From Genesis to Judgment: Original Sin Fully Explained

Why does so much evil exist in the world? Why do men murder? Why do countries go to war? Why do people exploit others? Why do we live in a world marked by human evil?

Foundational to answering these questions is the doctrine of original sin.

Original sin means that all human beings inherit the corruption of sin. And due to this inherited corruption, all people sin and are liable to judgment. At the most basic level, therefore, original sin describes an ongoing desire for evil that blooms into additional sins and makes one liable to greater judgment.

To understand this often-neglected doctrine better, the following article answers a number of key questions related to the doctrine of original sin.

Does the Bible support the idea of original sin?

The Bible does not use the phrase original sin. The phrase does, however, describe the Bible’s teaching on sin and sin’s universal reach.

Original sin is the conclusion to basic questions we all should ask, like:

Why does everyone die?

If we turn to the Bible, we see that death is the consequence of sin (Gen 2:17; Rom 6:23). At the same time, everyone dies. That means that everyone must sin (Rom 5:12). By this reasoning, we have a starting point for the doctrine of original sin: since all die, all must sin.

Why does everyone sin?

When Adam sinned, God exiled him east of Eden. Immediately afterwards, we learn that sin now crouches at the door and aims to overpower Cain (Gen 4:7). Not long after, just before the flood, we find that the thoughts and the heart of mankind have become “evil continually” (Gen 6:5). Even after the flood, God still affirms that “the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen 8:21 ESV).

Within the story of Genesis, this evil intent of the heart follows from Adam and Eve’s originating sin in Genesis 3. Something changed when Adam sinned and was cast out of Eden. This something affected all people and turned their desires towards evil. Christians have called this reality original sin.

How does original sin affect us?

The Bible speaks about a law (or principle) of sin that resides in our flesh (Rom 7:23). It vies to dominate us by leading us to consent to sinful choices (1 Pet 2:11).

Sometime after God exiled Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden, he informed Cain that “sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it” (Gen 4:7 ESV). Sin, like a predator, desires to master Cain, but he must wrestle with it. Both Cain’s subsequent murder of his brother Abel and the vengeful society constructed by Cain and his progeny illustrate that evil desires for vengeance propagate across families (e.g., Gen 4:24).

In the New Testament, Paul personifies sin in ways similar to Genesis 4 (Rom 6:16–17). A little later in Romans, Paul explains, “I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members” (Rom 7:23 ESV).

This law of sin within Paul’s flesh (“members”) wars with Paul’s mind or “inner being” (7:22). In other words, this “evil” that “lies close at hand” resides in Paul’s flesh and wars against the law of his mind (Rom 7:21, 23). This basic conflict explains why Paul speaks of the need to renew one’s mind to present one’s body to God (Rom 12:1–2).

In other words, original sin affects all people today. Sin resides within us. It lies in wait like a predator to devour us. But shockingly, this thing lies within our own hearts. Original sin names this law of sin within the flesh of all people.

Are people born with original sin?

Original sin transfers from parent to child through natural generation.

The Bible develops this argument in the early chapters of Genesis. In Genesis 2:17, God identifies death as a punishment for sin. Then the murders committed by Cain and Lamech in Genesis 4 show that sin spread across the world. Finally, Genesis 5 clinches the argument. The chapter outlines a genealogy with a repeated and intentional refrain: “and he died … and he died … and he died.” The entire chapter tells us that everyone born dies—that is, unless God does a miraculous act to prevent it (Gen 5:24 ESV)!

Genesis 5 also tells us that children inherit the likeness of their parents. For example, Genesis 5:3 says, “When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth” (Gen 5:3 ESV).

Contextually, this likeness includes sin and death. Verse 5 tells us of Adam, “and he died”; verse 8 then says of Adam’s son Seth, “and he died.” By being in the likeness of his father, Seth became liable to death like Adam. And death, as Genesis 2:17 and the Pentateuch in general tell us, is the consequence of sin.¹ As sin universally entered into the world through Adam, so does death. Since everyone dies, it follows that everyone sins.

