Inherited Condition, Not Imputed Guilt: A Reformed Reconsideration of Original Sin
A hermeneutical approach to a Reformed minority view
Abstract
This article argues that the Reformed doctrine of original sin requires refinement. The traditional federal theology reading of Romans 5:12-19, which posits that Adam’s guilt is legally imputed to all his posterity prior to any personal act, stands in unresolved tension with Scripture’s explicit testimony that sons do not bear fathers’ iniquity (Ezekiel 18:20; Deuteronomy 24:16). Applying the analogy of faith (the hermeneutical principle that clear texts govern ambiguous ones), this article contends that Paul’s teaching on the Adam-Christ parallel describes inherited condition rather than imputed guilt. Adam’s act severed humanity’s communion with God, transmitting spiritual deadness to his posterity. This deadness necessitates inherent sin, which issues in actual sin, to which personal guilt attaches. The refinement preserves Reformed commitments to universal depravity, the necessity of grace, and monergistic salvation while resolving the tension between Romans 5 and Ezekiel 18. Scripture’s consistent treatment of those who “do not know good from evil” as a distinct category (Deuteronomy 1:39; Matthew 19:14) confirms this reading: guilt requires ratification through autonomous choice.
Keywords: original sin, imputation, Romans 5, Ezekiel 18, federal theology, analogy of faith, inherited condition
1. Introduction
The doctrine of original sin stands at the heart of Christian anthropology. How sin entered the world, how it affects Adam’s posterity, and how guilt attaches to human beings are questions with profound implications for soteriology, theodicy, and pastoral care. The Reformed tradition, following Augustine and developing the insights of the Reformation, has articulated a sophisticated doctrine of original sin centred on the concept of federal headship: Adam acted as the covenantal representative of humanity, such that his guilt is imputed to all his descendants.
This article does not reject the category of federal headship, nor does it deny the universality of human sinfulness or the necessity of divine grace for salvation. Rather, it argues that the mechanism of original sin requires refinement. Specifically, the claim that Adam’s guilt is legally transferred to his posterity (such that infants are guilty before God prior to any personal act) cannot be sustained when Scripture is read according to its own hermeneutical principles.
The argument proceeds as follows. Section 2 examines the clear biblical texts on individual responsibility for sin, particularly Ezekiel 18:20 and Deuteronomy 24:16, and addresses apparent counter-examples involving corporate judgment. Section 3 analyses the contested texts in Romans 5, engaging the strongest defences of the imputation reading. Section 4 applies the analogy of faith, showing that the clear texts must govern our reading of the ambiguous ones. Section 5 develops the alternative: inherited curse and spiritual deadness as the mechanism by which sin’s effects are transmitted, while clarifying how federal headship is preserved. Section 6 addresses the status of those incapable of moral discernment. Section 7 demonstrates that Reformed soteriological concerns are fully preserved. Section 8 anticipates objections. Section 9 concludes with implications for systematic theology.
2. The Clear Texts: Guilt Is Personal
2.1 Ezekiel 18:20
The prophet Ezekiel addresses a fatalistic proverb circulating among the exiles: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (Ezekiel 18:2). This proverb expressed the belief that the present generation was suffering for the sins of their ancestors, a belief that bred both despair and moral irresponsibility. God’s response through Ezekiel is emphatic:
The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. (Ezekiel 18:20, ESV)
The context makes clear that this is not merely civil legislation but divine principle. God explicitly repudiates the proverb: “What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel... As I live, declares the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel” (Ezekiel 18:2-3). The entire chapter develops case studies (a righteous father with a wicked son, a wicked father with a righteous son) to demonstrate that each person stands before God on the basis of their own conduct.
Block observes that Ezekiel’s rejection of intergenerational guilt was “a response to the fatalistic illusion” that had left the exiles “without hope” (Block 1997, p. 556). By declaring individual accountability, Ezekiel “slams the door on the old fatalistic illusion” and opens the possibility of repentance and restoration (Block 1997, p. 584).
2.2 Deuteronomy 24:16
The Mosaic law codifies the same principle:
Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin. (Deuteronomy 24:16, ESV)
This text governs human judicial practice, but its theological grounding is significant. The law reflects divine justice: God does not punish the innocent for the guilty. When Amaziah spared the children of his father’s assassins, he did so “according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, where the LORD commanded” this principle (2 Kings 14:6). The narrator presents this as obedience to God’s own standard, not merely pragmatic jurisprudence.
