Chinese version: 我們真的因為亞當犯罪而「生來有罪」嗎？——有關「原罪論」
“We are born sinful.” In many churches, that statement is treated as self-evident. But what exactly does it mean? Does it mean that every human being is born already guilty for Adam’s sin? Or that we inherit a tendency toward sin? Or both?
The distinction matters. The doctrine of original sin is not a single claim but a cluster of claims that developed over time. This article focuses on one particularly important question: Does the Bible actually teach that Adam’s guilt is inherited by all his descendants?
1. What Does “Original Sin” Actually Claim?
It is helpful to distinguish at least three different ideas that are often grouped together under the label original sin.
First: the universality of sin. Scripture and human experience both point to the same broad reality: every morally responsible person sins. I am not denying that reality here, though it is still an observed universal rather than something we can independently verify in every human life.
Second: inherited corruption. Human beings are born with a disordered tendency toward sin, often described as a “sinful nature” inherited from Adam.
Third: inherited guilt. Adam’s guilt itself is reckoned to all his descendants, so that every person is already guilty before God from birth because of Adam’s act.
The classical Western doctrine shaped especially by Augustine (AD 354–430), and later inherited in different forms by Martin Luther and John Calvin, gives major weight to this third claim: the inheritance of guilt. On that view, a person may be held morally liable for an act he or she never personally committed, simply by belonging to Adam’s posterity.
This historically contributed to one of the most troubling questions in Christian theology: what happens to infants who die unbaptized? If Adam’s guilt is already theirs from birth, then their eternal destiny becomes a serious theological problem. Medieval Western theology even developed the concept of Limbo as one attempt to deal with this difficulty.
My concern in this article is therefore narrow but fundamental: Is inherited guilt actually taught in Scripture?
2. The Theological Difficulties Created by Inherited Guilt
Before turning to the biblical texts, it is worth noticing several problems the doctrine has had to answer throughout Christian history.
The justice of God. Adam’s descendants were not present when he sinned, did not participate in his choice, and had no opportunity to prevent it. If Adam’s personal guilt is imposed upon all later human beings, how does that cohere with divine justice?
The nature of salvation. If people are born guilty and, under the conditions established by God, are incapable of avoiding sin, salvation can begin to look less like sheer grace and more like compensation for a condition they never chose. Yet if a human being could theoretically live without personally sinning, would such a person still need salvation? That dilemma reveals that salvation must be understood as something larger than forgiveness alone.
The mechanism of transmission. Augustine associated the transmission of original sin with human generation. But sex and marriage are themselves part of God’s good creation. Why should procreation function as a channel through which moral guilt is transmitted?
A further difficulty follows. If Adam’s first sin can be transmitted, why only that first act? What about the rest of Adam’s sins during his long life? Why would the sins of later ancestors not accumulate and be passed down as well?
The humanity of Christ. Hebrews 2:17 says that Christ had to be made like his brothers and sisters “in every respect.” If ordinary human nature is intrinsically guilty from conception, then explaining how Christ can be fully human without inherited guilt becomes difficult. Some theological systems solve this by positing special exceptions, but the need for those exceptions is itself worth noticing.
3. The Old Testament Is Strikingly Silent About Inherited Adamic Guilt
If inherited guilt is a foundational truth explaining the condition of every human being, we might reasonably expect it to appear clearly in Israel’s Scriptures. Yet outside Genesis, Adam is barely mentioned explicitly in the Hebrew Bible, apart from genealogical material such as 1 Chronicles 1:1. More importantly, the Old Testament never clearly teaches that Adam’s guilt is transferred to his descendants.
Ezekiel 18 moves in the opposite direction. In correcting the proverb, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,” the prophet insists that moral guilt is personal:
“The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son.” (Ezekiel 18:20)
The point of the chapter is not that parents and children never affect one another. They obviously do. The point is that guilt before God is not simply transferred across generations.
Psalm 51:5 is often cited in response: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” But this is poetry spoken in intense repentance. The psalm also speaks of crushed bones and becoming whiter than snow. David is describing the depth and pervasiveness of his sinfulness, not necessarily giving a technical doctrine of inherited guilt at conception.
Hosea 6:7 is sometimes translated “like Adam they transgressed the covenant,” but the Hebrew ke’adam is disputed: it may mean “like Adam,” “like men,” or possibly refer to a place named Adam. It is therefore too uncertain to bear the weight of a doctrine of inherited guilt.
4. What Is Romans 5:12 Actually Saying?
The central New Testament text in the Western doctrine of original sin is Romans 5:12. Paul says, in essence, that sin entered the world through one man, death through sin, and death spread to all because all sinned.
The key question is what Paul means by the final phrase:
ἐφ’ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον (eph’ hō pantes hēmarton)
Augustine worked primarily from the Latin tradition and understood the clause in a way that could be read as “in whom all sinned,” with Adam as the one in whom humanity collectively sinned. But the Greek phrase is more naturally read by many interpreters as “because all sinned.” If Paul had intended the straightforward meaning “in Adam,” Greek had clearer ways of expressing that, such as en (“in”).