Somehow, sin begets sin through procreation. Genesis 1–5 confirms this teaching. And the story of the Ark and Flood (Gen 6–9) highlight the evil of abiding sin.

The apostle Paul reads Genesis in similar ways. In Romans 5:12, he reasons that “just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (ESV).

Paul spends the rest of the chapter contrasting Adam and his sin with Christ and his sacrifice. Each man affects many others: Adam as being the source of sin; Christ as being the source of righteousness. Paul will make similar arguments elsewhere (1 Cor 15:45–49). In simplest form, Paul says, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor 15:22 ESV).

Original sin not only describes our evil hearts but also how sin originates. Sin originates by natural generation. The Bible does not tell us exactly how it occurs but only that it does happen.

Does original sin make us liable for judgment?

The most controversial aspect of original sin has to do with judgment. Does original sin only incline us towards actual (or personal) sins? Or does original sin involve the imputation of guilt as well and, in and of itself, make us condemned and liable for judgment?

Before providing an answer, let me quote a couple Bible verses that have led theologians to answer yes.

• In Psalm 51:5, David says, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (ESV). Many see this verse teaching that even in conception, infants can be described as sinful and therefore liable to guilt.
• Ephesians 2:3 says we “were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (ESV). Put simply, by natural generation,²

Paul says people are liable to wrath. And wrath signifies God’s just punishment of sin in Scripture. In other words, the natural condition of people apart from Christ is one that deserves wrath. The implication here is that all people come into the world in a sinful condition.

Putting these passages together then, it seems likely that Paul affirms that being born outside of Christ and so in sin makes us children who deserve wrath due to inherited sin.

For the most part, the Augustinian and Reformed tradition uses passages like the ones above to conclude that original sin not only creates an inclination towards sin but is itself worthy of judgment. Therefore, original sin makes us liable for judgment. As I will note below, some people have disputed this aspect of original sin.

Is original sin a sickness?

The Bible sometimes talks about sin as a sickness or a disease. But when it does so, it speaks metaphorically. For example, Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV) says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” The immediate context shows that this sickness of the heart refers to one’s way of life: moral acts (e.g., Jer 17:5, 7, 10).

Sickness of the heart became a common way that Christians have spoken of original sin. Original sin is talked about as a contagious disease. For example, Cyprian of Carthage (210–258) said that

how much more should an infant not be prohibited, who, recently born, has not sinned at all, except that, born carnally according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the first death from the first nativity. He approaches more easily from this very fact to receive the remission of sins because those which are remitted are not his own sins, but the sins of another.³

Here one sees the basic elements of original sin. This sin comes through natural generation (“born carnally”). This contagion makes one guilty and so requires “the forgiveness of sins.” Cyprian uses the language of “the sins of another” to refer to Adam’s originating sin or perhaps the originating sin of a parent.

Other theologians like Augustine or John Calvin would self-consciously follow Cyprian. Augustine argued that because of Adam’s sin, all people born after him inherited a sinful condition, which he calls “the contagion.”⁴ John Calvin likewise uses the same metaphor of a “contagion” (or as some translate, “pollution”) to define original sin.⁵

In sum, original sin is not literally a biological sickness. But the metaphor of bodily disease illustrates how original sin transfers across generations.

So is original sin transmitted?

If original sin acts metaphorically like a contagion, how exactly does it transfer from parents to children? Over the years, three popular views have appeared.⁶

1. Realist

Some hold to a realist view that through insemination, a child receives original sin or concupiscence. Usually, this view affirms that we contract original sin since we were really in Adam when he sinned. Thus, when Adam sinned, we too are included in his sinful act.

Hebrews 7:10, for instance, speaks of Levi being in the loins of Abraham, lending biblical precedent for this idea of being “in” one’s ancestors. It also helps to explain how Jesus avoided the contagion of original sin since he was born of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. No regular insemination occurred. Therefore, Jesus did not inherit original sin.

2. Naturalist

Some hold more generally that natures beget like natures. If one has a sinful nature, then they beget children with sinful natures, too.

While possible, this view awkwardly speaks of created natures as sinful—but everything God created was “very good” (Gen 1:31). Instead though, one can speak of created natures and corrupted good natures. This view is also possible.

