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In contrast to scholastic theology, Martin Luther no longer restricted Original Sin in the form of concupiscence to sensual desire, but understood it as the sinful self-seeking desire of the whole person before God. Not merely the inner ordering between sensual desire and spirit was disrupted, but one's relationship to God in one's very being and consciousness. For this reason Luther also called Original Sin peccatum radicale and understood it as personal sin. Through the Fall humanity lost the grace-given original divine image and is subjected to the power of the devil, sin, and death, which are powers that one is unable to overcome by one's own strength. Thus human beings are subjected to alien guilt and yet it is human beings themselves who, after the Fall, willfully sin.
Luther described concupiscence as self-seeking desire before God, echoing the words of 1 John 2:16. "Satan and man are constantly focused on their own longing, so that they are only capable of seeking what is their own." The Original Sin that determines humans in this way remains active even after the reception of the grace of baptism and should not be reduced, as scholastic theology holds, to mere tinder for sin, which itself is no longer sin and still occasionally leads humans astray through temptations to new actual sins.
Since the grace of Christ redeems a person in faith alone and as such is directed to the whole person, it is conversely the remaining Original Sin in the form of the selfseeking desire or unbelief that excludes one from salvation. Thus the reformers were more interested in human sin in terms of person and essence than in the actual sins committed. Actual sins committed after the reception of the grace of baptism are not what turn human residual weakness again into sin; rather this weakness itself permanently retains the character of sin. Nevertheless, through the grace of Christ human beings are forgiven the guilt of Original Sin outside themselves, and at the same time grace as donum gratiae begins to sweep sin out. In the power of grace the peccatum regnans ("sin that rules") is transformed into peccatum regnatum ("sin that is ruled"). Thus grace inasmuch as it is justifying distinguishes the person of a human being from sin and is at the same time internally active, in that grace sweeps out sin and breaks the domination of sin. Accordingly Luther understood the person of man as being simul iustus et peccator, just outside himself apud Deum et in reputatione eius ("before God and in his reckoning"), but a sinner in himself, yet in such a way that grace does begin to work in him and overcomes the power of sin.
In view of this notion of grace becoming effective within us, Luther could also speak of people being partim iusti et partim peccatores. To recognize the Original Sin that permanently determines humanity as a whole was for Luther a matter of faith, even though Luther did not rule out that some consequences of sin are a matter of experience. This insight also includes the notion that, according to Romans 3:20, the law leads to the recognition of sin and thus to the recognition of humanity's alienation from God under the power of sin.
Besides the inner evil that followed upon Adam's fall into sin, the corruptio naturae or Original Sin, humanity is also subjected to the exterior evil of death and the power of the devil. Death is the enemy of humanity, and here Luther distinguished between an understanding of death as the extinction of an individual life and an understanding of death as the wages of sin (Rom. 6:23). Whether death becomes eternal death or life in eschatological fulfillment is decided on the basis of the sin that is the sting of death (1 Cor. 15:56).
Both sin and death are the expression of the power of the devil, to which humanity is subjected through the Fall of Adam. The power of the devil is the potestas peccati ("power of sin"), from which the power of Christ alone can free. "All that hangs on Christ, tramples the devil." The lordship of Christ and that of the devil stand in contrast to one another. So it is either the devil or God who guides the will of a person, and one cannot effect a change of master from the devil to God by oneself. That happens only through the power of the Holy Spirit or grace. Therefore the innermost being of a person is a servum arbitrium. The will is free only in the absolute bonds of faith in God, which fulfills the first commandment, in that it awaits salvation not from human possibilities, but from God alone.
For Philipp Melanchthon too, Original Sin is a power that determines the essence or the person. It is "a distorted emotional state and a distorted movement of the heart against God's law." It is a person's self-love and as such "the first and highest emotional state of man, by which he is led astray to will and to desire only that which appears good, pleasant, sweet, and glorious to his own nature, as well as to hate and fear that which seemingly contradicts his nature, and to resist that which holds him back from what he covets, or that which counsels him to follow and to ask for that which displeases him."
