The Effect of Adam's Sin on the Human Race

Original sin is not the first sin of Adam and Eve.  Original sin is the punishment God gives for the first sin.  When Adam and Eve sinned it was the first sin.  As a result of their sin humanity underwent a moral fall.  Things changed for us after the first sin was committed.  The human race became corrupt.  This subsequent corruption is what the church calls original sin.

Original sin simply means that every person enters the world a sinner, without righteousness, possessing a corrupt nature out of which individual transgressions proceed.

It is the corruption visited on the off spring of our first parents as punishment for the original transgression.

Original sin is not a specific act of sin.  It is a condition of sin and refers to a sin nature out of which a particular sinful acts flow.

Before the fall Adam was endowed with two possibilities: He had the ability to sin and the ability not to sin.  After the fall Adam had the ability to sin and the inability not to sin.  That is he was morally incapable of living without sin.  The ability to live without sin was lost in the Fall.  This moral inability is what we call original sin.

When we are born again our bondage to sin is relieved (lifted).  After we are made alive in Christ, we once again have the ability to sin and the ability not to sin. In heaven we will not be able to sin (the inability to sin).

Augustine’s view of the moral state/condition of man in creation:

Pre-fall man - able to sin                 able not to sin

                    posse peccare           posse non peccare

                       

                    God posses non posse peccare – it is not possible for God to sin.

                    In creation man did not posses the inability to sin.

Post-fall man - able to sin                  unable not to sin (we are able only to sin)

                      posse peccare           non posse non peccare

Reborn man - able to sin                    able not to sin

                     posse peccare             posse non peccare      

Glorified man - able not sin                 unable to sin

                      posse non peccare     non posse peccare (the glorified state of man)

In creation man did not suffer from moral inability.  Moral inability is the result of the fall.  Before the fall man was able to refrain from sinning; after the fall man is no longer able to refrain from sinning.  That is what we call original sin.  Rebirth liberates us from original sin.

The degree of corruption involved with original sin has been a perennial point of debate among theologians.