3. Federal

Some hold that Adam acts as our covenantal representative. And so all people in Adam or born after him share in the penalty of sin. Sometimes this means that an imputation of alien guilt occurs.⁷ At other times, the connection is expressed more generally. Key passages for this view include Romans 5:12 and 1 Corinthians 15:22.

I favor the third view. It best explains Paul’s arguments in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 that believers are “in Christ,” in parallel to how we were “in Adam” (e.g., “in Adam all die”; 1 Cor 15:22), in ways that the realist and naturalist view struggle to do. If my union with Christ is not based on a seminal, ancestral, or procreative relationship but a representative one, then so too, it seems, was my relationship to Adam.

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How is original sin different from personal (actual) sin?

Original sin refers to an inherited corruption and guilt. Personal sins, traditionally called actual sins, refer to specific acts of rebellion against God and nature.

Augustine explains that “children are born in sin, not, as the true faith teaches us, in actual personal sin, but in original sin, and hence need the grace, as we say in the Creed, of the forgiveness of sins.”⁸

Although infants need the grace of forgiveness, they do not commit personal or actual sins. Rather, they must be forgiven due to original sin. Augustine comes to this conclusion because of passages like Genesis 17:14 which say that infants not circumcised will be cut off from God’s people. As Augustine explains, “the child has no personal responsibility for the neglect, and that the only guilt that makes the destruction of his soul just is his implication in original sin.”⁹

This distinction helps us make sense of the natural corruption and disordered desires that humans face. They are the effect of original sin, but they are not the same thing as the actual or personal sins we commit. It also helps us as we think about the fate of infants or the disabled. No infant has committed a “high-handed sin,” for example (Num 15:30).¹⁰

Did Augustine invent original sin?

Augustine of Hippo (354–430) crystallized the doctrine of original sin, but he did not invent it. As he argued for his position, he pointed to earlier thinkers like Irenaeus of Lyons (130–202) and Cyprian of Carthage (210–258). Further, the language of original sin aims to capture the large-scale biblical teaching that all people inherit the corruption and guilt of sin. So even if Augustine was the first to use the term original sin, that does not mean he invented the doctrine.

One reason why Augustine is so often credited with developing and crystallizing the doctrine of original sin has to do with his opposition to Pelagianism. In the early 400s, Augustine came into conflict with a British monk named Pelagius. Pelagius (or at least some who followed him) was thought to have denied original sin, or as one accusation against Pelagius put it, “That the sin of Adam injured only himself and not the human race.”¹¹

Through that conflict, Augustine solidified a standard Western approach to the doctrine of original sin. In short, Augustine argued that because of Adam’s sin, all people born after him inherited a sinful condition, which he calls “a contagion,”¹² using traditional language found in the writings of Cyprian. This brings guilt and leads to further acts of sin. With regard to the guilt of original sin, Augustine says, “The guilt of this concupiscence, regeneration alone remits, even as natural generation contracts it.”¹³

This contagion spreads through sex and procreation. Or as Augustine puts it, “carnal concupiscence from which man who is born therefrom contracts original sin.”¹⁴ And elsewhere he says of Adam, “By this hidden corruption, that is, his carnal concupiscence, he infected in himself all who were to come from his stock.”¹⁵ In his City of God, Augustine speaks of “the inheritance of sin and death which we have received through generation.”¹⁶ The word “generation” here means childbirth.

Elsewhere, he identifies the particular inheritance of sin with “a rebellious concupiscence.”¹⁷ The word concupiscence means sinful desires that are both sinful themselves and lead to further sins.¹⁸ Augustine elsewhere calls it a “law of sin which dwells in our members,” drawing upon Paul’s wording in Romans 7.¹⁹ Hence, for Augustine concupiscence means much the same thing as original sin.

Are there different views on original sin?

While all Christian traditions affirm a form of Adamic influence on subsequent generations, they at times vary in how they express that teaching. These differences should not be exaggerated, however. All affirm that something fundamentally changed when Adam sinned, and that sin and death forever altered the landscape of the world. Now we need Christ to save us.