Also for Melanchthon, Original Sin remains intact and the grace that already justifies humanity as a whole increasingly wrenches humanity from the all-pervading power of sin in the power of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, according to Melanchthon's teaching, "thus after Adam's Fall, all men that are born naturally are conceived and born in sin, that is, they all are full of evil desire and inclination from their mother's womb, and by nature are incapable of having any true fear of God or any true faith in God; this selfsame inborn plague and inherited sin is truly sin, and condemns them all under God's eternal wrath, unless they are born anew through baptism and the Holy Spirit."
Zwingli
As for Luther, for Huldrych Zwingli the recognition of Original Sin is a recognition in faith. Following tradition, Zwingli distinguished between peccatum originale and peccata actualia. Following Augustine, he portrayed peccatum originale as morbus ("disease") or prasten ("ailment"), which means in so many words "incurable break." Ever since Adam our nature has been totally shattered: instead of loving God, we love ourselves. Thus for Zwingli too, the essence of Original Sin is amor sui ("self-love") and the turning of man in on himself. The individual death of a person is the consequence and image of eternal death.
Thus Zwingli also held that the power of Original Sin determines a person in his essence, although beginning in 1535 in the dispute with the Anabaptists he distinguished between inherited sin (Original Sin) and inherited guilt. Here Zwingli contested inherited guilt for children, who indeed are subject to the power of Original Sin. The children of one who has fallen into slavery by his own fault (guilt) become slaves without any fault (guilt) of their own. Zwingli would prefer to maintain the innocence of children; for him inherited sin becomes inherited guilt again only when as an inclination to sin (propensio ad peccandum) it leads one astray into actual sin and thereby becomes inherited guilt. However, this did not prevent Zwingli from stressing the totality of Original Sin. Nonetheless, children cannot yet sin in the full sense, because they cannot yet be held responsible for their actions. At the Colloquy of Marburg of 1529, Zwingli conceded that in terms of Original Sin even children stand under the punishment of the law, which condemns them. Accordingly in his Ratio Fidei of 1530, Zwingli formulated that the disease of Original Sin can also be called sin, following Paul, because "those born in it are enemies and opponents of God." Overall Zwingli was at pains to maintain his understanding of the legally ethical character of sin in order to emphasize that everyone is responsible for being a sinner in his personal deeds. For Zwingli, too, it is definite that human beings can be rescued from the power of sin through the grace of Christ alone.
Calvin
Through Adam's sin humanity lost the divine likeness. God withdrew from humanity the grace-given original righteousness and abandoned humanity to the corruption of human nature. Since Adam sinned on the basis of his free will, John Calvin did not rule out that the Fall did not occur independently from God's foresight. Nonetheless, he maintains that both Adam and humans born after the Fall are responsible for their sin, because they willingly sin. Therefore Original Sin is transmitted to all, because they are born under God's judgment and like Adam are born under the withdrawal of God's gifts in grace.
For Calvin as for Luther, Original Sin is also a power that determines the whole person. Following Augustine, Calvin also portrayed Original Sin as concupiscentia, though adding the restriction that "all parts of man, from his understanding to his will, from his soul to his flesh are stained by this concupiscence and completely filled with it." Consequently, as for lost righteousness, the free will is so ensnared by sin that one cannot attain it of oneself. Thus Calvin showed "that man is now deprived of free will and is subjected to wretched servitude" and concluded with Augustine that "the natural gifts in man are corrupted by sin, while the supernatural gifts are utterly eradicated." Among the supernatural gifts, Calvin particularly meant "the light of faith as well as the purity and righteousness that befit heavenly life and everlasting blessedness."
