The Eastern churches teach that the descendants of Adam inherit the consequence of his sin, mortality and a nature bent toward it, but not the guilt of the act itself, which is personal and cannot be passed on. Salvation is described accordingly as healing and as victory over death rather than first of all as the remission of a debt. The Latin tradition, following Augustine, has spoken instead of an inherited state of sin which baptism removes, and the difference in framework reaches into the accounts of baptism, of grace and of the conception of the Virgin. How far the two accounts genuinely conflict is itself argued.
Facts
Disputed
Point in DisputeHow far the Eastern and Latin accounts genuinely conflict, and how much of the difference is one of vocabulary and emphasis, is itself argued. 1 The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches teach that Adam's descendants inherit mortality and a nature bent toward sin, but not the guilt of his act itself, which they hold to be personal and non-transferable; the Latin tradition, following Augustine, has instead spoken of an inherited state of sin removed by baptism. John Meyendorff's standard survey of Orthodox theology traces how this difference in starting point reaches into further disagreements, over the meaning of baptism, over the nature of grace, and over the Latin doctrine of Mary's immaculate conception, which addresses a problem the Eastern framework does not pose in the same terms. How far the two accounts genuinely conflict, rather than expressing the same underlying conviction in different theological vocabularies shaped by Greek and Latin patristic traditions respectively, is itself argued among theologians on both sides. The question has not been settled because it depends on how much weight is given to vocabulary versus substance in comparing two theological traditions that developed largely independently of each other after the early centuries. Status
Status Within the TraditionBinding, without a formal definition 1Tradition: Eastern Orthodoxy Scholarship and Forensics
Scholarly NoteSalvation is described accordingly as healing and as victory over death rather than first of all as the remission of a debt, and the difference in framework reaches into the accounts of baptism, of grace and of the conception of the Virgin. 1 Origins
Held ByThe Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, which teach that the descendants of Adam inherit mortality and a nature bent toward sin but not the guilt of the act itself, which is personal and cannot be passed on. 1 Learn More
A Different Word for What Adam Left Behind
Eastern Orthodox theology speaks of ancestral sin rather than original sin, and the choice of word marks a real difference in what is being claimed. Both traditions trace the doctrine to the same event, Adam and Eve's disobedience in the garden, and both hold that every human being since has been born into its consequences. Where the traditions part is over guilt. The Western account, worked out at length by Augustine of Hippo in the early fifth century, holds that Adam's descendants inherit not only mortality but a share of Adam's own guilt, a legal stain passed down with the rest of human nature. Orthodox theology has never taught that a newborn child carries anyone else's guilt. What is inherited, on the Orthodox reading, is mortality itself and the corrupted condition that comes with it, a wounded human nature rather than a criminal record. Each person is held responsible only for sins they themselves commit. The practical difference shows up in how each tradition explains baptism. Where a Western account can describe baptism as washing away inherited guilt, an Orthodox account describes it as beginning the healing of a nature already broken by death, and the emphasis throughout Orthodox teaching on ancestral sin falls on divine compassion for a wounded creation rather than on divine wrath at an inherited crime.
Wounded Nature, Not Borrowed Guilt
In Orthodox teaching, ancestral sin reshapes the whole doctrine of salvation rather than settling one point about a newborn's guilt. Because what is inherited is a nature already subject to corruption and mortality, a sickness rather than a sentence, redemption is not chiefly a legal acquittal. Orthodox theology calls the alternative theosis: the slow restoration of a nature to the likeness of God it was created to bear, worked out through cooperation with grace rather than through the discharge of a debt. Baptism begins that healing without erasing an inherited crime, since Orthodox theology holds there was no such crime to erase, only a wounded condition to begin curing. The consequence reaches further than the sacrament itself. Because the ancestral fault is corruption and death rather than a ledger of guilt, Christ's death and resurrection are understood chiefly as the defeat of that death, an emphasis that moves the center of the doctrine from a legal claim satisfied to a wound actually healed, and it is this shift in what redemption itself is doing, not only the status of an infant, that separates the Orthodox account from the Western one built on inherited guilt.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Position On
Ancestral sin taken as inherited mortality rather than inherited guilt. This is the Eastern reading, not a denial that the fall has consequences.
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