2.3 Jeremiah 31:29-30
Jeremiah, Ezekiel’s contemporary, addresses the same proverb:
In those days they shall no longer say: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” But everyone shall die for his own iniquity. Each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. (Jeremiah 31:29-30, ESV)
The eschatological context (the new covenant passage) is significant. In the age of fulfilment, the principle of individual accountability will be fully realised. This suggests that individual responsibility is not a departure from earlier teaching but its proper application, now clarified against misuse.
2.4 Corporate Judgment versus Personal Guilt
A natural objection arises: Does Scripture not also speak of corporate judgment extending across generations? Two texts require particular attention.
Exodus 20:5 / 34:7 declares that God visits “the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.” This language of “visiting iniquity” describes covenantal consequences, not the transfer of personal culpability. The children who experience these consequences are themselves described as “those who hate me,” indicating their own participation in the parental pattern of rebellion. The text describes the rippling effects of sin through families and communities, not the imputation of guilt to innocent parties. Notably, the same passage emphasises that God shows steadfast love “to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments,” indicating that covenant blessing and curse flow through generations as lived realities, not as forensic transfers independent of personal stance.
Joshua 7 recounts Achan’s sin and the execution of his family. This troubling narrative has been read as evidence for corporate guilt. However, closer examination suggests the family’s complicity: the stolen goods were hidden in Achan’s tent, requiring at minimum the family’s silence. Moreover, the narrative functions within Israel’s theocratic holy war context, where the ban (חֵרֶם) operated under unique covenantal conditions not generalizable to the ordinary administration of divine justice. The passage describes what happened under specific redemptive-historical circumstances, not what must happen as a matter of divine principle.
The distinction is crucial: Scripture acknowledges that sin’s consequences spread through families and communities. Children may inherit poverty, dysfunction, broken relationships, and even covenant curses because of parental sin. But guilt (culpability deserving punishment) remains personal. Ezekiel 18 and Deuteronomy 24:16 articulate this principle with unmistakable clarity. The burden of proof lies with any reading that would make these explicit divine principles admit exceptions.
2.5 The Principle Established
These texts establish a clear biblical principle: guilt is personal and non-transferable. The son does not bear the father’s iniquity. Each person dies for their own sin. This is not obscure or contested teaching requiring careful exegetical reconstruction. It is explicit divine declaration, repeated across the prophetic and legal corpora, and presented as fundamental to God’s justice.
Any doctrine that contradicts this principle requires extraordinary warrant. As we shall see, such warrant is not forthcoming from Romans 5.
3. The Ambiguous Texts: What Romans 5 Actually Says
3.1 The Structure of Romans 5:12-21
Paul’s argument in Romans 5:12-21 compares Adam and Christ as representative figures whose actions have consequences extending beyond themselves. The passage is notoriously difficult, with verse 12 containing an incomplete comparison (the “just as... so also” structure is interrupted by a parenthesis extending through verse 17). The key verses for the imputation debate are 12, 18, and 19.
Before proceeding, an important clarification is necessary. The position developed here does not deny the forensic effectsof Adam’s act. Death, condemnation, and curse are real verdicts on the human situation. What is denied is that these effects require the mechanism of imputing Adam’s personal guilt to those who have not yet acted. Condemnation can be a real verdict on a real condition without that condition being guilt for another’s specific act.
3.2 Romans 5:12 and ἐφ’ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον
διὰ τοῦτο ὥσπερ δι’ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου ἡ ἁμαρτία εἰς τὸν κόσμον εἰσῆλθεν καὶ διὰ τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὁ θάνατος, καὶ οὕτως εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους ὁ θάνατος διῆλθεν, ἐφ’ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον
The crux interpretum is the phrase ἐφ’ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον. The Augustinian-federal tradition, following the Latin Vulgate’s in quo omnes peccaverunt (”in whom all sinned”), takes this as a reference to participation in Adam’s sin: all sinned in Adam. On this reading, Adam’s sin is reckoned as the sin of all his posterity.