Nevertheless, Calvin asserted that through the Fall man "was deprived not of his will, but of the purity of his will." Therefore he insisted on distinguishing clearly between the will as an anthropological capacity and its function as willing good or willing evil. Thus in terms of salvation, humans are capable only of willing evil, and they need the power of grace in order to will the good. "Simply to will is a matter of man; to will evil is a matter of corrupted nature; to will good is a matter of grace." Though it is humans under the power of sin that will evil, Calvin still maintained that humans themselves will it. "We must observe the following distinction: man who is corrupted through the Fall sins with his will and not against his will or by force or violence; … and yet his nature is so corrupted that it can be moved and driven toward nothing other than evil." Humans can be freed from this willing evil only through Christ, who sets the depraved will aright once more and orients it toward righteousness. The grace of Christ forgives the guilt of sin and gradually heals the will that was subjected to evil. Christ thereby creates a beginning that he himself must make perfect by anchoring a person in perseverance. Until death, the one who is elect must struggle against sin step by step in the knowledge that the sin which comes alive over and over again is obstinate.
Although the will cannot attain salvation of itself (in other words in terms of God's righteousness it is a will in bondage), this does not hold true in terms of the earthly and lowly matters of this life. "When the human spirit concerns itself with something, it does not work so futilely that nothing comes of it." "Among earthly matters I include," Calvin wrote, "all that has nothing to do with God and His kingdom, or with true righteousness and the immortality of the future, but what is connected with this present life and is likewise enclosed within its boundaries.… This first grouping encompasses the teaching on secular rule, domestic arts, craftsmanship, philosophy and the so-called liberal arts." Thus Calvin showed that by their nature humans live in community and this community is ruled by laws. "In all men there is a seed of political order, and that is a strong proof that in the conduct of earthly life, no man is without the light of reason." Accordingly Calvin was able to value even the achievements of antiquity and human reason in a humanist manner. Nonetheless all these achievements stand in danger of being misused by human's self-love and used as a basis for self-righteousness before God. Here is where God's judgment on Adam's sin, that is, the withdrawal of his gifts in grace, takes effect.
In contrast to Zwingli, according to Calvin, children are also included in this willfully assumed fate of Original Sin so that their Original Sin at the same time implies their inherited guilt: "for without guilt we would not be condemned." Thus Calvin more closely followed Luther's line of thinking, although he was more strongly interested in the transformation of the human will through grace for the sake of sanctification than was Luther.
The Early Orthodox Dispute over the Essence of Sin
In the so-called synergistic controversy that began around 1555 over the question of the role of free will in the process of justification, a disputation was held in 1560 between the Jena theologian Matthias Flacius Illyricus and his colleague Viktorin Strigel, also from Jena, over the understanding of free will and grace. Strigel defended Melanchthon's idea of synergism and repeated Melanchthon's formulation: "These three factors come together: the Holy Spirit that moves hearts, the voice of God, the will of man that assents to the divine voice." In opposition to this, Flacius denied any participation of free will in the process of salvation and stressed the radicality of Original Sin; in fact, he stressed that Original Sin adhered to the substance of human nature not in a mere accidental manner, but rather that it is the substance of human nature itself. However, Flacius thereby moved close to a Manichaean position. The disputation between Strigel and Flacius was broken off, and in 1562 Flacius lost his professorship at Jena.
In this debate it became evident how nearly impossible it was to interpret the doctrine of Original Sin with categories of substance and accident. On the one hand, if one thinks of Original Sin in an accidental manner as a vice adhering to the human substance, then one soon becomes a Pelagian or a semi-Pelagian, as the Gnesio-Lutherans under the leadership of Flacius accused Strigel of being. On the other hand, if one thinks of it as a substance, as did Flacius, then there is the danger of a Gnostic dualism or even Manichaeism, whereby Original Sin is a natural principle in humans that is corrupt in itself. The changeover from sin to grace should not, however, be interpreted as a change in properties in a substance that is a neutral given, or else as a mere change in human substance, but rather a change in what rules over the heart and thus over the person of a human, a transfer from the rule of sin and unbelief to the rule of God and faith. This transfer is God's deed alone (or that of grace). In this sense Flacius was right. However, the categories with which he described the relationship of Original Sin and grace were inadequate. Thus both sides ended up with impossible one-sided views. After all, Strigel was neither a Pelagian nor a semi-Pelagian and merely wanted to stress human responsibility for sin. Conversely, Flacius was not a Manichaean, but he was attempting to maintain at all costs the doctrine of justification by grace alone, even at the risk of jeopardizing the full humanity of man.
