now when he speaks of uncleanness here, the mere perusal of the passage is enough to show that he meant sin to be understood. … Well now, I rather think that all these passages, and others of like import, which point to the fact that man is born in sin and under the curse, are not to be read among the dark recesses of the Manicheans, but in the sunshine of catholic truth.

Augustine of Hippo, On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.50

Behold, I was born in iniquity, etc He now proceeds further than the mere acknowledgement of one or of many sins, confessing that he brought nothing but sin with him into the world, and that his nature was entirely depraved. He is thus led by the consideration of one offense of peculiar atrocity to the conclusion that he was born in iniquity, and was absolutely destitute of all spiritual good. Indeed, every sin should convince us of the general truth of the corruption of our nature.

John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, Vol. 2 51.2

It is, therefore, to be observed, that when David places himself and the small remnant of the godly on one side, and puts on the other the body of the people, in general, this implies that there is a manifest difference between the children of God who are created anew by his Spirit, and all the posterity of Adam, in whom corruption and depravity exercise dominion. Whence it follows, that all of us, when we are born, bring with us from our mother’s womb this folly and filthiness manifested in the whole life, which David here describes, and that we continue such until God make us new creatures by his mysterious grace.

John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, Vol. 1 14.2

David, then, is here brought, by reflecting on one particular transgression, to east a retrospective glance upon his whole past life, and to discover nothing but sin in it. And let us not imagine that he speaks of the corruption of his nature, merely as hypocrites will occasionally do, to excuse their faults, saying, “I have sinned it may be, but what could I do? We are men, and prone by nature to everything which is evil.” David has recourse to no such stratagems for evading the sentence of God, and refers to original sin with the view of aggravating his guilt, acknowledging that he had not contracted this or that sin for the first time lately, but had been born into the world with the seed of every iniquity.

John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, Vol. 2 51.2

Paul never could have said that all are “by nature the children of wrath,” (Eph. 2:3), if they had not been cursed from the womb. And it is obvious that the nature there referred to is not nature such as God created, but as vitiated in Adam; for it would have been most incongruous to make God the author of death. Adam, therefore, when he corrupted himself, transmitted the contagion to all his posterity. For a heavenly Judge, even our Saviour himself, declares that all are by birth vicious and depraved, when he says that “that which is born of the flesh is fleshy” (John 3:6), and that therefore the gate of life is closed against all until they have been regenerated.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion II.1

Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh; and, by nature, all of us are children of divine wrath: because we are born of sinful seed, and we are all born in sin.

Lutheran Church, Saxon Visitation Articles 2.1

Tertullian's exposition here is wrong, who by children of wrath, understands subjectively, that is, subject to wrath and passion; offending often in the irascible faculty of a wrathful spirit. By children of wrath, the apostle passively means heirs of wrath, exposed to God's displeasure. God was once a friend, but sin broke the knot of friendship; now God's smile is turned into a frown; we are now bound over to the sessions, and become children of wrath.

Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity 4.4

Let none wonder that these wicked men dare do such things, for wickedness is bred in the bone with them; they brought it into the world with them; they have in their natures a strong inclination to it; they learned it from their wicked parents, and have been trained up in it by a bad education.

Matthew Henry, Commentary on Psalms 58.1 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3)

We are all born children of disobedience; we were called transgressors from the womb, and therefore it is easy to foresee that we shall deal treacherously, very treacherously. Where original sin is actual sin will follow of course.

Matthew Henry, Commentary on Isaiah 48.1 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 4)

As for our nativity, in the day that we were born we were shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, our understandings darkened, our minds alienated from the life of God, polluted with sin, which rendered us loathsome in the eyes of God. Marvel not then that we are told, You must be born again.

Matthew Henry, Commentary on Ezekiel 16.1 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 4)

Another passage of the apostle, to the like purpose with that which we have been considering in the 5th of Romans, is that in Eph. ii. 3.—“And were by nature children of wrath, even as others.” This remains a plain testimony to the doctrine of original sin, as held by those who used to be called orthodox Christians, after all the pains and art used to torture and pervert it.

Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin Defended 4

The psalmist is speaking of what men are as they are the children of men, born of the corrupt human race; and not as born of God, whereby they come to be the children of God, and of the generation of the righteous. The apostle Paul cites this place in Rom. iii. 10-12. to prove the universal corruption of mankind; but yet in the same chapter he supposes the same persons spoken of as wicked, may become righteous, through the righteousness and grace of God.

Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin Defended 4

What further confirms the certainty of the proof of original sin, which this place affords, is this, that the utmost art cannot pervert it to another sense. What a variety of the most artful methods have been used by the enemies of this doctrine, to wrest and darken this paragraph of Holy Writ, which stands so much in their way, as it were to force the Bible to speak a language agreeable to their mind!

Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin Defended 4

The Psalmist also directly asserts this doctrine when he says (Ps. li. 5), “Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” In the preceding verses he had confessed his actual sins; and he here humbles himself still more completely before God by acknowledging his innate, hereditary depravity; a depravity which he did not regard as a mere weakness, or inclination to evil, but which he pronounces iniquity and sin. To this inherent, hereditary corruption he refers in the subsequent parts of the Psalm as his chief burden from which he most earnestly desired to be delivered.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology II.8.13 (Vol. 2)

The whole spirit of this Psalm and the connection in which the words of the fifth verse occur, have constrained the great majority of commentators and readers of the Scripture to recognize in this passage a direct affirmation of the doctrine of original sin. … What David says of himself as born in sin is confirmed by other representations of Scripture, which show that what was true of him is no less true of all mankind.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology II.8.13 (Vol. 2)

They tell me I was born in sin, and I know it to be true; they tell me also that I am judged with the same severity as if I had been born in righteousness, and that I know to be false. They make it a consequence of the purity and justice of God that he will judge us, born in evil, for which birth we were not accountable, by our sinfulness, instead of by our guilt.

George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons 8 (Vol. 3)

When Adam sinned, his federal relationship involved all his posterity in condemnation (5:18, 19), but he also “begat a son in His own likeness.” ALL since Adam have participated in the fallen nature of Adam. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.” “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”

William R. Newell, Romans Verse-by-Verse 8

That no one is without filth and without sin. … Also in the fiftieth Psalm: “Behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins hath my mother conceived me.”

Cyprian of Carthage, The Treatises of Cyprian 12.4.56

When older people suffer such trials, we are accustomed, certainly, to say, either that their worth is being proved, as in Job’s case, or that their wickedness is being punished, as in Herod’s; and from some examples, which it has pleased God to make perfectly clear, men are enabled to conjecture the nature of others which are more obscure; but this is in regard to persons of mature age. Tell me, therefore, what we must answer in regard to infant children; is it true that, although they suffer so great punishments, there are no sins in them deserving to be punished? for, of course, there is not in them at that age any righteousness requiring to be put to the proof.

Augustine of Hippo, Letters of St. Augustin 1.135

This period, then, of my life, O Lord, of which I have no remembrance, which I believe on the word of others, and which I guess from other infants, it chagrins me—true though the guess be—to reckon in this life of mine which I lead in this world; inasmuch as, in the darkness of my forgetfulness, it is like to that which I passed in my mother’s womb. But if “I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,” where, I pray thee, O my God, where, Lord, or when was I, Thy servant, innocent?

Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions 1.7

In short, the words of Scripture, “An heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam, from the day that they go out of their mother’s womb till the day that they return to the mother of all things,” —these words so infallibly find fulfillment, that even the little ones, who by the layer of regeneration have been freed from the bond of original sin in which alone they were held, yet suffer many ills, and in some instances are even exposed to the assaults of evil spirits. But let us not for a moment suppose that this suffering is prejudicial to their future happiness, even though it has so increased as to sever soul from body, and to terminate their life in that early age.

Augustine of Hippo, City of God 21.14

But evil would not exist in infants, if evil had not been committed by the wilfulness of the first man, and original sin derived from a nature thus corrupted. It is not true, then, as he puts it, “He is completely a Manichean who maintains original sin;” but rather, he is completely a Pelagian who does not believe in original sin.

Augustine of Hippo, On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.50

Those original sins, indeed, are said to be the sins of others, because individuals derived them from their parents; but they are not unreasonably said to be our own also, because in that one, as the apostle says, all have sinned.

Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on Rebuke and Grace 9

We may well argue from these things, that infants are not sinless, but are by nature children of wrath, seeing this terrible evil comes so heavily on mankind at this early period. But, besides the mortality of infants in general, there are some particular cases of their death attended with circumstances, which, in a peculiar manner, give evidence of their sinfulness, and of their just exposedness to divine wrath.

Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin Defended 3

It must now be left with the reader to judge for himself, whether what the Scripture teaches of the application of Christ’s redemption, and the change of state and nature necessary to true and final happiness, does not afford clear and abundant evidence to the truth of the doctrine of original sin.

Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin Defended 5

Original depravity may well be argued, from wickedness being often spoken of in Scripture, as a thing belonging to the race of mankind, and as if it were a property of the species.

Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin Defended 4

It is a fact of experience no less than a doctrine of Scripture that men are either, as the Church teaches, born in a state of sin and condemnation, or, as all men must admit, in a state which inevitably leads to their becoming sinful and miserable. The objection, therefore, bears against a providential fact as much as against a Scriptural doctrine.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology II.8.13 (Vol. 2)

Death, according to the Scriptures, is a penal evil. It presupposes sin. No rational moral creature is subject to death except on account of sin. Infants die, therefore infants are the subjects of sin.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology II.8.13 (Vol. 2)

All true Christians are convinced of sin; they are convinced not only of individual transgressions, but also of the depravity of their heart and nature. They recognize this depravity as innate and controlling. … Whatever difficulties, therefore, may attend the doctrine of original sin, we must accept it as clearly taught in the Scriptures, confirmed by the testimony of consciousness and history, and sustained by the faith of the Church universal.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology II.8.13 (Vol. 2)

The methods adopted by those who deny the doctrine of original sin, to account for the universality of sin, are in the highest degree unsatisfactory. … If there be really no such evil as sin, there is no sin to account for. But the fact of the existence of sin, of its universality and of its power, is too palpable and too much a matter of consciousness to admit of being denied or ignored.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology II.8.13 (Vol. 2)

The physical death of infants is a patent proof that they are subject to the penalty which came on men (which entered the world and passed on all men) on account of one man, or by one man’s disobedience. And as that penalty was death spiritual as well as the dissolution of the body, the death of infants is a Scriptural and decisive proof of their being born destitute of original righteousness and infected with a sinful corruption of nature. Their physical death is proof that they are involved in the penalty the principal element of which is the spiritual death of the soul. It was by the disobedience of one man that all are constituted sinners, not only by imputation (which is true and most important), but also by inherent depravity; as it is by the obedience of one that all are constituted righteous, not only by imputation (which also is true and vitally important), but also by the consequent renewing of their nature flowing from their reconciliation to God.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology II.8.13 (Vol. 2)

Man's is a spiritually dead and a condemned race. See Ephesians 2:1-5, et passim. He is obviously under a curse for something, from the beginning of his life. Witness the native depravity of infants, and their inheritance of woe and death. Now, either man was tried and fell in Adam, or he has been condemned without trial. He is either under the curse (as it rests on him at the beginning of his existence) for Adam's guilt, or for no guilt at all.

Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination 11

Surely man's nature is radically wrong. The daily newspaper accounts of events, even in such an enlightened land as America, show that man is sinful, lost from God, and actuated by unholy principles. And the only adequate explanation of all this is that the penalty of death, which was threatened on man before the fall, now rests on the human race.

Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination 11

That, therefore, the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, that there dwelleth not in our flesh good, that the law in our members is opposed to the law of the mind, is not a mingling of two natures caused of contrary principles, but a division of one against itself caused through desert of sin. We were not so in Adam, before that nature, having listened to and followed its deceiver, had despised and offended its Creator: that is, not the former life of man created, but the latter punishment of man condemned. From which condemnation when set free by Grace, through Jesus Christ, being free they contend with their punishment, having received not as yet full salvation, but already a pledge of salvation: but when not set free, they are both guilty by reason of sins, and involved in punishments.

Augustine of Hippo, On Continence 21

Concupiscence, therefore, as the law of sin which remains in the members of this body of death, is born with infants. In baptized infants, it is deprived of guilt, is left for the struggle [of life], but pursues with no condemnation, such as die before the struggle. Unbaptized infants it implicates as guilty and as children of wrath, even if they die in infancy, draws into condemnation.

Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants 2.4

Carnal concupiscence is remitted, indeed, in baptism; not so that it is put out of existence, but so that it is not to be imputed for sin. Although its guilt is now taken away, it still remains until our entire infirmity be healed by the advancing renewal of our inner man, day by day, when at last our outward man shall be clothed with incorruption. It does not remain, however, substantially, as a body, or a spirit; but it is nothing more than a certain affection of an evil quality, such as languor, for instance.

Augustine of Hippo, On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.28

Matrimony, therefore, is a good, in which the human being is born after orderly conception; the fruit, too, of matrimony is good, as being the very human being which is thus born; sin, however, is an evil with which every man is born. Now it was God who made and still makes man; but “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for in him all sinned.”