Taking our start at the Protestant Reformation, we see that the Reformed, Lutherans, and Roman Catholics all spoke about original sin in somewhat different ways.

1. John Calvin

John Calvin followed Augustine on original sin. He affirmed that original sin refers to both inherited corruption and guilt. In agreement with Augustine, Calvin speaks of original sin as concupiscence.²⁰ In his own words, he defines original sin as the

hereditary corruption and depravity of our nature, extending to all the parts of the soul, which first makes us obnoxious to the wrath of God, and then produces in us works which in Scripture are termed works of the flesh. This corruption is repeatedly designated by Paul by the term sin (Gal. 5:19).²¹

Calvin further uses the traditional language, sourced in Cyprian and Augustine, of contagion in describing original sin. Unlike Cyprian, however, Calvin avoids the notion that we need forgiveness for “the sins of another.” Rather, we each receive this residing contagion in ourselves. He explains,

being thus perverted and corrupted in all the parts of our nature, we are, merely on account of such corruption, deservedly condemned by God, to whom nothing is acceptable but righteousness, innocence, and purity. This is not liability for another’s fault. For when it is said, that the sin of Adam has made us obnoxious to the justice of God, the meaning is not, that we, who are in ourselves innocent and blameless, are bearing his guilt, but that since by his transgression we are all placed under the curse, he is said to have brought us under obligation. Through him, however, not only has punishment been derived, but pollution [or contagion] instilled, for which punishment is justly due.²²

Importantly, Calvin wants to avoid saying that original sin is someone else’s. Rather, we each receive this residing contagion and bear our own accountability for it.

2. Thomas Cranmer

Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformers generally adopted the Augustinian view of original sin. The Forty-two Articles (1553) affirm that original sin comes by way of natural birth and “deserves God’s wrath and damnation” (Art. 8). This statement agrees with John Calvin who defines original sin as a “hereditary corruption” that “makes us obnoxious to the wrath of God.”²³

3. Philip Melanchthon

Philip Melanchthon, the theological partner of Martin Luther, differs slightly from Thomas Cranmer (who authored the Forty-two Articles) and John Calvin. Melanchthon speaks of original sin as “an inborn propensity and a natural impulse that actively compels us to sin, originating from Adam and extending to all his posterity.” While others made the distinction between original and actual (or personal) sin, Melanchthon calls original sin itself “an actual corrupt desire.”²⁴ In other words, original sin for Melanchthon is an actual sin.

4. Ulrich Zwingli

Ulrich Zwingli affirms original sin, but unlike Calvin denies that it makes us guilty in and of itself.²⁵ In this view, Zwingli affirms that in Adam all people sin and that original sin leads us to sin, but denies that the originating sin of Adam in and of itself transfers guilt to Adam’s progeny. This led some to accuse Zwingli of a Pelagian view of sin.

5. The Council of Trent

The Roman Catholic Church’s Council of Trent in 1546 took aim at Reformed views of original sin and concupiscence. The Council declared,

This concupiscence, which the Apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy council declares the Catholic Church has never understood to be called sin in the sense that it is truly and properly sin in those born again, but in the sense that it is of sin and inclines to sin (Session V). At one point, Augustine did make a similar distinction. He said that for the regenerate, concupiscence only amounts to sin when a Christian consents to it.²⁶

6. Francis Turretin

Later Reformed scholastics like Francis Turretin would not only affirm the inherited corruption and guilt of original sin but also the sinfulness of concupiscence in contrast to the Roman Catholic position, noted above.²⁷

Therefore, one of the dividing questions during the Reformation era centered on whether or not disordered desires (concupiscence) were themselves sinful (reformational) or simply inclined one towards sin and only amounted to sin when consented to (Trent).

7. Eastern Orthodoxy

Eastern Orthodox thinkers often affirm a form of original sin, although often with less specificity than their Western colleagues.

For a brief overview of a modern Orthodox view on original sin, one can read Craig Truglia’s summative article. As the commentators suggest, however, Truglia’s analysis may omit evidence for a punitive view of original sin among Orthodox theologians.

