What was the first sin? What Christian Writers Said, AD 180 to 1949

Pride and the wish to be like God

15 passages · 10 writers · 300s to 1900s

Augustine says pride is the origin of the evil will that came before the open disobedience, and Aquinas says man's first sin was pride. Arndt and Charnock say Adam sought to exalt himself like unto God or to live independently of his Creator, and South says an inordinate desire of knowledge made man a rival to his Maker.

413–426 · Augustine of Hippo, City of God 14.13

Our first parents fell into open disobedience because already they were secretly corrupted; for the evil act had never been done had not an evil will preceded it. And what is the origin of our evil will but pride? For “pride is the beginning of sin.”

1265–1273 · Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II, q. 163, a. 1, co.

Now man was so appointed in the state of innocence, that there was no rebellion of the flesh against the spirit. Wherefore it was not possible for the first inordinateness in the human appetite to result from his coveting a sensible good, to which the concupiscence of the flesh tends against the order of reason. It remains therefore that the first inordinateness of the human appetite resulted from his coveting inordinately some spiritual good. Now he would not have coveted it inordinately, by desiring it according to his measure as established by the Divine rule. Hence it follows that man's first sin consisted in his coveting some spiritual good above his measure: and this pertains to pride. Therefore it is evident that man's first sin was pride.

1675–1680 · Stephen Charnock, Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God 13

It is more plain, that this was the sin of Adam. The first act of Adam was to exercise a lordship over the lower creatures, in giving names to them,—a token of dominion (Gen. ii. 19). The next was to affect a lordship over God, in rebelling against him. After he had writ the first mark of his own delegated dominion, in the names he gave the creatures, and owned their dependence on him as their governor, he would not acknowledge his own dependence on God. As soon as the Lord of the world had put him into possession of the power he had allotted him, he attempted to strip his Lord of that which he had reserved to himself; he was not content to lay a yoke upon the other creatures, but desirous to shake off the Divine yoke from himself, and be subject to none but his own will; hence Adam’s sin is more particularly called “disobedience” (Rom. v. 19): for, in the eating the apple, there was no moral evil in itself, but a contradiction to the positive command and order of God, whereby he did disown God’s right of commanding him, or reserving anything from him to his own use.

1692 · Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity, Contained in Sermons upon the Westminster Assembly's Catechism 4.2

(3:) In Adam's sin was discontent. Had he not been discontented, he would never have sought to have altered his condition. Adam, one would think, had enough, he differed but little from the angels, he had the robe of innocence to clothe him, and the glory of Paradise to crown him; yet he was not content, he would have more; he would be above the ordinary rank of creatures. How wide was Adam's heart, that a whole world could not fill it! (4:) Pride, in that he would be like God. This worm, that was but newly crept out of the dust, now aspired after Deity. ‘Ye shall be as gods,' said Satan, and Adam hoped to have been so indeed; he supposed the tree of knowledge would have anointed his eyes, and made him omniscient. But, by climbing too high, he got a fall.

Unbelief and disobedience

17 passages · 13 writers · 100s to 1900s

Watson says the first parents did not believe what God had spoken, Calvin says infidelity was at the root of the revolt, and Wesley says Satan persuaded the woman to disbelieve God. Theophilus says the disobedience, not the tree, had death in it, and Manning calls the sin a willing variance with the will of God.

c. 180–185 · Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus 2.25

The tree of knowledge itself was good, and its fruit was good. For it was not the tree, as some think, but the disobedience, which had death in it.

1872 · John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions 62

To deceive her, Satan mingled truth with falsehood: — “Hath God said, Ye may not eat of every tree of the garden?” — and soon after persuaded her to disbelieve God, to suppose his threatening should not be fulfilled. She then lay open to the whole temptation: — To “the desire of the flesh;” for the tree was “good for food:” To “the desire of the eyes;” for it was “pleasant to the eyes:” And to “the pride of life;” for it was “to be desired to make one wise,” and consequently honoured. So unbelief begot pride: She thought herself wiser than God; capable of finding a better way to happiness than God had taught her. It begot self-will: She was determined to do her own will, not the will of Him that made her.

One sin with many parts

14 passages · 9 writers · 400s to 1900s

Augustine and Spurgeon say the one sin held several sins, and Berkhof names unbelief, pride, the desire to be like God, and an unholy satisfaction in eating as elements of it. Calvin and Boettner say the forbidden tree was a test of obedience, and Berkhof says eating of it was not sinful in itself.

c. 421–422 · Augustine of Hippo, Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love 45

However, even in that one sin, which “by one man entered into the world, and so passed upon all men,” and on account of which infants are baptized, a number of distinct sins may be observed, if it be analyzed as it were into its separate elements. For there is in it pride, because man chose to be under his own dominion, rather than under the dominion of God; and blasphemy, because he did not believe God; and murder, for he brought death upon himself; and spiritual fornication, for the purity of the human soul was corrupted by the seducing blandishments of the serpent; and theft, for man turned to his own use the food he had been forbidden to touch; and avarice, for he had a craving for more than should have been sufficient for him; and whatever other sin can be discovered on careful reflection to be involved in this one admitted sin.

1949 · Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology 2.2.1

The first sin of man was a typical sin, that is, a sin in which the real essence of sin clearly reveals itself. The essence of that sin lay in the fact that Adam placed himself in opposition to God, that he refused to subject his will to the will of God, to have God determine the course of his life; and that he actively attempted to take the matter out of God's hand, and to determine the future for himself. Man, who had absolutely no claim on God, and who could only establish a claim by meeting the condition of the covenant of works, cut loose from God and acted as if he possesed certain rights as over against God.