However, the Greek phrase ἐφ’ ᾧ more naturally bears a causal sense: “because” or “on the basis of which.” Fitzmyer notes that this causal meaning “is by far the most popular understanding among modern scholars” (Fitzmyer 1993, p. 413). Moo, while ultimately favouring a corporate reading, acknowledges that “the phrase ἐφ’ ᾧ can be translated as ‘because,’ a meaning accepted by most modern scholars of all confessional backgrounds” (Moo 2018, p. 352). Cranfield observes that taking ἐφ’ ᾧ as causal (”because all sinned”) “gives excellent sense and is the most natural interpretation of the Greek” (Cranfield 1975, p. 274). Schreiner, though defending a form of the Augustinian reading, acknowledges the grammatical difficulties with “in whom” and notes that the causal reading “has much to commend it grammatically” (Schreiner 2018, p. 280).
The grammatical issue is that ἐφ’ ᾧ as “in whom” requires the relative pronoun to refer back to ἀνθρώπου (Adam), but this is grammatically strained given the intervening nouns (ἁμαρτία, θάνατος).
3.3 The Aorist ἥμαρτον
Defenders of the federal reading often appeal to the aorist tense of ἥμαρτον (”sinned”). The argument runs: Paul uses a punctiliar aorist, suggesting a single past event rather than ongoing sinful activity. This allegedly points to a specific moment when “all sinned,” namely in Adam’s act.
This argument is less decisive than it appears. First, the aorist tense in Greek does not inherently denote punctiliar action; it is the default tense for past reference and can describe actions of various aspects (Wallace 1996, pp. 554-557). Second, even granting a punctiliar sense, the aorist could refer to the moment when each individual first sins, viewed collectively. Third, and most importantly for the present argument, even if Paul has corporate sinning “in Adam” in view, this need not mean imputation of guilt. It could mean that all, from their condition of spiritual death, inevitably actualise Adam’s pattern. The aorist would then describe the certainty of sin given the inherited condition, not the transfer of guilt prior to personal action.
The point is not that the federal reading of the aorist is impossible, but that it is not required. The grammar permits, and arguably favours, a reading compatible with personal guilt for personal sin.
3.4 Romans 5:16-18 and the Forensic Context
Defenders of imputed guilt rightly note the forensic language in verses 16-18: κατάκριμα (condemnation), δικαίωσις (justification), δικαίωμα (righteous act/decree). This creates a courtroom atmosphere. Does this not favour a forensic reading of the Adam-humanity connection?
The forensic context is granted. But forensic language describes the verdict, not necessarily the basis of the verdict. Condemnation is a real verdict; the question is whether it is a verdict on imputed guilt or on inherited condition that inevitably produces actual guilt.
Consider an analogy: a court may pronounce a verdict of “guilty” on someone who has committed crimes that flow inevitably from their circumstances (e.g., a person raised in criminal enterprise who commits crimes). The verdict is forensic. But the guilt is for their actual crimes, even if those crimes were effectively inevitable given their situation. Similarly, condemnation in Adam can be forensic (a real divine verdict) without requiring that the basis of that verdict is imputed guilt rather than inevitable actual guilt flowing from inherited condition.
The parallel with Christ illuminates this. Believers are declared righteous (forensic verdict) on the basis of Christ’s righteousness credited to them. But what Christ’s righteousness covers is their actual sins, not merely a forensic liability inherited from Adam. If imputation on the Christ-side addresses real moral debt, the Adam-side can involve real condemnation for the inevitable sins that flow from inherited spiritual death.
3.5 Romans 5:18-19 and κατεστάθησαν
ὥσπερ γὰρ διὰ τῆς παρακοῆς τοῦ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν οἱ πολλοί, οὕτως καὶ διὰ τῆς ὑπακοῆς τοῦ ἑνὸς δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται οἱ πολλοί.
Verse 19 states that through Adam’s disobedience “the many were made (κατεστάθησαν) sinners,” and through Christ’s obedience “the many will be made (κατασταθήσονται) righteous.” The verb καθίστημι has a range of meanings: “to appoint,” “to constitute,” “to place in a condition,” “to render” (BDAG 2000, p. 492). The federal reading takes it as forensic constitution: the many were legally constituted guilty.
