Doctrines

Original sin

Also Known As The fall · ancestral sin · inherited guiltOriginal Term peccatum originale (Latin); propatorikon amartima (Greek)

Sin, Grace and the Human Condition

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Original sin." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/doctrines/original-sin.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Original sin. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/doctrines/original-sin

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-original-sin,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Original sin},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/doctrines/original-sin},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Origin 412 to 1546 CE

The doctrine holds that human beings begin damaged, and that the damage is not merely the sum of what each has done. Beyond that the traditions diverge sharply, and the divergence is old.

The Western doctrine, shaped by Augustine and defined at Trent in 1546, holds that the sin of Adam is transmitted to every descendant by propagation, that what is transmitted includes guilt as well as the loss of original holiness, and that baptism remits it. On this account an infant is genuinely in need of remission.

The Eastern churches speak of ancestral sin and mean something perceptibly weaker. What is inherited is mortality and a corrupted condition inclined to sin, not the personal guilt of an ancestor; no one is culpable for another's act. This is not a modern softening but a different reading of the same texts.

There is a philological fact underneath the split that is worth stating carefully. Romans 5:12 says in Greek that death spread to all "eph' ho" all sinned, a phrase whose sense is disputed, plausibly "because" or "inasmuch as". The Latin rendered it "in quo", "in whom", which reads naturally as all having sinned in Adam. Augustine, working from the Latin, built on that reading. It is a genuine overstatement to say the Western doctrine rests on a mistranslation, Augustine had other grounds, and the Greek fathers were not without a doctrine of the fall, but the Latin certainly made the inherited-guilt reading easier, and the Greek text does not require it.

Judaism, reading the same third chapter of Genesis, derives no doctrine of inherited guilt at all, which is a useful check on the assumption that the text compels one.

Facts

Status

Status Within the Tradition

Defined and binding within this tradition 1Roman Catholicism

the subject's own accountDefined at Trent, Session 5, 1546

Status Within the Tradition

Defined and binding within this tradition 3Calvinism (Reformed)

the subject's own accountConfessed in the Westminster Confession as total depravity inherited from Adam

Status Within the Tradition

Standard teaching, not formally defined 4Eastern Orthodoxy

Held as ancestral sin: mortality and corruption are inherited from Adam, but his guilt is not

Status Within the Tradition

Rejected, or not held, within this tradition 5Islam

Not held: every child is born in the fitra, the original disposition, and bears no inherited guilt

Origins

Origin Periodthe subject's own account

412 to 1546 CE 1

Held By

Western Christianity broadly, following Augustine's classical formulation that guilt as well as corruption is transmitted from Adam; Eastern Orthodoxy holds the related but distinct doctrine of ancestral sin, in which mortality and a tendency to sin are inherited but personal guilt is not; rejected in Islam, where every child is held to be born in the fitra, a pure original disposition. 2

The Claim

That humanity inherits a fallen, sinful condition from Adam's disobedience in Eden, rather than each person beginning morally neutral. 2

Belief

Defining Doctrinal Position

Augustine gave the doctrine its classical Western form, holding original sin to be transmitted through generation itself and to corrupt the will; Eastern Orthodox theology holds instead to ancestral sin, in which mortality and a tendency to sin are inherited but personal guilt for Adam's act is not. 2

Position Profile

Principal Critic

Pelagius denied that Adam's sin was transmitted to his descendants, holding each person capable of choosing good or evil unaided, a position condemned at the Council of Carthage in 418. 2

Learn More

What Exactly Is Inherited

Original sin is the doctrine that the fault of the first human beings is in some way passed to their descendants. Its sharpest questions are two: whether what is inherited is guilt or only its consequences, mortality, weakness, a disordered will, and whether the inheritance is universal and unavoidable. East and West give different answers, and Judaism gives another again.

The scriptural material is compact and much contested. Genesis 3 narrates the transgression in Eden and its penalties, but does not use the later vocabulary of inherited sin. The decisive text is Romans 5:12, where Paul writes that death spread to all "because" all sinned, or, on the reading that shaped the Latin West, "in whom [Adam] all sinned." That second rendering rests on the Latin in quo for a Greek phrase (eph' ho) that most modern scholarship takes to mean "because" rather than "in whom," and the difference did much to fix the Western sense of a guilt transmitted from Adam himself.

