{"id":18601,"date":"2025-02-17T04:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/?p=18601"},"modified":"2025-04-10T09:35:36","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T13:35:36","slug":"original-sin-biological-or-spiritual-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/article\/longform\/original-sin-biological-or-spiritual-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Original Sin\u2014Biological or Spiritual Problem?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Original sin is not a sexy topic. Most see it as one more symptom of a doom-and-gloom religion, an antiquated dogma that has no place in a scientifically informed age. For traditional Christians, however, original sin is the whole ball game. It is the moral depravity we all inherit; as David says, \u201cSurely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me\u201d (Ps. 51:5 NIV).[1]<\/a><\/sup> This doctrine explains why we desperately need the gospel\u2014it names the problem that Christ\u2019s atonement and resurrection resolved once and forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Some theologians define original sin as the combination of Adam\u2019s first sin (Genesis 3) and <\/em>the moral corruption he transmitted to his descendants. When I use the term \u201coriginal sin,\u201d I\u2019m usually referring to our inborn moral corruption. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

In the secular perspective, our culture vacillates between two theories of what causes human misbehavior: nature <\/em>or nurture<\/em>. \u201cI sin because of how I\u2019m wired neurologically\u201d (nature). \u201cI sin because of the family or neighborhood I grew up in\u201d (nurture). It\u2019s genetics, or culture, that made me do it. In this essay, I will think critically about the first answer regarding nature and sin, which prioritizes biology and raises questions about our physical bodies in relation to original sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To begin, I review how two modern tenets of biology\u2014behavioral genetics and evolutionary psychology\u2014challenge the concept of original sin. Next, I consider several pre-modern theologians who puzzled over Adam\u2019s moral corruption and how it is passed down to his descendants: was it a biological process, or something else? Lastly, I respond with some closing reflections on original sin and the human body in view of the biblical witness.[2]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. For more extensive discussion of these matters, see Hans Madueme, Defending Sin: A Response to the Challenges of Evolution and the Natural Sciences <\/em>(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2024). <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

The Evolution (and Genetics) of Sin<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A steady stream of scientific papers has been trying to identify genetic factors underlying criminal behavior. One of the most striking came out of the Netherlands, a case dubbed \u201cBrunner Syndrome,\u201d highlighting an extended family with an unusual proportion of extremely violent men. One fellow in his early twenties was jailed after raping his sister, then was caught repeatedly fighting with inmates, and later stabbed a warden in the chest. Another individual, after a dismal performance review, attempted to flatten his boss with a car. At least two of them were arsonists, and there were reported cases of voyeurism, exhibitionism, and sudden groping of female relatives.[3]<\/a><\/sup> The bottom line: eight of the men in the family, and none of the women, had a mutation in the gene for monoamine oxidase, an enzyme that regulates serotonin and dopamine levels (neurotransmitters involved in mood, learning, memory, and reward processing). The researchers speculated that deficiencies in monoamine oxidase play a causal role in violent antisocial behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. H. G. Brunner et al., \u201cX-Linked Borderline Mental Retardation with Prominent Behavioral Disturbance: Phenotype, Genetic Localization, and Evidence for Disturbed Monoamine Metabolism,\u201d American Journal of Human Genetics <\/em>52 (1993): 1032\u201339. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

This case raises difficult questions about sin. Most Christians would agree that the behaviors associated with Brunner Syndrome are flagrant instances of human sinfulness. But if these sins are caused by a genetic mutation, then are the behaviors truly culpable, and thus sinful<\/em>? Or should we see them as a-moral symptoms of a biological disease? Mind you, this syndrome is more complex than I\u2019m letting on; there is no proof that the monoamine oxidase mutation is \u201ccausing\u201d people to sin.[4]<\/a><\/sup> Nevertheless, this Dutch case shines a spotlight on a field that analyzes how our behaviors are shaped by our genes (and the environment): behavioral genetics<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. For critical debate, see E. Balaban, J. Alper, and Y. L. Kasamon, \u201cMean Genes and the Biology of Aggression: A Critical Review of Recent Animal and Human Research,\u201d Journal of Neurogenetics <\/em>11, nos. 1\u20132 (1996): 1\u201343. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Behavioral Genetics<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The discipline of behavioral genetics began when the British scientist Sir Francis Galton suggested using twins to study the inheritance of traits, but it has since become highly sophisticated in identifying specific genes associated with specific behavioral traits.[5]<\/a><\/sup> Still, we must not overstate what geneticists are saying by relying on clickbait headlines like \u201cInfidelity Lurks in Your Genes<\/a>\u201d or \u201cOne-in-Three Men Have Violence Gene<\/a>.\u201d Such stories are misleading and give the impression that genes determine our lives. High-profile court cases and lazy journalists sensationalize the far more modest conclusions of scientists. The consensus is that genes do not \u201ccause\u201d behaviors in any straightforward sense; instead, human behaviors are an intricate dance between genes and environment\u2014nature and nurture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. For background, see Jonathan Beckwith, \u201cWhither Human Behavioral Genetics?\u201d in Wrestling With Behavioral Genetics: Science, Ethics, and Public Conversation<\/em>, ed. Erik Parens, Audrey Chapman, and Nancy Press (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 74\u201399. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