But καθίστημι need not bear this forensic sense. In James 4:4, friendship with the world “makes oneself (καθίσταται) an enemy of God,” describing an actual condition, not a legal designation. In James 3:6, the tongue “is constituted (καθίσταται) among our members as that which defiles the whole body,” again describing a real state of affairs. In 2 Peter 1:8, spiritual qualities “make you (καθίστησιν) neither ineffective nor unfruitful,” an actual effect, not a legal pronouncement.
Murray argues that the forensic context demands a forensic reading of καθίστημι (Murray 1959, pp. 31-32). But this begs the question. The verb’s semantic range includes “to place in a condition,” and the question is precisely whether the condition in view is a legal status (imputed guilt) or an actual state (being sinners by inherited corruption). The verb itself does not decide.
The reading proposed here takes καθίστημι as “brought into the condition of”: Adam’s disobedience placed the many in the condition of being sinners, brought them into a situation where being sinners is inherent to their existence. This is consistent with inherited condition rather than imputed guilt.
3.6 The Symmetry Argument Reconsidered
Federal theologians argue that the Adam-Christ parallel requires symmetrical mechanisms: if Christ’s righteousness is imputed to believers (forensic), then Adam’s guilt must be imputed to his posterity (forensic). Murray articulates this forcefully: “The parallel between Adam and Christ... demands that the ‘one trespass’ by which condemnation came to all and the ‘one act of righteousness’ by which justification came to all be understood in the same way” (Murray 1959, p. 31).
But the symmetry argument proves too much. If the mechanisms are strictly identical, and condemnation came to allthrough Adam, then justification comes to all through Christ: universalism. Reformed theology rightly rejects universalism, which means the parallel cannot be perfectly symmetrical. The parallel is in effect (one act → consequences for many), not necessarily in mechanism.
Moreover, careful attention to the asymmetry clarifies the work of imputation. Christ’s righteousness, imputed to believers, addresses their actual guilt from actual sins. Believers need Christ’s righteousness because they have genuinely sinned. The imputation covers real moral debt. On the federal reading, Adam’s posterity are guilty by imputation before any actual sin; Christ’s imputation then covers both this “alien guilt” and subsequent actual sins. But this means the two imputations are doing fundamentally different work: one creates liability for another’s act, the other covers liability for one’s own acts.
On the reading proposed here, the symmetry is preserved at a different level: Adam’s act causes the condition from which all inevitably sin; Christ’s act provides the righteousness that covers those actual sins. Both are genuinely causal; both have universal reach in their respective spheres (all in Adam sin; all in Christ are justified). The mechanism is symmetrical in its representative causality, not in creating parallel forensic fictions.
3.7 Assessment: No Unambiguous Support
Surveying the textual evidence, we must conclude that no text explicitly states that Adam’s guilt is imputed to his posterity. The relevant passages in Romans 5 are exegetically contested, with the key terms (ἐφ’ ᾧ, καθίστημι) bearing ranges of meaning that do not require the imputation reading. The aorist ἥμαρτον does not demand punctiliar corporate sinning “in Adam.” The forensic context establishes the verdict but not the basis of the verdict. The federal doctrine is an inference, a theological construction built on one possible reading of ambiguous texts.
This is not to say the inference is unreasonable. Serious exegetes have defended it. But it is to say that the doctrine lacks the explicit scriptural warrant that would be necessary to override the clear teaching of Ezekiel 18:20.
4. The Analogy of Faith
4.1 The Hermeneutical Principle
The Westminster Confession articulates a fundamental principle of biblical interpretation:
The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly. (WCF 1.9)
This principle, the analogia fidei, holds that Scripture cannot contradict Scripture. Because all Scripture has one divine author, apparent contradictions must be resolved by allowing clearer passages to govern the interpretation of obscurer ones. As Hodge puts it, “If the Scriptures be what they claim to be, the word of God, they are the work of one mind, and that mind divine. From this it follows that Scripture cannot contradict Scripture” (Hodge 1872, vol. 1, p. 187).
4.2 Hermeneutical Directionality
A natural Reformed instinct runs contrary to the argument developed here. Romans 5, it may be said, is central to Pauline soteriology; Ezekiel 18 addresses exile-era Israelite fatalism. Should not the apostolic teaching norm the prophetic, rather than vice versa?