The Formula of Concord
The Formula of Concord (1577) in its first article takes a position on the question of Original Sin and seeks to hold a middle ground between the extremes of Flacius and Strigel. Thus it sharply formulates the question as to "whether Original Sin is actually and without any distinction man's corrupted nature, substance, and essence, or else the most noble and best part of his essence, as the rational soul itself in its highest degree and powers. Or whether between man's substance, nature, essence, body, and soul there is a distinction even after the Fall and Original Sin so that nature is one thing and Original Sin another which adheres in the corrupted nature and corrupts that nature." In its answer the Formula of Concord starts from the belief in creation and distinguishes clearly between human nature and Original Sin. Even after the Fall, nature as such is God's good creation. The attempt not to distinguish between nature and sin is a violation "against the chief article of our Christian faith concerning the creation, redemption, sanctification, and resurrection of our flesh," because otherwise nature would be degraded into the work of the devil and it would be denied that Christ had assumed our flesh, and because in the end the goal of the redemption, the new creation, would be called into question. Moreover, the creatio continua, the ongoing creative work of God, would be denied.
Nonetheless, the Formula of Concord does not fail to stress the radicality of Original Sin, while it observes, as did Luther, that this radicality must be believed on the basis of revelation and cannot be demonstrated through reason. Original Sin adheres to humanity's essence without being identical to this essence. It is a spiritual leprosy, a spiritual disease. Luther's assertions on Original Sin as real sin, as sin in nature or sin of the person, are adopted. Also in accord with Luther, the sinner remains God's creature, who, however, after the Fall stands hopelessly under the rule of sin. Yet the Formula of Concord maintains "that nature and such a corruption of nature can be separated by no one but God alone, and this occurs completely through death in the resurrection, since our nature, which we now bear, shall rise and live forever without Original Sin, having been severed and separated from Original Sin, as it is written, John 19."
Correspondingly, the Formula of Concord warns against discussing the concepts of substance and accident in the context of the doctrine of Original Sin in the presence of uneducated people, since only scholars can rightly understand these concepts in this context. As much as the formula is aware of the inadequate categories of medieval substance ontology, it still does not venture forth into a new conceptual manner that would have been more in conformity with the biblical and Reformation thinking about sin. For sin is, for the reformers, not a substance but a power that rules over humanity who remain God's creature. Accordingly the forgiveness of sin is not a change in the properties of human substance, but rather a shift in rule from the power of sin and the devil to the rule of God and Christ. Because the Formula of Concord does not analyze the concepts of substance and accident, however, it merely comes to a mediate position between Flacius and Strigel. It sides with Flacius by stressing that sin must be understood radically as a disease of human nature, and with Strigel in that it distinguishes between human nature and sin. But this did not eliminate the danger of accepting free will as a human capacity or a partial cause in the realization of justification, to whatever degree. Overall the Formula of Concord states: "We believe, teach, and confess … that Original Sin is not a slight, but rather such a deep corruption of human nature, that nothing healthy or uncorrupted has remained in the body and soul of man, in his inner and external powers." With this alone the formula emphasizes the radicality of Original Sin, as it became manifest through the revelation of justification from faith.
The Council of Trent
In session 5 (1546/47), the Council of Trent returned to the medieval understanding of Original Sin. Adam through the transgression of God's command lost the iustitia originalis in which he had been created and fell under the wrath and disfavor of God and under the rule of death and of the devil, whereby his body and soul were also diminished. The resulting peccatum originale is transmitted to the descendants of Adam through reproduction. Original Sin is, however, individual to each person and can be taken away only through the merit of Christ, which is acquired through baptism. Through baptism the guilt of Original Sin is forgiven and all that constitutes the true and actual essence of sin is taken away. Concupiscence is only the material side of Original Sin and remains after the forgiveness of the guilt and the recovery of grace, or iustitia originalis, only in the form of a kind of tinder (fomes) within us; it is not itself sin, but it can lead the baptized over and over again to actual sins, the forgiveness of which can be obtained each time in the sacrament of penance.