A typical Christian response insists that genetic predispositions <\/em>pose no threat to moral accountability. The fact that my genetic makeup increases the likelihood I will be tempted to sin in particular ways does not in itself destroy my moral responsibility\u2014I still transcend my genes. Rather, as Christians maintain, the problem is genetic determinism <\/em>that destroys human agency and wrecks the very idea of sin. This clarification is helpful as far as it goes, but it doesn\u2019t resolve the deeper question about the nature of sin itself. What is sin? <\/em>Is it biological, environmental, or some combination of the two? These fundamental questions come to a head in another branch of biology called evolutionary psychology<\/em>, a discipline that examines human behavior through an evolutionary lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evolutionary Psychology <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species <\/em>in 1859, scientists speculated that human behavior is the result of a long evolutionary process: we have inherited the aggressive instincts and violent tendencies of animals in our distant past, which then explains our disordered relationships today. Books like E. O. Wilson\u2019s Sociobiology: The New Synthesis <\/em>argued that all our behaviors evolved by natural selection.[6]<\/a><\/sup> In this view, the reason human beings are selfish, prideful, violent, adulterous, envious, and so on, is because those vices\u2014which are rooted in our genes\u2014allowed our ancestors to survive and reproduce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. E. O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis <\/em>(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975). <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

More recently, evolutionary psychologists claim that we cannot understand our present behaviors apart from our hunter-gatherer ancestors who, in their estimate, lived 10,000 to two million years ago. The argument goes like this: the brains of our ancestors evolved to solve problems like hunting food, avoiding predators, finding a mate, and minding children. Evolution also gave these hunter-gatherers psychological tendencies to think, feel, and act in ways that made sense in those ancient settings\u2014and those tendencies shaped a wide range of behaviors. But the culture has changed so dramatically from their world to ours that our brains have not kept up: \u201cOur modern skulls house a stone age mind . . . In many cases, our brains are better at solving the kinds of problems our ancestors faced on the African savannahs than they are at solving the more familiar tasks we face in a college classroom or a modern city.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/sup> Behaviors that were favorable for hunter-gatherers are morally inapt for us today. For instance, sloth helped them conserve energy, and greed stored up resources to increase survival\u2014today both sloth and greed are viewed as signs of moral weakness and sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, \u201cEvolutionary Psychology: A Primer<\/a>,\u201d Center for Evolutionary Psychology, Santa Barbara, CA, 1997. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Here is the theological problem with these evolutionary models of human behavior. They have no place for a historical fall of man: they are non-lapsarian <\/em>(lapsus <\/em>is Latin for \u201cfall\u201d). In the biblical narrative, the goodness of the original creation (Genesis 1 and 2) is ruptured by the fall of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3). In the evolutionary story, by contrast, sin\u2014or at least the concept of humans doing undesirable actions\u2014has always been part of the created order. Human sin originated in the violent instincts and aggression of our evolutionary ancestors. Thus, sin is not just a biological problem; humanity as such is inherently sinful.[8]<\/a><\/sup> Without recognizing a real historical state of original righteousness, all evolutionary views imply that being human is impossible apart from sin\u2014to be human is to be sinful. <\/em>This position undermines the logic of faith; apparently, God used evolution to make human beings sinners from the very beginning, only to turn around and offer redemption. By pitting God the redeemer against God the creator, the biblical story is turned on its head and now makes no sense at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. A major difficulty for a professing Christian evolutionist would be to clarify at what point in the evolutionary process our amoral ancestors became morally accountable human beings (and thus sinners). <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