This objection misunderstands the principle at stake. The question is not which testament or author has priority, but which texts speak more clearly to the question at hand. The principle of personal guilt is not marginal or contextually limited. It is repeated in Torah (Deuteronomy 24:16), Prophets (Ezekiel 18; Jeremiah 31), and exemplified in historical narrative (2 Kings 14:6). It is presented as fundamental to divine justice, not as a time-bound accommodation.
By contrast, the relevant phrases in Romans 5 are exegetically disputed. The meaning of ἐφ’ ᾧ is contested. The semantic range of καθίστημι includes non-forensic senses. The aorist ἥμαρτον does not require punctiliar corporate action. If we allow these ambiguous exegetical questions to create a live possibility that God directly contradicts his own explicit statement that sons do not bear fathers’ iniquity, we have inverted WCF 1.9.
The issue is not Romans versus Ezekiel. It is ambiguous exegesis versus explicit divine principle. Sound hermeneutics requires that where explicit teaching exists, contested exegesis must yield.
4.3 Application to the Present Question
The application to original sin is straightforward:
Clear texts:
Ezekiel 18:20: “The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father”
Deuteronomy 24:16: “Each one shall be put to death for his own sin”
Jeremiah 31:29-30: The sour grapes proverb is explicitly rejected
Ambiguous texts:
Romans 5:12: ἐφ’ ᾧ is disputed; “because all sinned” is grammatically preferable
Romans 5:19: καθίστημι has a range of meanings; forensic constitution is not required
The analogy of faith requires that the ambiguous texts be read in a way compatible with the clear texts. If Romans 5:19 meant that Adam’s guilt is imputed to all his posterity such that infants are guilty before any personal act, this would directly contradict Ezekiel 18:20’s declaration that “the son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father.”
The federal response is to carve out an exception: Adam is a unique federal head, so the Ezekiel principle doesn’t apply to him. But this exception is ad hoc, invented to preserve a reading, not derived from the text. Nowhere does Scripture say “except for Adam, whose guilt transfers to all.” The federal exception makes the explicit passages subordinate to an inference from contested passages, reversing sound hermeneutical order.
4.4 The Coherent Reading
The coherent reading takes God at his word: guilt is personal, not transmitted. What Adam transmitted was the condition(spiritual deadness, the curse) from which each person inevitably sins and thereby incurs personal guilt. This reading:
Handles the ambiguous passages adequately (condition-placement, not guilt-transfer)
Harmonizes with the unambiguous passages (Ezekiel 18, Deuteronomy 24)
Preserves the analogy of faith
The burden of proof lies with those who would make explicit divine principles admit exceptions nowhere stated in Scripture. That burden has not been met.
5. The Alternative: Inherited Curse and Spiritual Deadness
5.1 Reformed Precedent
The position developed here has significant precedent within the Reformed tradition, most notably in Ulrich Zwingli, who denied that original sin itself constitutes guilt, characterising it instead as an inherited disease or condition that inevitably gives rise to actual sin (Zwingli 1526; cf. Stephens 1986, pp. 154-159). More recently, Oliver Crisp has defended what he calls the “Zwinglian alternative,” arguing that original sin need not involve transmitted or imputed guilt (Crisp 2018, pp. 143-148). Thomas McCall has similarly argued that federalism’s account of imputed guilt raises serious questions of justice (McCall 2019, pp. 156-186).
The tradition itself has always wrestled with mechanism. The debate between “immediate” and “mediate” imputation (whether guilt is imputed directly or through inherited corruption) demonstrates that Reformed theologians have long recognised the difficulty. What has not been developed, however, is the hermeneutical argument from the analogy of faith: the claim that WCF 1.9’s principle of clear texts governing ambiguous ones requires Ezekiel 18 and Deuteronomy 24 to constrain the interpretation of Romans 5. This article attempts to fill that gap.
5.2 Federal Headship Preserved
A crucial clarification: this proposal does not reject federal headship but refines its mechanism. Adam remains the covenant head of humanity. His act genuinely restructured the covenantal order for all his posterity. No post-fall human exists outside the situation Adam’s choice created.
What federal headship means, on the refined view, is this: Adam, as covenant head, acted in such a way that the order of the covenant was restructured for all his posterity. His act is genuinely “ours” covenantally because there is no post-fall human that is not born into that re-ordered covenant situation. We are “in Adam” in the sense that we exist within the broken covenantal order his choice established. We are bound to him representatively and really.
