Original Sin

The Socinian answer to one of the most consequential dogmas of Western Christianity

‘The soul that sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, and the father shall not bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall remain upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall remain upon him.’

Ezekiel 18:20

Introduction: A Dogma and Its Power

The doctrine of original sin is among the most influential and at the same time the most contested dogmas of Western Christianity. Its core idea is radical: the first human, Adam, committed a sin whose guilt, consequences, and moral corruption were inherited by all his descendants. According to this doctrine every person comes into the world as a sinner—guilty before God—before he has thought a single conscious thought or made a single free decision.

This conception has dominated Western theology for more than a millennium and a half. It shaped the understanding of baptism, redemption, Christology, and human nature. It grounded the necessity of infant baptism, formed the picture of a corrupted will, and laid the cornerstone for Anselm’s doctrine of satisfaction as well as Calvin’s doctrine of penal substitution. Hardly any other dogma has so deeply marked Western theology.

And yet: this doctrine is neither clearly grounded in the Bible, nor logically consistent, nor compatible with the character of the just God. Pelagius already showed this in the 5th century—and Fausto Sozzini (1539–1604) carried the critique forward with philological sharpness, exegetical precision, and philosophical consistency. The Socinian rejection of the doctrine of original sin is not a marginal theological position, but a serious, scripture-based alternative that today finds more support in biblical scholarship than ever before.

Historical Background: How Original Sin Arose

The Early Church and the Dispute over Adam

In the early church there was by no means agreement about the consequences of the Fall. Eastern theology—in Origen, John Chrysostom, and John of Damascus—taught that Adam brought mortality and an inclination to sin into the world, but contested the inheritance of moral guilt. Humans inherit Adam’s weakness, not his guilt. This Eastern tradition is alive in Orthodox theology to this day.

In the West it was Pelagius (ca. 360–420) who fundamentally rejected the idea of inherited guilt. He taught: by nature, the human being possesses the capacity to choose the good. Adam’s sin was a bad example, not a transmitted verdict of damnation. God’s grace enables and supports the free will—it does not replace it.

Augustine of Hippo (354–430), in the struggle against Pelagius, developed an increasingly radical doctrine of sin: through Adam’s fall, the entire human race was transformed into a massa damnata (a damned mass). The free will is corrupted, human nature sick to its core. Sin is transmitted biologically, through procreation itself, to all descendants. The Council of Carthage (418 AD) sided with Augustine and made his view binding Western orthodoxy. The Council of Trent (1546) confirmed and intensified it once again: all human beings inherit through Adam’s sin a real guilt—not merely an inclination to evil.

The Problem with Augustine’s Exegesis

Sozzini recognized a fundamental problem: the entire Augustinian doctrine of original sin rested on a mistranslation. Augustine read Romans 5:12 in the Latin Vulgate as ‘in quo omnes peccaverunt’—‘in whom [Adam] all have sinned.’ But the Greek original reads: eph’ hō pantes hēmarton—correctly to be translated as ‘because all have sinned.’ A causal subordinate clause, not a locative. Not: ‘in Adam,’ but: ‘because each one has individually sinned.’ This translation difference is no philological detail—it is the pivot of the entire Western doctrine of original sin.

The Socinian Core Thesis: Consequence without Guilt

Sozzini’s engagement with original sin is differentiated and precise. He does not deny that Adam’s sin had real consequences. What he denies is the moral transferability of this guilt to all descendants.

This distinction—between natural consequences (mortality, weakness) and moral guilt—is the heart of Socinian anthropology. It allows one to take the biblical account of the Fall seriously without falling into theological contradictions.

Exegesis: What Scripture Actually Teaches

a) The Basic Principle: Ezekiel 18

The strongest biblical argument against the doctrine of original sin is found in Ezekiel 18. The whole chapter is an extensive theological argument against the principle of collective or inherited guilt. God speaks with unusual directness:

‘What do you mean by using this proverb in Israel: The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? As I live, declares the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine: the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son. The soul that sins shall die.’

Ezekiel 18:2–4

Here God expressly contradicts the popular belief that children must suffer for the sins of their fathers. He replaces the principle of collective liability with the principle of individual responsibility. Ezekiel 18:20 sums it up: ‘The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, and the father shall not bear the guilt of the son.’ Sozzini emphasizes: when God introduces this principle with an oath formula (‘As I live’), then it is no special case—it is a fundamental statement about God’s being and his justice.

b) The Law: Deuteronomy 24:16

‘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

This legal principle reflects the conviction that God himself judges according to this principle. 2 Kings 14:6 cites it expressly as the rationale for a historical action: Amaziah did not put to death the sons of his father’s murderers, ‘for it is written in the Book of the Law of Moses: Fathers shall not be put to death for their children.’ The principle is understood as divine instruction, not as mere human practice.

c) James 1:14-15: The Origin of Sin

‘But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire [Gr. idias epithymias]. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.’

James 1:14–15

The Greek adjective idias (‘own’) is theologically decisive. James describes sin as a deeply personal process: temptation, consent, deed, consequence. Nowhere is there mention of an inherited guilt, nowhere of a corrupted will that cannot do otherwise. Sin arises through one’s own consent to one’s own desire. Whoever could not yet give such consent because he has no moral consciousness yet cannot yet have sin.

d) Romans 5:12: The Key Passage Reread

‘Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.’