The Transmission of Sin<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The question of sin and its relation to the physical body is not only a modern question. Augustine famously argued that original sin is transmitted from father to children through sexual lust. It\u2019s as if sin itself is a physical property passed down by a biological process.[9]<\/a><\/sup> In the twelfth century, an obscure group of theologians associated with Anselm of Laon (d. 1117 AD) took this idea to its logical conclusion.[10]<\/a><\/sup> Quoting one of these theologians:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
9. Elizabeth Clark, \u201cVitiated Seeds and Holy Vessels: Augustine\u2019s Manichean Past,\u201d in Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism<\/em>, ed. Karen King (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1988), 387. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. Philip Reynolds, Food and the Body: Some Peculiar Questions in High Medieval Theology<\/em> (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 23\u201349. <\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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When Adam transgressed God\u2019s commandment, his complexion was made weak and corrupt through that transgression, as the penalty for sin, and all of the parts [of his body] were weakened. Now, since we were all in Adam\u2019s loins, particles [i.e., atoms] have flowed from him into us, and from him too corruption has flowed into us. This corruption is called \u2018sin\u2019 because it is the penalty for sin, and it is called \u2018original\u2019 because it flows from the original source [of humankind].[11]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

11. Sententiae divinae paginae <\/em>in Anselms von Laon systematische Sentenzen<\/em>, ed. Franz Bliemetzrieder (M\u00fcnster, Westphalia: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1919), 33, cited in Reynolds, Food and the Body<\/em>, 25. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

They believed that original corruption is transmitted by physical particles flowing from Adam\u2019s body into our own bodies since we were present in his loins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This physical doctrine of original sin is obsolete today, but it epitomizes the dangers of a biological understanding of original sin. It treats sin like a physical contagion. In fairness to Augustine, his hereditary theory of sin did not imply a biological mechanism of transmission. It was meant to affirm that all human beings are born morally depraved because of the first sin; original sin is by generation, he said, not imitation (he was fond of citing Rom. 5:12). Starting from Adam, the moral stain of sin was transmitted down the generations from parents to children. Augustine\u2019s different ways of telling that story inspired the two most common theories for the transmission of original sin, and they both involve the soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traducianism<\/em> states that original corruption is transmitted from parental souls to the souls of offspring, whereas creationism<\/em> teaches that God creates each fresh soul individually before uniting it with the body at birth (or conception) where it then contracts sin.[12]<\/a><\/sup> Throughout his life Augustine vacillated between these two ideas and influenced later Catholic and Protestant thought. He worried that if creationism were true, then our bodies\u2014or worse, God!\u2014were responsible for original sin: either God creates sinful souls from the start, or the soul becomes sinful when it joins the body.[13]<\/a><\/sup> Instead, Augustine was drawn to traducianism since he believed original sin is essentially a problem of the soul.[14]<\/a><\/sup> But by the end of his life, he still wavered between the two.[15]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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12. Creationism\u201d here concerns the origin of souls, not<\/em> a theory about origins. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13. Augustine, The Nature and Origin of the Human Soul <\/em>I.6.6, I.11.13. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14. Augustine, On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis <\/em>X.25.41\u201326.44. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15. Augustine, Revisions <\/em>I.1.3 in Revisions<\/em>, trans. Boniface Ramsey (Hyde Park, New York: New City, 2010), 28. <\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