Augustine of Hippo, On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.37

Baptism, therefore, washes away indeed all sins—absolutely all sins, whether of deeds or words or thoughts, whether original or added, whether such as are committed in ignorance or allowed in knowledge; but it does not take away the weakness which the regenerate man resists when he fights the good fight, but to which he consents when as man he is overtaken in any fault; on account of the former, rejoicing with thanksgiving, but on account of the latter, groaning in the utterance of prayers.

Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 3.5

Consequently those who are baptized transmit original sin: since they do not beget as being renewed in Baptism, but as still retaining something of the oldness of the first sin.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II.Q81.A3

It is not the actual lust that transmits original sin: for, supposing God were to grant to a man to feel no inordinate lust in the act of generation, he would still transmit original sin; we must understand this to be habitual lust, whereby the sensitive appetite is not kept subject to reason by the bonds of original justice.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II.Q82.A4

For, according to Augustine (De Nup. et Concup. i.), it is lust that transmits original sin to the offspring. Now lust implies inordinate concupiscence, not entirely subject to reason: and therefore, if the fomes were entirely taken away as to personal corruption, it could not remain as to the corruption of nature.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica III.Q27.A3

Therefore original sin is ascribed to concupiscence, as being the chief passion, and as including all the others, in a fashion. Reply to Objection 3: As, in good things, the intellect and reason stand first, so conversely in evil things, the lower part of the soul is found to take precedence, for it clouds and draws the reason, as stated above ( Q[77], AA[1] ,2; Q[80], A[2] ). Hence original sin is called concupiscence rather than ignorance, although ignorance is comprised among the material defects of original sin.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II.Q82.A3

For the cohabitation of man and woman in itself, without reference to offspring, is a matter of shame and indecency; but here the procreation of children, which should remove this indecency, is accounted the cause of pollution, because the whole race of Adam is full of contagion. Hence the error of Pelagius is clearly refuted, who denied that the sin of Adam was propagated among his descendants, and pretended that we contracted sin from our parents not by origin, but by imitation. For the mother would not be unclean if the children were pure and free from all defilement. Therefore God would by this rite teach His ancient, people that all men are born accursed, and bring into the world with them an hereditary corruption which pollutes their very mothers.

John Calvin, Harmony of the Law, Vol. 1 5.8.1

Oh how should original sin humble us! This is one reason God has left original sin in us, because he would have it as a thorn in our side to humble us. As the bishop of Alexandria, after the people had embraced Christianity, destroyed all their idols but one, that the sight of that idol might make them loathe themselves for their former idolatry; so God leaves original sin to pull down the plumes of pride. Under our silver wings of grace are black feet.

Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity 4.3

But why does God leave original corruption in us after regeneration? … The corruption is ours, but the grace is God's. (2.) God leaves original corruption to make us long after heaven, where there shall be no sin to defile, no devil to tempt.

Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity 4.3

Original sin, though latent in the soul, and as a spring which runs under ground, often breaks forth unexpectedly. Christian, thou canst not believe that evil which is in thy heart, and which will break forth suddenly, if God should leave thee.

Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity 4.3

Original sin mixes and incorporates itself with our duties and graces. (1.) With our duties. As the hand which is paralytic or palsied cannot move without shaking, as wanting some inward strength; so we cannot do any holy action without sinning, as wanting a principle of original righteousness. As whatever the leper touched became unclean; such a leprosy is original sin; it defiles our prayers and tears.

Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity 4.3

Most frequently, in accordance with the usus loquendi of his own and of subsequent periods, this positive part of original sin is called concupiscence. This is a word which it is very important to understand, because it is used in such different senses even in relation to the same subject.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology II.8.6 (Vol. 2)

We are so constituted that the sensuous faculties are called into exercise before the higher powers of reason and conscience. The former therefore attain an undue ascendency, and lead the child and the man to obey the lower instincts of his nature, when he should be guided by his higher faculties. But, in the first place, this is altogether an inadequate conception of our hereditary depravity. It does not consist exclusively or principally in the ascendency of the flesh (in the limited sense of that word) over the Spirit. It is a far deeper and more radical evil. It is spiritual death, according to the express declarations of the Scriptures.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology II.8.13 (Vol. 2)

The indwelling concupiscence, which lies back of sin, gained the upper hand in man in paradise, and thus precipitated the loss of the donum superadditum of original righteousness, cannot be regarded as sin, but only as the fomes or fuel of sin. The sinfulness of Adam's descendants is primarily only a negative condition, consisting in the absence of something that ought to be present, that is, of original righteousness, which is not essential to human nature.

Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology 2.2.2