Original Sin

 There have been different views on Original Sin throughout Church history - how Adam’s sin has affected all of mankind down through the ages. Often, though, the assumption has been that infants cannot sin - that it takes some level of consciousness of themselves, of God, of right and wrong, and of the world around them, to sin, a consciousness infants do not and cannot have. But can anybody actually prove that? On the contrary, children prove from a very young age that they are sinners. They often do wrong, and that intentionally, knowing they are doing wrong. The only thing stopping infants from at least some sins often is a lack of mobility. 

John the Baptist leapt in Elizabeth’s womb when Mary, carrying Jesus in her womb, approached them. We can’t understand it, but that was already an acknowledgement on his part of who Jesus was. While this was a special case, it demonstrates that infants are capable of a greater level of consciousness than we tend to expect.

There is no verse of Scripture that says that infants are innocent, in some overarching way. Rather, while infants may not yet be guilty of most specific sins, Scripture teaches us that they are born corrupted by sin.

The majority position in my own Reformed tradition has been that Adam’s sin in the Garden has been imputed to all his progeny, and will continue to be so for all those yet to be born. We are all guilty, in some sense, of Adam’s sin. The remedy, then, is the righteousness of Christ imputed to all those who place their trust in Him. But even if one won’t go that far, one has to affirm that infants are born corrupted by Adam’s sin. When David says “In sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51), he clearly wasn’t saying she was in sin when or by conceiving him. It was his own sin in view, whether in terms of corruption, or guilt, or both. And where the corruption of sin is, is there any reason to assert that acts of sin are not possible? Maybe there is, if we don’t understand what sin is. But if hate is a sin - or greed, or selfishness, or even simply failing to love one’s neighbor - then infants can sin, and they probably do far more than we might expect.