From the fifth to the twelfth century, most medieval thinkers shared Augustine\u2019s uncertainty between creationism and traducianism. By the sixteenth century, however, traducianism was viewed suspiciously. Under Pope Leo X, creationism became official Catholic dogma in the Fifth Lateran Council (1512\u201317 AD). According to Catholic creationists, since God infuses the soul into the body, the defiled body is so closely connected with the soul that the latter becomes defiled. This view implied that the body spreads original sin by defiling the soul, but how can the body (physical) defile the soul (spiritual) if bodily corruption is ostensibly physical?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Protestant Reformers wrestled with the same questions. Lutheran theologians like Johann Gerhard (1582\u20131637 AD) defended traducianism, arguing that our souls are not created but propagated from Adam and Eve. Similarly, the former Wittenberg professor Johann Andreas Quenstedt (1617\u201388 AD) wrote that \u201cnot the body, but the soul, is the first and immediate subject of sin.\u201d[16]<\/a><\/sup> Like so many of his Lutheran colleagues, Quenstedt accepted traducianism but was agnostic about the specific mode by which parental souls are transmitted to their offspring: \u201cThat the soul is propagated by parents procreating children, and that souls are not immediately created or infused by God, is sufficiently manifest from the Holy Scriptures; but the mode has not been defined, and, therefore, we refrain from its determination and definition.\u201d[17]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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16. Johann Andreas Quenstedt, Theologia didactico-polemica <\/em>(Wittenberg, 1685), 62, cited in Heinrich Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church<\/em>, trans. Charles A. Hay and Henry E. Jacobs, 5th ed. (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1876), 270. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

17. Quenstedt, Theologia <\/em>I.519, cited in Schmid, Doctrinal Theology<\/em>, 167. <\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

One of the few Reformed dogmaticians defending traducianism was William G. T. Shedd (1820\u201394 AD), an American Presbyterian. He believed that sin inheres in a \u201cpsychical substance,\u201d which meant that \u201cthe transmission of sin requires the transmission of the sinning soul.\u201d[18]<\/a><\/sup> Just as my body is \u201cin\u201d Adam and derives from Adam, so my soul is \u201cin\u201d Adam and derives from him. The corruption of the parental soul is transmitted to the souls of each offspring: \u201cjust as each human body is generated from a seed separated from Adam\u2019s body, so every soul is generated from a \u2018seed\u2019 separated from Adam\u2019s soul and bears the sin that its parent soul contracted, as well as the same inclination toward sin, that is concupiscence.\u201d[19]<\/a><\/sup> Unlike Shedd, however, most Reformed divines defended creationism. Some were agnostic, but most held that the soul arrives morally pure from the hands of God and then is defiled when it contacts the body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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18. William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology<\/em>, ed. Alan W. Gomes, 3rd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2003), 446. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

19. Resnick, introduction to Odo, On Original Sin<\/em>, 27. <\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

These see-sawing views on sin\u2019s transmission will give you whiplash! Nevertheless, a core question was whether original corruption is a biological process. Creationists were caught between a rock and a hard place: if God creates sinless souls that then cleave to bodies, our physical bodies must be transmitting sin\u2014or, worse yet, God creates<\/em> sinful souls for all Adam\u2019s descendants. Traducianism has its own problems, of course, but because it insists that sinful souls are transmitted from parents to offspring, original sin is not a physical process, nor is God the instigator. The souls of Adam and Eve were corrupted by the first sin, and ever since original corruption has passed down from parental souls to the souls of their offspring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the Nature of Original Sin<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To recap, we have two problems on our hands: how to think about sin in relation to our bodies, and how sin gets passed down from Adam to his descendants. While these are deep waters, God\u2019s Word can guide us through them. Let\u2019s try to take each in turn . . . without drowning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, original sin is not biological<\/em>. Scripture always assumes that human beings are morally responsible. The biblical concept of sin presupposes that God holds us accountable for what we think, say, and do. Deeper still, Jesus says that sins spring \u201cout of the abundance of the heart\u201d (Matt. 12:34\u201335). The heart <\/em>most fully discloses moral agency and is not reducible to the body (e.g., Gen. 6:5; Ps. 14:1\u20133; Mark 7:21; Rom. 3:9\u201320). If we blame sin on the body, then we are essentially blaming God\u2019s creation\u2014and thus blaming God the creator. After all, I\u2019m not morally responsible for injuring my knee or developing Alzheimer\u2019s disease, but I am<\/em> responsible for envy or pride. I agree with Herman Bavinck on the ontology or nature of sin: it is ethical-spiritual, not physical-material.[20]<\/a><\/sup> Biology cannot cause sin because we are not culpable for biological facts that are true of us; rather, sin is caused through our moral agency as human persons, which derives from the seat of the soul.[21]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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20. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics<\/em>, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003\u20138), 3:128. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

