Are Men Born Sinners? - Library of Theology

are born: "The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they are
born, speaking lies."
But who would seriously teach from this last text that babies actually do speak as soon as
they are born? None of these passages is meant to be understood in a literal sense. They
are all figurative expressions. If they were understood literally, they would all teach what
we know to be contrary to reality; for reality teaches us that bones don't rejoice, hyssop
doesn't purge sin, babies don't speak as soon as they leave the womb, and an unborn child
is not morally depraved.
The same rules of interpretation that would permit Psalm 51:5 to teach that babies are
born sinners, would, if applied to these passages (or if applied to many other passages in
the Bible), allow for every kind of perversion and wild interpretation of God's Word.
Look again at the words of Job 1:21: "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and
naked shall I return thither." Did Job, by these words, mean to teach that he and all other
men would some day go back into their mother's womb? We know that such a meaning is
absurd. But it is just as reasonable to give to Job 1:21 the nonsensical meaning that Job
and all other men will some day go back into their mother's womb, as it is to give to
Psalm 51:5 the nonsensical meaning that David and all other men are born sinners. David
was not teaching in this passage that he was born a sinner. He instead was confessing to
God the awful guilt and sinfulness of his heart, and he cried out to God in strong
language the language of figure and symbol to express that awful guilt and sinfulness.
But if David intended to affirm that he was literally "shapen in iniquity and conceived in
sin," then he affirmed absolute nonsense, and he charged his Creator with making him a
sinner; for David knew that God was his Maker:
Thy hands have made me and fashioned me. Psalm 119:73
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body, and knit them together in my mother's
womb. Psalm 139:13 (Living Bible)
Know ye that the Lord he is God: It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves. Psalm
100:3
Are we to understand from these passages that God fashions men into sinners in their
mother's womb? No, we know that God does not create sinners. Yet, upon the
supposition that Psalm 51:5 teaches that men are born sinners, these texts could teach
nothing else. Who cannot see that the doctrine that men are born sinners charges God
with creating sinners? It represents man as being formed a sinner in his mother's womb,
when the Bible clearly teaches that God forms man in his mother's womb. It represents
man as coming into this world a sinner, when the Bible clearly teaches that God creates
all men. It may be objected that God created only Adam and Eve, and that the rest of
mankind descended from them by natural generation. But this objection does not relieve
the doctrine of an inherited sin nature of its slander and libel of the character of God. For
if man has a sinful nature at birth, who is it who established the laws of procreation under