Original Sin

The teaching that the sin of Adam in the Garden of Eden (the fall) was the original cause of human imperfection. This imperfection is sometimes understood to have been passed on biologically by Adam and Eve down through the generations to their descendants. Catholic Christians understand it to involve an absence of God in the soul as well as a weakened human condition in general. They believe that when a person is baptised, this inherited alienation from God is removed from the soul.

Other Christians may believe that we have in some sense inherited a tendency to sin from the first humans, but would be less likely to call this ‘original sin' or to believe that baptism addresses the problem. Others are not convinced that inherited sin is a biblical concept. They prefer to emphasise how the story in Genesis chapter 3 is the story of Everyman and Everywoman.

Some argue that the idea was invented by the Christian writer Augustine in the fourth century CE. Others, however, maintain that the concept of inherited sin from Adam is found in Christian literature written before Augustine, such as the apocryphal book of the Apocalypse of Ezra. They also insist that it is genuinely present in the Bible, at Romans 5.12-19 (although this is disputed by others).