21. For a developed argument, see Madueme, Defending Sin<\/em>, 285\u2013315. <\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Yet humans are embodied<\/em> creatures. When Paul warns us not to \u201cpresent your members [i.e., bodies] to sin as instruments for unrighteousness\u201d (Rom. 6:13), he\u2019s assuming that original sin is expressed through<\/em> our bodies. Here and elsewhere, Scripture reveals that indwelling sin takes advantage of our bodily needs and desires. In the words of John Murray, \u201cThough not the seat of sin, the body becomes depraved. It becomes the agent of sin and its members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. The body is a sinful body and thus the body of sin (Rom. 6:6).\u201d[22]<\/a><\/sup> A key difference between humans and fallen angels is that our sinning, unlike theirs, is conditioned by our creaturely embodiment. We serve our bodily appetites, writes Paul, rather than the Lord Jesus (Rom. 16:18). Our bodies are not evil, nor do they cause sin, but \u201ccorporeal flesh is weak because of its physical needs and desires, and therefore easy prey for sin.\u201d[23]<\/a><\/sup> Genetic and other biological predispositions are separate from concupiscence or original corruption. Elsewhere, within the doctrine of sin, I have suggested that genetic predispositions are a form of external<\/em> temptation even though they are positionally \u201cinternal\u201d to our bodies.[24]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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22. John Murray, \u201cOrigin of Man,\u201d in Collected Writings of John Murray<\/em>, 4 vols. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1977), 2:15. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

23. Robert Gundry, S\u014dma in Biblical Theology, with Emphasis on Pauline Anthropology <\/em>(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 137. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

24. See Madueme, Defending Sin<\/em>, 278: \u201cGenetic predispositions are positionally internal to our bodies since they are located at the level of the genome, but hamartiologically they are external: such predispositions influence our personalities, temperaments, sensitivities, and the like, but these are not the stuff of original corruption. Sin arises from the soul and expresses itself in and through the variabilities of our embodiment.\u201d <\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Second, original sin is imputed<\/em>. In Romans 5:12\u201321 and 1 Corinthians 15:21\u201322, Paul draws a tight connection between Adam\u2019s sin and human sinning. Augustinian realists interpreted these texts as teaching that Adam\u2019s sin caused his descendants to be guilty of that same sin and, consequently, born in a state of moral corruption.[25]<\/a><\/sup> Reformed federalism<\/a> shares the same view of original guilt and corruption but doesn\u2019t root it in a metaphysical realism.[26]<\/a><\/sup> On the contrary, they rightly take Adam as the federal head of the human race based on the parallelism of Romans 5:12\u201321. Hence God counts us as guilty of the first sin and, therefore, punishes us with inborn corruption.[27]<\/a><\/sup> This parallelism contrasts Adam as the biological<\/em> and covenantal head of humanity to Christ as the spiritual<\/em> and covenantal head of redeemed humanity. Adam is the federal head of all humanity, while Christ is the federal head of those reborn by the Spirit (cf. John 1:13, 3:3\u20138; 1 John 2:29, 3:9, 4:7, 5:1, 4, 18; James 1:18; and 1 Pet. 1:3, 23). Adam\u2019s disobedience was imputed to his descendants and brought sin, condemnation, and death; Christ\u2019s righteousness was imputed to those united to him and brought grace, justification, and eternal life. Interestingly, as we\u2019ll see, this federalist account potentially resolves the impasse between creationists and traducianists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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25. For an analysis of Augustinian realism, see Oliver Crisp, \u201cOn Behalf of Augustinian Realism,\u201d Toronto Journal of Theology<\/em> 35, no. 2 (2020): 124\u201333. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

26. As Bavinck notes, \u201cFederalism certainly does not rule out the truth contained in realism; on the contrary, it fully accepts it<\/em>. It proceeds from it but does not confine itself to it. It recognizes a unity of nature on which the federal unity depends.\u201d Reformed Dogmatics<\/em>, 3:104, my emphasis. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