How does original sin relate to our inclination to sin (concupiscence)?

The doctrine of original sin matters vitaly to the doctrine of salvation. Original sin explains why we die (because we all sin). It tells us why we battle the passions and desires of the flesh (because of the contagion of original sin). And it explains why humans are capable of such great evil. For these reasons, original sin explains why we need someone to save us from the guilt of sin, our personal sins, and the punishment of our sins (namely, death).

Original sin also explains why we still battle sinful desires even after the Spirit washes away our guilt by faith in Jesus Christ. For this reason, it also strikes at the heart of current debates around the sinfulness of desires.

The theological term that names our battle with sinful desires is concupiscence, a close synonym to original sin. In fact, Augustine nearly identifies original sin with concupiscence. Concupiscence comes from the Latin word concupiscentia and refers to disordered desires. More specifically, it refers to that law of sin that remains in our hearts and aims to dominate the law of our mind (Rom 7:23).

According to Augustine, concupiscence is a sin, a punishment for sin, and a cause of sin.²⁸ As Steven Wedgeworth recently argued, however, Augustine may have called concupiscence sin by its close associations with sin.²⁹

Be that as it may, most Protestants have affirmed the sinfulness of concupiscence itself. This means that improper desires—like greed or hatred, but also unnatural and unchaste sexual attraction—are sinful. Any temptation that arises from the passions and desires of the flesh is sinful. By contrast, any temptation that arises from outside of us would not be sinful.

Allow me to illustrate the point. If I desire a romantic relationship with a married woman, then I “covet [my] neighbor’s wife” (Exod 20:17 ESV). This coveting or desiring of another’s spouse itself breaks the tenth commandment, being itself a sinful desire or passion. Such a desire may also produce more sin. I may be tempted to look at pornography or entice that married person into a sinful relationship. By contrast, if a man attempts to seduce a married woman, and she says “No!” to this external temptation, she has not sinned. One can see how internal temptation to sin is sinful, while external temptation is not.

That concupiscence itself is sinful strikes some as too harsh. But this radical view of sin provides deep relief for the weary warriors who fight sin and temptation day by day. We realize that we are always just and sinner at the same time. We do not live by a rule of perfectionism that causes anxiety and doubt. But neither do we live by a rule of moral slackness, since we will know that even our desires can be sinful.

The good news of Jesus Christ, though, is that even as we battle sinful desires (Rom 7:23–25), there is therefore no condemnation for us if we are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1). This gospel brought immense joy to the apostle Paul, and so too it should for us.

Summary

Original sin means that all human beings inherit the corruption of sin through natural generation. This corruption means that a law of sin abides in the members of our flesh, traditionally called concupiscence. Following Augustine, John Calvin would many years later say, “the whole man is in himself nothing else than concupiscence.”³⁰ And while it challenges our sensibilities, the Bible also teaches that original sin itself makes us guilty before God.

Recommendations for further study

• Steven Wedgeworth, “The Heart Wants What It Wants: A Protestant Assessment of the Doctrine of Concupiscence,” in Ruined Sinners to Reclaim: Sin and Depravity in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective (Crossway: 2024), 633–667.
• Henri Blocher, Original Sin, NSBT (IVP Press, 2000).
• Augustine of Hippo, The City of God. (Augustine provides a theological perspective in the later chapters. It’s a great starting place to understand his view of original sin.)
• Augustine of Hippo, Confessions. (Without reading the Confessions, one might misunderstand Augustine’s view of sin. In his Confessions, he narrates his struggle with sin. I podcasted chapter-by-chapter through the Confessions in my podcast, Into Theology.)
• Matthew Mason, “The Desires of the Flesh.”
• Wyatt Graham, “Do We Have a Sinful Nature? Better to Say, We Have Passions And Desires of the Flesh.”