What federal headship does not require, on this reading, is that God pretends we performed Adam’s discrete act, or that we bear guilt for an action we did not commit. Headship is about covenantal order and shared condition, not about forensic fiction.
5.3 The Pre-Fall Situation
Adam existed in covenantal relationship with God, the terms of which included direct, unmediated communion. The divine presence in the Garden sustained his finite freedom without need for internal mediation. The Holy Spirit as indwelling presence was unnecessary; the relationship was immediate and external. Adam was capable of sin but not yet inevitably oriented toward it because the sustaining communion with God kept his finite freedom rightly directed. This communion was not Adam’s by nature but by covenant grant, contingent on covenant faithfulness.
5.4 The Fall and Its Consequences
When Adam chose autonomy (self-direction apart from God), he broke the covenant. God, in response, retracted the communion that had been granted under that covenant. This was not Adam severing what God sustains; it was God withdrawing what Adam forfeited. The curse pronounced in Genesis 3:14-19 describes the resulting condition: enmity, pain, toil, death. Adam’s posterity are born into a world where the communion Adam enjoyed has been retracted and is simply unavailable.
The transmission is situational, not forensic. We do not inherit Adam’s guilt; we inherit the situation his covenant-breaking created. The sustaining communion that kept finite freedom rightly oriented has been retracted; we are born outside it. An analogy: if a father breaks a contract that provided housing for his family, his children are not guilty of breaking the contract, but they don’t have the housing. They inherit homelessness, not guilt.
5.5 Spiritual Deadness and Inherent Sin
The inherited condition is best described as spiritual deadness: the absence of the life-giving connection to God. This is not a substance transmitted but a communion retracted. Paul describes the unregenerate as “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), “by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3). The condition is real and universal.
Spiritual deadness necessitates inherent sin. Finite, self-aware freedom, operating without sustaining divine communion, inevitably orients inward: toward self-preservation, self-aggrandizement, autonomy. This is not a tendency that might be resisted but a structural inevitability given the nature of finite freedom apart from grace. The inward orientation is what the tradition has called the sin nature or original sin in the sense of inherited corruption.
5.6 The Causal Chain
The complete chain runs as follows:
Adam’s act → broke the covenant (as covenant head)
God’s response → retracted communion (covenant curse)
Inherited situation → born outside communion (no access to what was retracted)
Spiritual deadness → absence of sustaining divine connection
Inherent sin → inevitable inward orientation of finite freedom
Actual sin → individual sinful choices flowing from the inherent orientation
Personal guilt → culpability attaching to actual sins
Every link is either divinely decreed, causally necessitated, or personally chosen. No link involves transferred guilt. The universality is preserved (all inherit the situation); individual responsibility is preserved (guilt attaches to choice); divine justice is vindicated (no one punished for another’s act).
Importantly, this is not Pelagian. Pelagius denied that Adam’s sin affected his posterity at all. On the view presented here, Adam’s sin profoundly affects all his posterity: we are born spiritually dead, inevitably oriented toward sin, utterly incapable of saving ourselves. What we are not is guilty before we have acted. The distinction is between inherited condition (which we share with the tradition) and inherited guilt (which we deny).
5.7 The Necessity of the Holy Spirit
If external communion (the Edenic model) has been retracted and is no longer available, restoration requires a new mode: internal communion, God dwelling within. The Holy Spirit is the mode of reconnection.
The parallel with Adam is covenantal. Adam broke the covenant; God retracted communion. Christ fulfilled the covenant; God restores communion. But the restoration is not a return to Eden. The new covenant provides something the old did not: the Spirit indwelling, communion that cannot be forfeited because it rests on Christ’s obedience, not ours.
Regeneration is thus not merely forensic declaration but relational restoration: the Spirit taking up residence, communion restored on new and better terms. This explains the Reformed insistence that regeneration precedes faith. We cannot turn toward a God from whom communion has been retracted; the communion must first be restored. The ordo salutis reflects the logic of the covenant, not arbitrary divine ordering.