Augustine's West, the Greek East, and Two Other Readings

The atlas keeps four readings in view without ranking them. The Western position, developed by Augustine and defined at the Council of Trent, holds that Adam's descendants inherit both a corrupted nature and a real guilt, remitted in baptism. The Eastern position of the Greek fathers, retained in the Orthodox churches, speaks rather of ancestral sin: what is inherited is mortality and a bias toward sin, not Adam's personal guilt, since guilt is not the kind of thing that can be transmitted. The Pelagian position, that each person begins morally intact and Adam's sin injures only by bad example, was condemned in the fifth century and survives under no continuing body. The Jewish reading has no doctrine of a fallen nature at all: the rabbinic tradition speaks of the yetzer hara, an inclination to evil present in every person and to be mastered rather than a stain requiring rescue.

The divide is not merely historical. Because East and West disagree about what is inherited, they disagree in turn about what baptism does, what human freedom retains after the Fall, and how grace must operate, which is why this doctrine sits upstream of the arguments over grace and predestination.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Affirmed By

Original Sin as Inherited Guilt Removed in Baptism

Original sin affirmed in the Western form, as inherited guilt removed in baptism.

Associated With

Innocent I

In 417 he confirmed the African councils' condemnation of Pelagius and Caelestius, whose teaching on unaided human choice Augustine read as denying the necessity of grace.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Pelagius

Source On Nature and Grace (De Natura et Gratia)Augustine of Hippo

Belongs to Tradition

Anglicanism

Original sin is affirmed in Article IX of the Thirty-Nine Articles, Of Original or Birth-Sin.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account

Calvinism (Reformed)

Total depravity, the inability of fallen human nature to turn to God apart from grace, is doctrine per the Canons of the Synod of Dort, First Head of Doctrine, Articles 1 to 3, 1619.

Source The Canons of the Synod of DortSynod of Dortthe holders' own account

Christianity

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Church of Ireland

Article IX holds that original sin is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is far gone from original righteousness, and that the infection of nature remains even in the regenerate.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account

Dutch Reformed Church

The Heidelberg Catechism teaches that human nature is so corrupted that we are wholly incapable of doing any good and inclined to all evil unless regenerated by the Spirit of God. The canons of Dort make that total inability the ground on which the doctrine of election stands.

Source The Heidelberg CatechismZacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus (traditional attribution)

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

The second article of the Augsburg Confession holds that all men are born with sin, without the fear of God and without trust in him, and that this disease and original fault is truly sin, condemning all who are not born again. The Formula of Concord later insisted that the corruption is not the substance of human nature itself.

Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon

Lutheranism

Article II teaches that since the fall of Adam all who are naturally born are born with sin, and condemns those who deny it.

Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon

Methodism

Original sin, inherited guilt and corruption from Adam, is retained doctrine in the Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church, John Wesley's abridgment of the Thirty-Nine Articles for the American societies.

Source The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist ChurchUnited Methodist Churchthe holders' own account

Roman Catholicism

Original sin, inherited guilt and corruption from Adam, is defined doctrine per the Council of Trent's Decree on Original Sin.

Source Canons and Decrees of the Council of TrentCouncil of Trentthe holders' own account

Held Differently

Church of Cyprus

What is rejected is the Augustinian transmission of guilt, not the teaching that humanity begins damaged. This church speaks of ancestral sin: what passes from Adam is mortality and a nature inclined to sin, not personal culpability for another's act.

Source Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal ThemesJohn Meyendorff

Church of Greece

Source Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal ThemesJohn Meyendorff

Georgian Orthodox Church

Source Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal ThemesJohn Meyendorff

Greek Orthodox Church

Source Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal ThemesJohn Meyendorff

Mennonites

Why this is disputed. Mennonites, as Anabaptists, reject infant baptism, which removes the sacramental remedy central to both the Western Augustinian account of inherited guilt and the Eastern account of inherited mortality described on this doctrines own page. In its place, the tradition generally holds a version of what is sometimes called an age of accountability: a child is not treated as culpable for Adams sin until reaching an age of moral responsibility and knowingly choosing to sin, a position that sits outside both the Western and Eastern frameworks the doctrines main account describes.

Source The Dordrecht Confession of FaithDutch Mennonite ministers assembled at Dordrecht

National Baptist Convention of America

Source The New Hampshire Confession of FaithNew Hampshire Baptist Convention

Oriental Orthodoxy

What is rejected is the Augustinian transmission of inherited guilt, not the teaching that humanity begins damaged. This communion reads the fall as bringing mortality and corruption rather than personal guilt, as the Greek East does.

