Are Men Born Sinners? - Library of Theology

In 426 or 427, it was reported to Augustine that the monks in the cloister of Adrumetum
in North Africa were in some cases driven to despair, in other cases moved to careless
self-indulgence, by his teaching as to man's helplessness and as to irresistible grace.
Free will, grace, predestination, election, and reprobation are, of course, biblical
doctrines. It is only the extreme and fatalistic views of these doctrines, as taught by
Augustine and others who believe in the constitutional sinfulness of man, that are
unscriptural.
h. The doctrine of a natural inability to obey God.
The doctrine of a natural inability to obey God is at the very heart of the doctrine of
original sin. According to the advocates of original sin, all men, even those who are
Christians, have a corrupt, sinful nature and are unable to obey God as long as they are in
this life:
From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made
opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.
Westminster Confession.
This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated.
Westminster Confession.
By reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly, nor only, will that which is
good, but doth also will that which is evil. Westminster Confession.
They deplore their inability to love their Redeemer, to keep themselves from sin, to live a
holy life in any degree adequate to their own convictions of their obligations...They
recognize it as the fruit and evidence of the corruption of their nature derived as a sad
inheritance from their first parents. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. II, p. 273.
No man is able...by any grace received in this life, perfectly to keep the commandments
of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word, and deed. Larger Catechism.
...whereby he is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite unto all that is spiritually
good, and wholly inclined to all evil, and that continually, which is commonly called
original sin, and from which do proceed all actual transgressions. Larger Catechism.
This doctrine opens the floodgates of rebellion against God, for it implies impunity for
sin. Surely God would not be so unreasonable as to judge us for sin when he knows that
we are by nature unable to obey him. Oh, what a lie the church has embraced! There is
not one verse of Scripture in the entire Bible that says men have a sinful nature which
makes them unable to obey God. It is true that all sinners are in a moral sense unable to
obey God, but they are not naturally unable to obey God. And there is a great difference
between a natural inability and a moral inability to obey God. Let us illustrate the