Romans 5:12

Paul names the reason why death affects all: not an inherited Adamic guilt, but each person’s own sinning. The Greek eph’ hō pantes hēmarton—‘because all have sinned’—with the aorist hēmarton describes actions actually performed by each individual. Augustine read in the Vulgate in quo omnes peccaverunt and referred the pronoun to Adam. The Greek original does not bear this interpretation. Paul grounds the universality of death in the universality of one’s own sin—not in a transmitted inherited guilt.

What then about Romans 5:18-19, where Paul speaks of the ‘trespass of one’? Sozzini reads this passage in a salvation-historical and typological way: Paul draws a parallel between Adam and Christ. The contrast does not lie in Adam making us guilty as Christ makes us righteous, but in the fact that Adam’s influence inaugurated the era of death, while Christ’s work inaugurates the era of life. The matter at issue is salvation-historical epochs, not the juridical transfer of guilt.

e) 1 Corinthians 15:21-22: Death and Resurrection

‘For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.’

1 Corinthians 15:21–22

‘To die in Adam’ means in Socinian terms: in the era of mortality inaugurated by Adam, death is the universal human experience. ‘To be made alive in Christ’ means: in the era of resurrection inaugurated by Christ, life will triumph. Paul argues here for the reality of the resurrection—not for a biological transfer of guilt. The focus is on Christ and the hope of life.

Logical Arguments against the Doctrine of Original Sin

Objections and Socinian Answers

Objection 1: ‘In Adam all have died—therefore all are guilty in Adam’

Socinian answer: The death of all humans is a real consequence of the Fall. But death is a natural consequence, not a judicial punishment for personal guilt. Sozzini distinguishes strictly between poena (punishment for one’s own guilt) and malum (an evil one experiences without one’s own guilt). Death belongs to the second category—it is the lot of all mortals, not the punishment of each individual for Adam’s decision.

Objection 2: ‘Psalm 51:7: Conceived already in sin’

Socinian answer: Psalm 51 is a deeply personal prayer of repentance by David after his sin with Bathsheba. The statement ‘conceived in sin and born in sin’ is the poetic language of self-abasement, not a dogmatic doctrinal proposition. The verse describes David’s shock at the depth of his guilt—not a metaphysical statement about the condition of all newborns. Psalms are prayer and poetry, not systematic theology.

Objection 3: ‘If there is no corrupted will, where then does the universality of sin come from?’

Socinian answer: The universal sinfulness of all humans—which Socinians too do not deny—can be explained fully without original sin: through bad upbringing and examples, through a fallen society, through habit and the strength of human desires in a world full of temptations. That all sin does not prove that all are guilty from birth.

Objection 4: ‘Without original sin, one does not really need Christ’

Socinian answer: On the contrary. We do not need Christ in order to extinguish a metaphysical inherited guilt that we have never personally committed—we need him because we have actually sinned, because we need power for repentance, because we need forgiveness for real, our own guilt, and because without the hope of resurrection we would be hopelessly delivered up to death. In Socinian terms, Christ is the redeemer from real guilt and real death.

Theological Consequences

Contemporary Relevance of the Socinian Critique

The Socinian critique of the doctrine of original sin has found wide-ranging support in modern theology and biblical scholarship. The philological criticism of Augustine’s exegesis of Romans 5:12 is today largely consensus among New Testament scholars: the Greek eph’ hō is overwhelmingly understood as causal (‘because’), not as locative (‘in whom’). The whole Augustinian doctrine of original sin thus rests on a translation error.

The Jewish exegetical tradition, from which Paul comes, knows no concept of an inherited Adamic guilt. The rabbinic theology of the 1st century consistently taught personal responsibility—entirely in line with Ezekiel 18. The term yetzer hara (evil inclination) designates a tendency, not a guilt. Sozzini thus stood within an exegetical tradition closer to the biblical original text than the Augustinian interpretation—without knowing it.

The Eastern Orthodoxy, which never adopted the Augustinian doctrine of inherited guilt, sees itself confirmed by modern exegesis. And theologians such as N.T. Wright emphasize today that Romans 5 must be read in the context of 1st-century Jewish thought—and that Augustine’s reading represents a Western-Latin reshaping that would have been foreign to Paul himself.

Fausto Sozzini rejected the doctrine of original sin because it is neither grounded in Holy Scripture nor compatible with divine justice. Adam’s guilt remains with Adam. The human being is born innocent. Adam’s sin had real consequences: it brought mortality, weakness, and a fallen world. But these natural consequences are not moral guilt. Guilt arises only through one’s own conscious transgression—through knowledge, will, and free decision.

This view is not only theologically consistent—it is exegetically well-grounded, philosophically coherent, and honest before the biblical text. It preserves God’s justice, takes human responsibility seriously, and understands redemption as what it biblically is: an invitation to repentance, to renewal, and to following Jesus Christ. Christ does not redeem us from a juridical fiction—he redeems us from our actual guilt and our actual death. That is real redemption.