On this reading, Paul’s sequence is not: Adam sinned, therefore Adam’s personal guilt was transferred to all. Rather, it is: sin entered the human world through Adam, death entered through sin, and death spread to all because all human beings themselves sin.
Romans 5:14 calls Adam a typos—a “type” or pattern—of the one to come. That language fits Paul’s larger contrast between two humanities: the old humanity marked by sin and death, and the new humanity brought into grace and life through Christ.
This does not make Adam unimportant. Quite the opposite: Adam stands at the head of the biblical story of humanity’s entrance into sin and death. But representative significance is not the same thing as a mechanism by which one person’s guilt is legally transferred to billions of descendants.
A striking parallel appears in 2 Baruch, a Jewish text from the period around the first century. It says, “each of us has become our own Adam.” The point is not that Adam has no significance, but that each human being reenacts Adam’s choice rather than merely receiving his personal guilt.
5. If We Do Not Inherit Adam’s Guilt, Why Does Everyone Sin?
Rejecting inherited guilt does not mean denying the universality of sin. It simply changes the question from “How is Adam’s guilt transmitted?” to “Why does every morally responsible human being eventually sin?”
Traditional formulations often answer that we inherit a sinful nature that necessarily drives us toward sin. But notice something basic: Adam himself did not inherit a sinful nature from anyone, yet he still sinned. That means an inherited sinful nature cannot be the ultimate explanation for the first human sin.
Three realities may already be enough to explain why sin becomes universal in practice: human beings begin life immature, possess genuine freedom, and encounter genuine temptation. Adam faced those conditions, and so do we.
The New Testament also speaks of a wider spiritual environment hostile to God. First John 5:19 portrays the world as lying under the power of the evil one, while Ephesians 2:2 speaks of the influence of “the prince of the power of the air.” Human beings do not make moral choices in a vacuum.
I therefore understand the universality of sin as an empirical universal rather than a metaphysical necessity. Every morally responsible person in fact sins, but not because an inherited mechanism makes personal sin logically unavoidable. Human freedom remains real. Yet immature creatures, genuine temptation, and a world already disordered by sin together make the universality of sin entirely unsurprising.
This also affects how we think about infants and very young children. Before the development of genuine moral awareness and responsibility, they need not be regarded as personally guilty simply because they descend from Adam. For more on this, see Are Infants/Children Sinless?
6. Then What Is Christ’s Salvation For?
Some Christians worry that denying inherited guilt weakens the necessity of Christ’s saving work. I think the opposite is true. Once guilt is understood as personal rather than inherited, grace becomes more—not less—gracious.
We really do sin. We really do need forgiveness. God is not compensating us for guilt He first assigned to us through someone else’s act. He is freely rescuing people who have genuinely participated in sin and who genuinely need reconciliation.
But salvation is larger than forgiveness. Even if we imagine a person who never personally sinned, that person would still be a mortal creature. According to 1 Corinthians 15:45–49, humanity is “of the earth,” while immortality is not a possession built into human nature. Resurrection life is a gift received through Christ.
The goal of salvation is therefore not merely to erase a moral record and return humanity to Eden. It is resurrection, incorruptibility, participation in the life of God, and union with Christ. Salvation answers not only the problem of guilt but also the deeper human condition of mortality.
This also changes how we imagine Adam. I do not think Adam should be pictured as a finished, metaphysically perfect human being who later fell from perfection. He may be better understood as genuinely good yet immature—a human creature created to grow in freedom toward deeper communion with God.
On that reading, redemption is not simply a return to the starting point. In Christ, humanity is brought toward a better end than Eden’s beginning: resurrection, incorruptibility, and secure participation in the life of God.
Conclusion
The claim that Adam’s guilt is inherited by every human being is difficult to establish from the Old Testament, sits uneasily beside texts such as Ezekiel 18, depends heavily on a disputed reading of Romans 5:12, and creates significant theological problems of its own.
Rejecting inherited guilt does not mean denying sin, human weakness, or the necessity of grace. Every morally responsible human being does in fact sin. And every human being, sinful or not, is mortal and needs the resurrection life that comes only through Christ.
Each of us becomes our own Adam. And each of us needs Christ.
Notes
- 鄭德富 (Cheng Tak-fu), 原罪大哉問：關於罪與救贖的兩難式信仰思辨 (Hong Kong: Impression Publishing, 2024). This is one of the most substantial Chinese-language treatments of original sin I have encountered.
- For a fuller discussion of infants and moral guilt, see Are Infants/Children Sinless?
- The interpretation of ἐφ’ ᾧ in Romans 5:12 remains debated. See Edward Wong, “Does Paul Need a Historical Adam? Reassessing Romans 5:12–21,” The Expository Times 137.2 (2025): 55–63.
- 2 Baruch 54:19 is a Jewish text outside the biblical canon and reflects one stream of Jewish interpretation of Adam. The phrase “each of us has become our own Adam” is cited in Edward Wong, “Does Paul Need a Historical Adam?”