Progressive National Baptist Convention

Source The New Hampshire Confession of FaithNew Hampshire Baptist Convention

Romanian Orthodox Church

Source Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal ThemesJohn Meyendorff

Serbian Orthodox Church

Source Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal ThemesJohn Meyendorff

Oriental Orthodoxy

The Eastern reading, in common with the Eastern Orthodox churches.

Contrasts With

Akusala and the Three Poisons

Nothing is inherited in this analysis and no command is broken. An act is unwholesome by what it grows from and by what it produces.

Sin as Illness in Orthodox Theology

Eastern Orthodox theology speaks of ancestral sin rather than original sin, and holds that what humanity inherits from Adam is mortality and a weakened will rather than personal guilt for Adam's own act, a distinction John Meyendorff's study of Byzantine theology sets out as a real and long-standing difference from the Augustinian tradition that shaped Western Christian thought on inherited sin. The two terms are near neighbours describing related but distinct doctrines, not two names for the same teaching, and that they differ is not itself in dispute.

Source Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal ThemesJohn Meyendorff

Rejected Here

Latter-day Saints (Mormonism)

The second Article of Faith states that men will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam's transgression. Inherited guilt is denied in as many words.

Source The Pearl of Great PriceJoseph Smith

Depicted In

Sistine Chapel Ceiling

One of the nine Genesis narrative panels on the ceiling, "the Fall," a scene traditionally titled Original Sin and the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3). The Vatican Museums' own page for this specific panel states that Michelangelo represents the Original Sin (Genesis 3:1 to 13) and the Expulsion (Genesis 3:22 to 24) together in one composition. Distinct from the ceiling's other depicts edges, to Adam, via the separate Creation of Adam panel, and to Noah, via the separate Drunkenness of Noah panel: three different scenes among the nine, each carrying its own doctrinal or narrative claim.

Source Michelangelo: The Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Rome (Loren Partridge)Loren Partridge

Opposed By

Judaism

The rabbinic tradition does not hold the doctrine. The yetzer hara is an inclination present from the start rather than a fall from an original state, and repentance is available without a mediator.

There Is No Original Sin and No Substitutionary Atonement

Original sin rejected outright, in both the Western and the Eastern forms.

Positions on This Question

Ancestral Sin as Inherited Mortality Rather Than Inherited Guilt

Ancestral sin taken as inherited mortality rather than inherited guilt. This is the Eastern reading, not a denial that the fall has consequences.

Eastern Orthodoxy

The Eastern reading: what is inherited is mortality and its consequences, not the guilt of Adam's act.

Protestantism

The Western reading, sharpened at the Reformation into total inability.

Roman Catholicism

The Western reading: a fallen nature and inherited guilt, remitted in baptism.

Related To

Mortal and Venial Sin

The condition the distinction presupposes.

The Definition of the Immaculate Conception

Sources

1. Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent

Council of Trent, 1563Session 5, Decree concerning Original Sinthe holders' own accountView the Source

2. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition

F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source

3. The Westminster Confession of Faith

Westminster Assembly, 1646ch. 6the holders' own accountView the Source

4. Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes

John Meyendorff, Fordham University Press, 1979View the Source

5. The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary

Seyyed Hossein Nasr (editor-in-chief), HarperOne, 2015Q 30:30View the Source

The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion

Church of England, 1571Article IX, Of Original or Birth-Sinthe holders' own accountView the Source

The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church

United Methodist Church, The United Methodist Publishing HouseArticles of Religion of the Methodist Church, on original or birth sinthe holders' own accountView the Source

The Canons of the Synod of Dort

Synod of Dort, 1619First Head of Doctrine, Articles 1 to 3the holders' own accountView the Source

The Pearl of Great Price

Joseph Smith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1851The Pearl of Great Price, Articles of Faith 2View the Source

The Augsburg Confession

Philipp Melanchthon, 1530The Augsburg Confession, Article II, Of Original SinView the Source

The Dordrecht Confession of Faith

Dutch Mennonite ministers assembled at Dordrecht, 1632View the Source

The New Hampshire Confession of Faith

New Hampshire Baptist Convention, 1833View the Source

The Heidelberg Catechism

Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus (traditional attribution), Elector Frederick III of the Palatinate, Heidelberg, 1563View the Source

Encyclopedia of Religion

Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source

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