Original Sin
Therefore as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, because all sinned.Romans 5:12 · World English Bible
Original Language & Text
The book of Genesis never uses a Hebrew phrase that means 'original sin'; that term was added later by theologians. A key verse is Romans 5:12, where Paul writes that death spread to everyone 'because all sinned.' The Greek wording here is unclear, and while most translators render it as 'because,' the old Latin Bible (the Vulgate) translated it as 'in whom,' giving the reading 'in Adam all sinned.' This was likely a mistranslation, but it strongly shaped how the Western church later understood the doctrine, through the theologian Augustine. Psalm 51:5 says a person was 'brought forth in iniquity,' using the image of birth to describe how sin runs deep in people; scholars debate whether this means people are born already guilty, or simply that everyone ends up sinning over a lifetime. In later Jewish thought, the Hebrew phrase 'yetzer hara,' or 'evil inclination,' describes a built-in human pull toward wrongdoing. It is sometimes compared to the Christian idea of original sin, but it is not quite the same thing.
Key Terms in the Original Language
“sin” (Rom. 5:12, sin “entered the world” through one man)
Augustine's doctrine of original sin is built substantially on Paul's language here; Eastern Orthodox and many Jewish readers read the same word without concluding that Adam's guilt itself is inherited.
“inclination” (Gen. 6:5, 8:21, the “inclination of the heart”)
Rabbinic Judaism developed this into the yetzer hara, an innate pull toward wrongdoing present from birth — a very different model from inherited guilt, built from the same Genesis vocabulary Christian original-sin theology also draws on.
History & Authorship
The full teaching on original sin was not worked out in detail by the earliest Christians. Church writers in the first couple of centuries, especially in the East, spoke of humans inheriting death and a damaged nature from Adam, but not of inheriting guilt for Adam's specific act. In the 4th and 5th centuries, the bishop Augustine, partly relying on that mistranslated verse in Romans and arguing against a teacher named Pelagius (who denied that people inherit sinfulness and stressed free will instead), worked out the fuller Western teaching: humanity inherits both a corrupted nature and actual guilt from Adam, passed down through having children. Church councils at Carthage (418) and Orange (529) rejected Pelagius's teaching and backed Augustine's view. The Eastern church took a different path, teaching 'ancestral sin,' meaning people inherit death and corruption from Adam but reject the idea that people also inherit his guilt. Centuries later, the Protestant Reformation (through Luther and Calvin) pushed Augustine's ideas further, teaching that human nature is totally corrupted by sin, while the Catholic Council of Trent (1546) restated the Catholic version, which ties this teaching to the practice of infant baptism.
How This Debate Developed
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c. 411–418
Pelagian controversy
Pelagius denies inherited guilt and teaches humans can choose good without special grace; Augustine argues the opposite.
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418
Council of Carthage
Formally condemns Pelagianism, the first major church-wide ruling on the doctrine.
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431
Council of Ephesus
Also condemns Pelagianism alongside its Christological rulings.
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529
Second Council of Orange
Condemns semi-Pelagianism and affirms an Augustinian-leaning view of grace and original sin.
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1546
Council of Trent
Issues a formal Catholic decree on original sin, responding directly to Reformation-era disputes.
The Popular / Mainstream View
Most Western Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, believe in some form of original sin: people inherit a sinful, damaged nature from Adam's disobedience, leading everyone to sin, and, in the strict Augustinian or Reformed version, people also inherit guilt that only Christ can fix. Catholics connect this teaching to why infants need to be baptized. Reformed Protestants often describe this with the phrase 'total depravity.' The Eastern Orthodox Church agrees that people inherit death, corruption, and a pull toward sin from Adam ('ancestral sin'), but it generally rejects the idea that people also inherit Adam's personal guilt, holding that each person is only guilty for the sins they themselves commit.
Minority & Alternative Views
Pelagianism/Semi-Pelagianism
Pelagius and his followers taught that Adam's sin did not damage human nature or pass guilt down to his descendants. In this view, each person is born morally neutral and only sins by copying Adam's bad example. Church councils at Carthage (418) and Ephesus (431) rejected this teaching. A softer version, sometimes called 'semi-Pelagianism,' taught that people can take the first steps toward God on their own, without God's help, and this softer version survived and still shapes some theology today.
Eastern Orthodox "Ancestral Sin"
The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that people inherit death, corruption, and a tendency to sin from Adam, but it clearly rejects the Western, Augustinian idea that people also inherit legal guilt; guilt, in this view, only comes from a person's own sins. This leads Orthodox Christians to think differently about the purpose of baptizing infants, and it avoids relying on the mistranslated verse in Romans that shaped Western teaching.
Jewish and liberal Christian rejection
Judaism generally does not teach that people inherit original sin. Instead, it teaches that every person is born with both a good inclination and an evil inclination and is responsible for their own choices. In a similar way, some more liberal Christian theologians read the Genesis 3 story symbolically, describing it as a picture of everyone's tendency to sin rather than as a historical account of one couple whose guilt is literally passed down to all their descendants.
What Scholars Say
Bible scholars point out that Genesis 3 never uses the phrase 'original sin' and does not clearly say that guilt is passed down to later generations. This teaching developed later, mostly through Augustine's reading of Paul's letters, which was partly based on a mistranslated verse. Scholars who study the Bible's history and background tend to read Genesis 2-3 as a story meant to explain why humans die and struggle morally, without trying to settle whether it happened exactly as told. They also note that some Jewish writings from before Jesus's time (such as 4 Ezra) already reflect on how Adam's sin affected the whole world. Christian traditions still disagree sharply over whether this teaching means people literally inherit Adam's guilt, or simply describes the fact that everyone ends up sinning.
What the Confessions Say
Reformed
“By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.”
Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), 6.2
Catholic
“Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God's command. This is what man's first sin consisted of.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §396–398
Anglican
“Original sin... is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil.”
Thirty-Nine Articles (1571), Article IX
Sources & Further Reading
- Augustine, City of God and Anti-Pelagian Writings
- Council of Carthage (418 CE)
- Council of Orange (529 CE)
- Council of Trent, Decree on Original Sin (1546)
- Pelagius, "Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans" (tr. Theodore de Bruyn, 1993)
- John S. Romanides, "The Ancestral Sin" (1957)
- Elaine Pagels, "Adam, Eve, and the Serpent" (1988)
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- How does Augustine's doctrine of inherited guilt differ from the Eastern Orthodox concept of "ancestral sin," and what different implications does each have for infant baptism?
- What was Pelagius actually arguing, and how fair is it to reduce "Pelagianism" to the caricature it is often given in later Western theology?
- Romans 5:12-19 is the key Pauline text. How do interpreters translate and construe the ambiguous Greek phrase traditionally rendered "because all sinned" — and how much of the doctrine's later shape depends on that translation choice?
- How do Jewish and some liberal Christian interpreters read the Genesis 3 narrative differently from the Augustinian tradition, and what do they see as lost or gained in each reading?
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