Continue your study on the doctrine of sin

Against God and Nature: The Doctrine of Sin (Foundations of Evangelical Theology)

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1. Genesis 9:6, for example, illustrates that death is a consequence for the sin of murder in a direct way.
2. Likely, Paul here contrasts Jew and Gentile (humankind) with the one new human being created in Christ (Eph 2:15). Henri Blocher also points to a parallel passage in Galatians 2:15 where nature (φύσις) refers “to ethnic origin, birth, and lineage. Henri Blocher, Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle, ed. D. A. Carson, New Studies in Biblical Theology 5 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 26.
3. Cyprian of Carthage, Letters: 1–81, ed. Hermigild Dressler, trans. Rose Bernard Donna, The Fathers of the Church 51 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1964), 219. Emphasis added.
4. Augustine of Hippo, Against Julian, ed. Hermigild Dressler, trans. Matthew A. Schumacher, The Fathers of the Church 35 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1957), 242–43.
5. See John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 1997), II.1.8.
6. Blocher surveys these views briefly in Original Sin, 71–2.
7. See Francis Turretin.
8. Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, Books VIII–XVI, ed. Hermigild Dressler, trans. Gerald G. Walsh and Grace Monahan, The Fathers of the Church 14 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1952), 538.
9. Augustine, City of God, 539.
10. Passages like Psalm 106:38 and Jonah 4:11 speak either of innocent children or children ignorant of sin. Granted, such passages may only speak of actual or personal sin. But however we understand them, they at least show the compassion of God on children. Passages like these help us balance our theological convictions about original sin with the deep love of God for all people. My hope and expectation is that God, by his compassion and grace, brings all children into heaven.
11. This is the language of a libellus (a list of accusations) against Pelagius, which was discussed during the Synod of Diospolis in 415 (On the Proceedings of Pelagius 11.23). Here, Pelagius would claim his disciple Caelestius taught many such things, but not Pelagius himself.
12. Augustine, Against Julian 5.1.
13. Augustine of Hippo, On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.19.21, in Anti-Pelagian Writings, ed. Philip Schaff, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church 5, First Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1887); see also Augustine, Against Julian 5.3.
14. Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.1.
15. Augustine, Against Julian 5.1.3.
16. Augustine, City of God, 13.23.
17. Augustine, City of God, 13.3.
18. Richard Muller explains in more detail: “In Augustinian theology, however, concupiscentia is the wrongful desire that is present in the parents during the act of intercourse, which then passes on to the children and which, as an inborn stain, becomes the fomes peccati (q.v.), or source of sin, in the succeeding generation. Concupiscence is thus both the privatio iustitiae originalis, the privation of original righteousness, and a positive cause of sin.” Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology, s.v. “concupiscentia” (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017).
19. Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.23.25.
20. He believes that our whole self “everything which is in man, from the intellect to the will, from the soul even to the flesh, is defiled and pervaded with this concupiscence.” Or as he puts in summary form, “the whole man is in himself nothing else than concupiscence.” Calvin, Institutes, II.1.8.
21. Calvin, Institutes, II.1.8.
22. Calvin, Institutes, II.1.8.
23. Calvin, Institutes, II.1.8.
24. Philip Melanchthon, Commonplaces: Loci Communes 1521, trans. Christian Preus (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2014), 37.
25. Andrew Wilson, “Original Sin: The Zwinglian Alternative,” What You Think Matters, June 28, 2024. https://thinktheology.co.uk/blog/article/original_sin_the_zwinglian_alternative.
26. Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.23.25. However, in his later writings, he speaks of concupiscence as sinful in and of itself. See, for example, Augustine, Against Julian 5.3.
27. Turretin, Institutes Q11.20.
28. In his own words, Augustine says, “In like manner, the concupiscence of the flesh against which a good spirit lusts is not only a sin, because it is disobedience against the dominion of the mind—as well as punishment for sin, because it has been reckoned as the wages of disobedience—but also a cause of sin, in the failure of him who consents to it or in the contagion of birth.” Against Julian, 249.
29. Steven Wedgeworth, “The Heart Wants What It Wants: A Protestant Assessment of the Doctrine of Concupiscence,” in Ruined Sinners to Reclaim: Sin and Depravity in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective, eds. David Gibson and Jonathan Gibson (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024), 639–41.
30. Calvin, Institutes, II.1.8.