6. Those Who Do Not Know Good from Evil
6.1 The Scriptural Category
A crucial test case for any doctrine of original sin is the status of those incapable of moral discernment, including infants and others who have not reached the capacity for autonomous choice. Scripture consistently treats such persons as a distinct category:
And the little ones that you said would be taken captive, your children who do not yet know good from bad, they will enter the land. (Deuteronomy 1:39, NIV)
For before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. (Isaiah 7:16, NIV)
And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left? (Jonah 4:11, NIV)
6.2 Christ’s Disposition
Jesus’s attitude toward children is decisive:
Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 19:14, ESV)
The kingdom belongs to “such as these.” This is not easily reconciled with the claim that infants are under divine wrath due to imputed Adamic guilt.
David’s confidence regarding his deceased infant son is also significant: “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Samuel 12:23). David expected reunion, suggesting the child’s positive standing before God.
6.3 The Contradiction If Imputed Guilt Is True
If federal imputation is correct, then all Adam’s posterity are guilty from conception, including those who “do not know good from evil.” But if they are guilty, why does Scripture treat their not-knowing as morally significant? Why does God distinguish them as a category? Why does Christ assign the kingdom to such as these?
The federal theologian must either:
Affirm that infants dying unsaved are damned (few will accept this)
Carve out an exception for “elect infants” (WCF 10.3) without clear biblical criteria
Appeal to mystery
Option 2 is telling. If election must rescue infants from imputed guilt, then the lack of personal sin doesn’t matter; only election does. But this makes the distinction between those who know good from evil and those who don’t irrelevant, contradicting Scripture’s consistent treatment of it as significant.
6.4 Confessional Tension
WCF 10.3 states: “Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth.” This language presupposes that infants need regeneration and salvation, which the tradition grounds in imputed Adamic guilt.
Three paths forward present themselves:
First, one might retain the traditional reading of WCF 10.3, accepting the tension with the exegetical argument developed here. This preserves confessional fidelity but leaves the hermeneutical problem unresolved.
Second, one might read WCF 10.3 more broadly as preserving infant salvation without specifying mechanism. On this reading, the Confession affirms that elect infants are saved; it does not define precisely what they are saved from. If infants inherit spiritual deadness but not guilt, they still need regeneration (restoration of communion) and salvation (deliverance from the condition), even if they do not need forgiveness of imputed guilt.
Third, one might argue for confessional refinement, suggesting that WCF 6.3’s claim that original sin conveys “guilt” to posterity requires revision in light of the hermeneutical argument from WCF 1.9. This is the most ambitious path but has precedent in the tradition’s ongoing refinement of confessional language.
This article does not resolve this confessional question but notes its existence. The exegetical and hermeneutical argument stands on its own terms; its implications for confessional subscription require further reflection.
6.5 The Coherent Position
On the view developed here, guilt requires ratification through autonomous choice. Those who cannot discern good from evil cannot ratify the inherited condition. They inherit the situation (spiritual deadness) but incur no personal guilt because they have made no personal choice.
Scripture’s testimony about such persons is thus coherent: they are in a distinct category because they haven’t crossed the threshold from condition to guilt. Christ’s welcome of little ones indicates their standing. This is offered as a strong, coherent implication of the position, not as mathematical proof. The pastoral testimony of Scripture points in this direction; dogmatic certainty exceeds the evidence.
7. Preserving Reformed Concerns
7.1 Universal Depravity
The refinement proposed here fully preserves the doctrine of total depravity. All Adam’s posterity inherit the condition of spiritual deadness. All therefore inevitably orient inward, the will curved in upon itself (incurvatus in se). All actually sin once moral agency is operative. There are no exceptions; the pattern is universal.
What changes is the ground of this universality: not transmitted guilt but transmitted condition. The effect is the same: all need redemption.
7.2 The Necessity of Grace
Apart from divine intervention, no one can turn to God. The condition of spiritual deadness means communion has been retracted; one cannot access what God has withdrawn. Grace must restore the communion before faith is possible. This is why regeneration precedes faith in the Reformed ordo salutis.
The necessity of regenerating grace is thus grounded in the covenant structure of the situation, not merely in divine decree. Grace is necessary because communion has been retracted and only God can restore it.
7.3 Monergistic Salvation
Salvation remains wholly God’s work. The sinner contributes nothing to regeneration; the Spirit alone restores the communion. Faith itself is a gift (Ephesians 2:8), enabled by the restored connection. The refined doctrine strengthens rather than weakens the Reformed commitment to monergism.
