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Original sin: shared notes and post-750 development

Moved here from notes/reasoning/original-sin.md in the tier migration. The per-question reasoning now lives on each doctrine’s reasoning page: F08.1 · S14.1 · S14.2 · S14.3.

Original sin: reasoning steps

Verdicts: categories/original-sin.md. Weighing criteria as in justification reasoning: Scripture in context and original language; each father’s polemical setting; date and breadth of witness; explicit beats inferred; unverified texts carry no weight.

Post-750 development by tradition

Catholic

Trent Session V (Waterworth, verified). Canon 2: anathema on saying Adam “has only transfused death, and pains of the body … but not sin also”. Canon 5: in the baptized “there remains concupiscence … the Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin, as being truly and properly sin in those born again”. Augustinian (O2-A, close to C).

Orthodox

Dositheus Decree 6 (crivoice, verified): “hereditary sin flowed to his posterity; so that everyone who is born after the flesh bears this burden”, but “we do not understand [actual] sin” by it. Modern Orthodox writers (e.g. Romanides) reject inherited guilt (to verify). Close to Chrysostom and Athanasius on O2.

Lutheran

AC II (bookofconcord.org, verified): all “are born with sin, that is, without the fear of God, without trust in God, and with concupiscence; and that this disease, or vice of origin, is truly sin”. It sharpens Augustine by calling concupiscence itself sin, which Trent rejects.

Presbyterian

WCF VI.3–5 (opc.org, verified): “the guilt of this sin was imputed”. The corruption is “utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good” and “in those that are regenerated … truly and properly sin”. Federal imputation goes beyond Augustine’s ‘seminal’ model. Total depravity is the sharpest form of O4.

Presbyterian: additional cells (nine-tradition expansion)

  • O2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture n/a/4): WCF VI.3 guilt imputed (Western line, sharpened).
  • O4 (fathers 2/4; Scripture n/a/4): WCF IX.3.

Oriental Orthodox

Sources: Oriental Orthodox confessional sources. Classic formulations only.

  • O1 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 4/4): Affirmed.
  • O2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 3/4): Eastern line: corruption and mortality (to verify).
  • O4 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 2/4): Eastern emphasis (to verify).

Anglican

Sources: Anglican confessional sources. Classic formulations only.

  • O1 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 4/4): Affirmed.
  • O2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): Art. IX: ‘it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation’.
  • O4 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): Art. X.

Reformed Baptist

Sources: Reformed Baptist confessional sources. Classic formulations only.

  • O1 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 4/4): Affirmed.
  • O2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): 1689 6.3: ’the guilt of the sin was imputed’.
  • O4 (fathers 2/4; Scripture 4/4): 1689 9.3.

General Baptist

Sources: General Baptist confessional sources. Classic formulations only.

  • O1 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 4/4): Affirmed.
  • O2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 3/4): SC 1660 art. 10: infants ‘only subject to the first death’, not eternal punishment for Adam’s sin.
  • O4 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 3/4): SC 1660 art. 7.

Anabaptist

Sources: Anabaptist confessional sources. Classic formulations only.

  • O1 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 4/4): Affirmed.
  • O2 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): Dordrecht II: ‘brought upon themselves the wrath of God, and condemnation’.
  • O4 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 3/4): Dordrecht III ‘utter inability’ with universal call.