27. In this paragraph, I\u2019m drawing on Hans Madueme, \u201cAn Augustinian-Reformed View,\u201d in Original Sin and the Fall: Five Views<\/em>, ed. J. B. Stump and Chad Meister (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2020), 24\u201325. <\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Pauline Realism?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In a recent essay, Marcus Johnson offers a stimulating proposal for the transmission of sin.[28]<\/a><\/sup> He criticizes the logic of federalism\u2019s account of imputed guilt and inherited corruption. Original guilt is a legal declaration of guilt for humanity under Adam\u2019s headship, which in turn causes moral corruption. The one category is legal, the other moral. Johnson writes, \u201cThose who hold this position have not made clear, in my view, why a forensic declaration of guilt\/condemnation necessarily or (theo-) logically entails a corruption of nature, unless by divine ordination (which is difficult to sustain biblically).\u201d[29]<\/a><\/sup> Furthermore, he argues, Reformed federalists disagree among themselves about the relationship between imputed guilt and corruption.[30]<\/a><\/sup> To put it simply, if these theologians can\u2019t agree among themselves about the connection between imputed guilt and inherited corruption, then maybe there\u2019s something wrong with that whole way of thinking. Maybe the idea of imputed guilt has run its course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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28. Marcus Johnson, \u201cA Way Forward on the Question of the Transmission of Original Sin,\u201d in Evangelical Calvinism: Essays Resourcing the Continuing Reformation of the Church<\/em>, ed. Myk Habets and Bobby Grow (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012), 200\u2013221. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

29. Johnson, \u201cA Way Forward,\u201d 204. Or again: \u201cA forensic imputation of guilt can no more cause moral degradation than a forensic imputation of righteousness can cause moral renovation\u201d (219). <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

30. Johnson, \u201cA Way Forward,\u201d 202\u20133. <\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Johnson\u2019s own position\u2014Pauline realism\u2014emphasizes the analogy between the union that Christ has with believers and the union between Adam and his offspring. Building on the New Testament emphasis on union with Christ as life-giving and personal (e.g., Romans 6; 1 Corinthians 15; Eph. 5:29\u201332; Gal. 2:20; Col. 2), Johnson interprets the Adam-Christ analogy through the lens of union. Just as union with Christ has legal and <\/em>transformative benefits (1 Cor. 1:30), so too union with Adam has legal and transformative effects, namely, guilt and corruption. Just as there is only one union with Christ from which issue forth the inseparable benefits of justification, sanctification, and glorification, so too \u201cby virtue of our singular, realistic union with Adam we experience both the guilt and condemnation of his primal trespass as well as the corrupt condition into which he fell.\u201d[31]<\/a><\/sup> Original corruption is just one of the many consequences of being united with Adam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

31. Johnson, \u201cA Way Forward,\u201d 216. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

There is much to like about Johnson\u2019s Pauline realism and how it incorporates the strengths of Augustinian realism and Reformed federalism. Pauline realism fits well with early Reformed accounts of \u201cmediate\u201d imputation where guilt follows the corruption inherited from Adam; sin is transmitted as natural propagation from Adam to his descendants.[32]<\/a><\/sup> However, while I agree with Johnson\u2019s keen insights about union with Christ, I dispute the analogy with Adam. We are not \u201cin Adam\u201d the same way we are \u201cin Christ.\u201d I cannot defend the point here, but the analogy between Adam and Christ in Romans 5:12\u201321 fits better with imputation than union.[33]<\/a><\/sup> Besides, our union with Christ is a union secured in and through the Spirit (cf. 2 Cor. 3:18), a most precious truth that has no plausible parallel in the idea of our having union with Adam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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32. For documentation, see Robert Letham, The Westminster Assembly: Reading Its Theology in Historical Context <\/em>(Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2009), 198\u2013223. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

33. See Hans Madueme, \u201cMea Culpa: An Apology for Original Guilt,\u201d Mid-America Journal of Theology<\/em> 32 (2021): 7\u201334. <\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The nagging problem is divine justice. Johnson\u2019s thesis implies that every human being is condemned to indwelling corruption by virtue of their realistic union with Adam; that corruption in turn causes all the sins we commit against God. Yet, unless I am personally guilty for my corrupt state, this situation is manifestly unfair\u2014indeed, God would be unjust to hold me accountable for any <\/em>sin, since all sins stem from my inner corruption. This dilemma of divine justice explains the later doctrinal development in the seventeenth century from mediate to immediate<\/em> imputation in the Reformed understanding of original sin. The notion of immediate imputation clarifies that it is on the basis of God\u2019s legal reckoning of Adam\u2019s sin to every descendant that he then \u201ccreates every member of the race in the same state of corruption that befell Adam\u2019s body and soul after his \u2018original sin.\u2019\u201d[34]<\/a><\/sup> Since God perpetually imposes the penal state of corruption on all of Adam\u2019s descendants, each of us must be personally guilty<\/em>. Otherwise, God would be unjust in condemning all human beings to original corruption through no fault of their own<\/em>. A mere biological, or even metaphysical, connection to Adam is not a strong enough basis to hold me morally accountable. Thus, the so-called Pauline realism position doesn\u2019t offer a convincing account of why God is just to punish all of Adam\u2019s descendants with moral depravity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