7.4 The Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness
Nothing in this proposal affects the positive doctrine of justification. Believers are justified by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, which covers their actual sins, the sins they have personally committed as a result of the inherited condition. Christ’s righteousness is credited to those who have genuinely incurred guilt through their own acts.
Indeed, this clarifies the work of imputation. Christ’s righteousness addresses real moral debt, not a merely forensic liability inherited from Adam. Justification is the divine declaration that the believer is righteous in Christ, righteous with respect to the sins they have actually committed.
7.5 What Changes
What changes is the mechanism of original sin’s transmission, not its effects. The tradition rightly identified universal corruption, inevitable sin, and the necessity of grace. The refinement proposes that these realities are grounded in inherited situation (covenant broken, communion retracted, spiritual deadness) rather than inherited guilt (forensic transfer of Adam’s liability).
This is a relocation of the ground, not a denial of the superstructure. The Reformed concerns that motivated the doctrine of imputed guilt (securing the universality of sin and the necessity of Christ) are fully preserved on the refined view.
8. Anticipated Objections
8.1 “This Undermines Federal Headship”
Federal headship is preserved, not abandoned. Adam remains the covenant head whose act broke the covenant for all posterity. What is refined is the mechanism: headship means we are born into the situation Adam’s covenant-breaking created (communion retracted, spiritual death, inevitable sin), not that we are charged with Adam’s discrete act. Covenantal solidarity is real; forensic fiction is unnecessary.
8.2 “This Leads to Semi-Pelagianism”
Semi-Pelagianism holds that humans can initiate movement toward God apart from grace. Nothing in this proposal suggests any such thing. All Adam’s posterity are spiritually dead, utterly incapable of turning to God, entirely dependent on regenerating grace. The denial of imputed guilt does not entail the affirmation of natural ability. Inherited condition is as debilitating as inherited guilt; it simply locates the problem differently.
8.3 “This Conflicts with the Confession”
The relationship to WCF 6.3 requires careful consideration. The Confession states that Adam’s sin conveyed “guilt” to posterity. If “guilt” means forensic liability for Adam’s specific act, then the present proposal requires confessional refinement. If “guilt” can be read as the guilty condition into which all are born (and from which all actually sin), the proposal may be compatible.
More fundamentally, this article argues from WCF 1.9 (the analogy of faith) against one reading of WCF 6.3. If the hermeneutical argument is sound, it suggests that the tradition erred on this point and that confessional revision is warranted. The Confession itself is subordinate to Scripture; where Scripture speaks more clearly, the Confession must yield. This is not confessional infidelity but confessional integrity.
9. Conclusion
The doctrine of original sin stands, but its mechanism requires refinement. The federal theology claim that Adam’s guilt is imputed to all his posterity cannot be reconciled with Scripture’s explicit teaching that sons do not bear fathers’ iniquity. The analogy of faith (clear texts governing ambiguous ones) requires that Romans 5 be read in a way compatible with Ezekiel 18. This means understanding “all were made sinners” as describing inherited condition rather than imputed guilt.
Adam’s act broke the covenant; God retracted communion. His posterity inherit this situation: born outside the communion that sustained right orientation, spiritually dead, inevitably oriented inward. From this condition, each person sins and thereby incurs personal guilt. Redemption addresses both the condition (regeneration restores communion through the Spirit) and the guilt (justification credits Christ’s righteousness).
This refinement is offered in the spirit of the Reformed tradition: semper reformanda. The concern is not novelty but fidelity: fidelity to the whole counsel of Scripture, read according to its own hermeneutical principles. Indeed, the position articulated here retrieves insights from Zwingli himself, who denied that original sin constitutes guilt apart from actual transgression. If the exegesis is sound and the logic valid, the refinement deserves consideration. If either fails, let it be shown where.
The pastoral implications are significant. The refined doctrine allows us to affirm God’s justice without awkward exceptions. It explains why Scripture treats those incapable of moral discernment as a distinct category. It grounds the necessity of grace in the metaphysics of the human situation rather than merely in divine decree. And it preserves everything the Reformed tradition has rightly valued: the universality of sin, the inability of the natural man, the sovereignty of grace, and the sufficiency of Christ.
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Semper Reformanda - Soli Deo Gloria