As for the "tinder" that remains after the reception of the grace of baptism and that is not itself sin, but which rather only leads astray again and again into new sin, session 5 of the Council of Trent states: "however, this holy synod confesses and asserts that there remains in the baptized concupiscence or 'tinder' (fomes); since it [i.e., concupiscence] has been left behind for the purpose of struggle, it cannot harm those who do not consent to it and who manfully struggle against it through the grace of Christ Jesus. Rather 'he who has justly fought shall be crowned' (2 Tim. 2:5). The holy synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood this concupiscence, which the apostle occasionally calls sin, as being called sin that would be truly and properly sin in those who are reborn, but because it stems from sin and inclines to sin. If anyone thinks the contrary, let him be anathema."
Karl-Heinz zur Mühlen
Translated from German by Robert E. Shillenn
Primary Sources
Calvin, John. Opera quae supersunt omnia. Edited by G. Baum, E. Cunitz, and E. Reuss. 59 vols. Corpus Reformatorum, 29–88. Braunschweig, pp.1863–1900.
——. Opera selecta. Edited by Peter Barth, W. Niesel, and D. Scheuner. 5 vol. Munich, 1926–1952.
Luther, Martin. Werke. Berlin, 1905–.
Neuner, Josef. Der Glaube der Kirche in den Urkunden der Lehrverkündigung. Regensburg, 1971.
Melanchthon, Philipp. Werke in Auswahl. Edited by Robert Stupperich et al. Gütersloh, 1951–.
Zwingli, Huldrych. Huldreich Zwinglis Sämtliche Werke. Munich, 1905–.
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Althaus, Paul. Die Theologie Martin Luthers. Gütersloh, 1972.
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Brecht, Martin, and Reinhard Schwarz, eds. Studien zum Konkordienbuch. Stuttgart, 1980.
Geyer, Hans Georg. Von der Geburt des wahren Menschen: Probleme aus den Anfängen der Theologie Melanchthons. Neukirchen-Vluyn, Germany, 1965.
Gross, Julius. Entwicklungsgeschichte des Erbsündendogmas seit der Reformation. Munich, 1972.
Hermann, Rudolf. Luthers These: "Gerecht und Sünder zugleich" (1930). Reprint, Gütersloh, 1960.
Kühn, Ulrich. Rechtfertigung im Gespräch zwischen Thomas und Luther. Berlin, 1967.
Ljunggren, Gustaf. Synd och skuld i Luthers teologi. Stockholm, 1928.
Locher, Gottfried Wilhelm. Grundzüge der Theologie Huldrych Zwinglis im Vergleich mit derjenigen Martin Luthers und Johannes Calvins. In Huldrych Zwingli in neuer Sicht: Zehn Beiträge zur Theologie der Zürchner Reformation, pp. pp.173–274. Zurich, 1969.
Maurer, Wilhelm. Der junge Melanchthon zwischen Humanismus und Reformation. Göttingen, 1967; Vol. 2, Der Theologe. Göttingen, 1968.
Niesel, Wilhelm. Die Theologie Calvins. Reprint, Munich, 1957.
Pfister, Rudolf. Das Problem der Erbsünde bei Zwingli. Leipzig, 1939.
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Schmid, Heinrich. Zwinglis Lehre von der göttlichen und menschlichen Gerechtigkeit. Zurich, 1959.
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Venneste, A. Le dogme du péché originel. Louvain, 1971. See pp. 33–137.
Wendel, François. Calvin: Ursprung und Entwicklung seiner Theologie. Neukirchen-Vluyn, Germany, 1968.
zur Mühlen, Karl-Heinz. Nos extra nos: Luthers Theologie zwischen Mystik und Scholastik. Tübingen, 1972.
From The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation
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