34. Andrew M. Leslie, \u201cRetrieving a Mature Reformed Doctrine of Original Sin: A Conversation with Some Recent Proposals,\u201d International Journal of Systematic Theology <\/em>22, no. 3 (2020): 352. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

In short, in Reformed federalism God counts all Adam\u2019s descendants guilty of the first sin\u2014since Adam was the federal head of the human race\u2014and, therefore, punishes them with innate corruption. And just like that, in the twinkling of an eye, the stalemate between creationism and traducianism vanishes. Both positions are now moot explanations of the transmission of sin. Instead of seeing original corruption as something transmitted from soul to soul or by a biological process, we should interpret it as God\u2019s judicial punishment that follows the imputation of Adam\u2019s sin to all his descendants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Closing, Know Thyself<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Understanding ourselves as sinners is not merely an intellectual exercise but part of Christian wisdom. As John Calvin said, \u201cnearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.\u201d[35]<\/a><\/sup> Calvin is not calling us to introspection or probing the psyche. His point is that if we want to grow in knowing God, we should know what Scripture teaches about the human condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

35. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion<\/em>, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, ed. John T. McNeill, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 2001), 1.1.1. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Knowing ourselves as sinners goes a long way toward self-understanding. Original sin is one of the most incomprehensible mysteries in all of theology, but \u201cwithout this mystery,\u201d Blaise Pascal wrote, \u201cwe should be incomprehensible to ourselves.\u201d[36]<\/a><\/sup> This doctrine illuminates so much of human experience. But our culture is often confused on this point, tending to reduce sin to genetics or some other dimension of our physicality. Recognizing the proper place of biology and our bodies in a Christian doctrine of sin dignifies us as creatures made in God\u2019s image\u2014not only that, but it dignifies us as creatures who are sinners <\/em>though still God\u2019s image-bearers. <\/em>We are<\/em> really sinners. Of course, if we are sinners, then and only then<\/em> can we receive God\u2019s mercy and grace. Only then can we truly delight in the glad tidings of great joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

36. Blaise Pascal, Pascal\u2019s Pens\u00e9es<\/em>, trans. Martin Turnell (London: Harvill, 1962), 170. <\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Does our biology determine our behavior? If so, are we really responsible for our sin?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18611,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Hans Madueme \u2022 Longform Essay \u2022 February 17","_seopress_titles_desc":"Does our biology determine our behavior? If so, are we really responsible for our sin?","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[32,1968,8,38],"tags":[600,956,2028,843,102,235,1280,493,2005,2025,740,85,474],"scripture-reference":[],"post_folder":[],"ppma_author":[2016],"class_list":["post-18601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-february-2025","category-longform","category-theme","tag-adam-eve","tag-anthropology","tag-biology","tag-brain-science","tag-gospel","tag-human-nature","tag-humanity","tag-morality","tag-original-goodness","tag-original-sin","tag-redemption","tag-science","tag-sin"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Madueme-Sin-Article-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-01-13 11:44:45","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"authors":[{"term_id":2016,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"hans-madueme","display_name":"Hans Madueme","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Madueme-Author.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Madueme-Author.jpg"},"author_category":"","job_title":"","church_city_state":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","church_site":"","user_url":"","description":"Hans Madueme<\/b>, MD, PhD, is Professor of Theological Studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, GA. After completing a residency in Internal Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, he received an MDiv and a PhD in systematic theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Dr. Madueme\u2019s latest book is Defending Sin: A Response to the Challenges of Evolution and the Natural Sciences<\/a> . Dr. Madueme is a ruling elder at St. Elmo Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga (PCA). He and his wife and their two children live in Flintstone, GA."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18601"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19725,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18601\/revisions\/19725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18601"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-reference","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-reference?post=18601"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=18601"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=18601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}