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1. HISTORICAL REVIEW.
The early Church Fathers contain nothing very definite about original
sin. According to the Greek Fathers there is a physical corruption in the human race, which is
derived from Adam, but this is not sin and does not involve guilt. The freedom of the will was
not affected directly by the fall, but is affected only indirectly by the inherited physical
corruption. The tendency apparent in the Greek Church finally culminated in Pelagianism, which
flatly denied all original sin. In the Latin Church a different tendency appeared especially in
Tertullian, according to whom the propagation of the soul involves the propagation of sin. He
regarded original sin as a hereditary sinful taint or corruption, which did not exclude the
presence of some good in man. Ambrose advanced beyond Tertullian by regarding original sin
as a state and by distinguishing between the inborn corruption and the resulting guilt of man.
The free will of man was weakened by the fall. It is especially in Augustine that the doctrine of
original sin comes to fuller development. According to him the nature of man, both physical and
moral, is totally corrupted by Adam’s sin, so that he cannot do otherwise than sin. This
inherited corruption or original sin is a moral punishment for the sin of Adam. It is such a
quality of the nature of man, that in his natural state, he can and will do evil only. He has lost
the material freedom of the will, and it is especially in this respect that original sin constitutes a
punishment. In virtue of this sin man is already under condemnation. It is not merely
corruption, but also guilt. Semi-Pelagianism reacted against the absoluteness of the Augustinian
view. It admitted that the whole human race is involved in the fall of Adam, that human nature
is tainted with hereditary sin, and that all men are by nature inclined to evil and not able, apart
from the grace of God, to complete any good work; but denied the total depravity of man, the
guilt of original sin, and the loss of the freedom of the will. This became the prevalent view
during the Middle Ages, though there were some prominent Scholastics who were on the
whole Augustinian in their conception of original sin. Anselm’s view of original sin was
altogether in harmony with that of Augustine. It represents original sin as consisting of the guilt
of nature (the nature of the entire human race), contracted by a single act of Adam, and the
resulting inherent corruption of human nature, handed down to posterity and manifesting itself
in a tendency to sin. This sin also involves the loss of the power of self-determination in the
direction of holiness (material freedom of the will), and renders man a slave of sin. The
prevailing opinion among the Scholastics was that original sin is not something positive, but
rather the absence of something that ought to be present, particularly the privation of original
righteousness, though some would add a positive element, namely, an inclination to evil.
Thomas Aquinas held that original sin, considered in its material element, is concupiscence, but
considered in its formal element, is the privation of original justice. There is a dissolution of the
harmony in which original justice consisted, and in this sense original sin can be called a languor
of nature. Speaking generally, the Reformers were in agreement with Augustine, though Calvin
differed from him especially on two points, by stressing the fact that original sin is not