Zwingli Was Right: Original sin is not sin, but defect

“Cause there’s no evil in a child’s eyes.”

The Murder of Zwingli by Karl Jauslin (l. 1842-1904)

In their latest album, Mumford and Sons take aim at the doctrine of original sin.

I will take this darkness
Over any light you cast
You and all your original sin

The motivation for this denial is heartfelt:

Cause there’s no evil in a child’s eyes

In saying this, lead singer and songwriter Marcus Mumford fears he may be engaged in “heresy”:

I will take this heresy
Over your hypocrisy

But Mumford and Sons are not the only ones moved by a child’s innocence to modify the doctrine of original sin.

Ulrich Zwingli, the first Reformed theologian, despised the medieval Catholic doctrine that unbaptized children were damned. (Zwingli became Protestant independently of Luther and died in 1531, two years before Calvin’s conversion!)

Now Zwingli acknowledged the doctrine of original sin, that all children were born subject to the disposition and propensity to sin.

But he denied that original sin was actually sin. In other words, to call the propensity to sin “sin” was not to speak properly, but to engage in metonymy.

metonymy (noun): the substitution of the name of an attribute…for that of the thing meant, for example “suit” for business executive, or “the track” for horse racing. (Oxford Languages)

Instead, original sin was a defect of human nature. As a result of the fall, we no longer possess an Adamic nature with no disposition to sin. We are, instead, born into the world with disordered loves. But this is no fault of ours. And being subject to original sin and desires to sin does not of itself give rise to guilt.

Zwingli’s doctrine of original sin came to be overshadowed in Reformed theology by the doctrine that even the motions of our nature toward sin give rise to guilt. So the Westminster Confession of Faith:

Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner. WCF 6.6

But contrary to the later tradition, I believe that Zwingli was correct, and that we are in deep need of recovering Zwingli’s merciful doctrine of original sin.

Damned Babies: The Late Medieval Mess

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The late Medieval Catholic Church taught that baptism was so necessary to salvation that all unbaptized children would be damned.

The funny thing is that the Catholic Church did not itself think that babies were sinful.

The Catholic view of original sin was that it was not sin, nor even defect.

Original sin was nothing but the loss of extra gifts to Adam’s nature.

Let’s pause there. To get a sense of the weirdness of this view, take a listen to this contemporary restatement, and reflect on the fact that this is still the position of the Catholic church:

LINK: Trent Horn Explains Original Sin

Original sin is nothing but the loss of the superadded gift. It does not include any defect in human nature or newly sinful disposition or desires. It means being returned to a state of pure human nature.

But then, unbaptized babies are also damned!?

Well, yes, because human nature is naturally in a state where the passions, including concupiscence, are in conflict with reason. Without the “golden bridle” of original righteousness and the superadded gift, humans will devolve into sin.

Accordingly, babies by nature are subject to wrath, not because they’ve sinned but because they lack the “extra” of superadded grace.

This complex of Catholic doctrine is a mess. And all the Reformers departed from it. They denied that there was, by nature, a conflict in man between the passions and reason. They held, instead, that man was “righteous by design.”

Therefore, original sin was not merely the loss of something extra to human nature. It was a corruption of human nature. Zwingli held this Reformed view as firmly as any other.

(This is very important, because any advocacy of the Zwinglian view or departure from the current doctrine of concupiscence is immediately accused of and confused with Catholicism.)

Now you might expect the Reformers to think children even more worthy of damnation. But Zwingli thought the Reformed and Augustinian doctrine of original sin had the opposite implication.

Zwingli argued that, while children were subject to original sin, original sin is not sin, but only a defect in, or disease of, human nature.

He summarizes:

For what could be said more briefly and plainly than that original sin is not sin but disease, and that the children of Christians are not condemned to eternal punishment on account of that disease? (Declaration Regarding Original Sin, 3)¹

Just like being born blind is no fault of the blind man, being born subject to original sin is no fault of any child.

Zwingli spells out the implications of understanding original sin as disease:

“I use it as combined with a defect and that a lasting one, as when stammering blindness, or gout is hereditary in a family.” (D, 4.) “On account of such a thing no one is thought the worse or the more vicious. For things which come from nature cannot be put down as crimes or guilt.” (D, 4-5.)

If original sin is like a disease, then it cannot make us guilty. It is no crime of ours that we were born in a condition of sin and misery.

The difficulty comes in understanding how original sin can give rise to sin without giving any reason to think us “worse or the more vicious.”

After all, other Reformed theologians argue that all the motions of the soul, especially desires, that are part and parcel of original sin produce guilt. They come out of the heart, so they produce uncleanness (Mark 7:20-23).

But Zwingli is concerned sharply to distinguish original from actual sin. As Oliver Crisp further describes the position:

Because of this all subsequent humans (barring Christ) are born with a propensity or disposition to sin, though this disposition is itself not properly a sin so-called, but more of a source of sin (D, 9). Sin is an act; it is for actions of sin that we are culpable, not for possession of the condition of original sin which gives rise to acts of sin (he cites various New Testament passages in support of this claim, especially Rom. 7). … There is a clear bifurcation here between sin as inherited disease or condition, and sin as immoral action—that is, between original and actual sin, respectively.

Reformed theologians generally, and the Westminster Confession particularly, distinguish actual and original sin. However, they treat original sin as bearing some of the properties of actual sin, chiefly, inducing guilt in us. Some Reformed theologians went so far as to extend the operation of the will back into the workings of desire, effectively arguing that all desire for sinful objects is actual sin. (I would argue that that denies the distinction between original and actual sin.)

But Zwingli is concerned to take seriously the distinction between original and actual sin. Actual sin has the character of a crime which induces guilt. Anything which lacks the character of a crime, like the inner propensity that tempts us to evil, does not of itself induce guilt.

Zwingli reasons:

“The original contamination of man is a disease, not a sin, because sin implies guilt, and guilt comes from a transgression or trespass on the part of one who designedly perpetrates a deed.” (D, 5.) Later in the same passage he says original sin is “a condition and penalty, the disaster and misery of corrupted human nature, not a crime of guilt on the part of those who are born in the condition of sin and death.”

That which precedes and even precipitates sinful action is not itself sin.

Not Actually Sin

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Zwingli, I argue, is correct. Original sin is not actually sin.

In the first place, this follows from the meaning of the word “actual.” Over in analytic philosophy, I find myself having to combat the idea that “actual things” are a subset of things.

But this is erroneous. Decoy ducks and actual ducks are not two kinds of ducks. Since a decoy duck is not an actual duck, it is not a duck. Or, it is not actually a duck. It is a “duck” only by an extension of our use of language.

In other words, sentence 2 is epexegetical of sentence 1:

1. A decoy duck is not an actual duck.

2. A decoy duck is not actually a duck.

If a sentence of type 1 is true, a sentence of type 2 is true.

In the same way, since original sin is not actual sin, it is not sin. Because it is not actually sin.

Sentence 2 below is epexegetical of Sentence 1:

1. Original sin is not actual sin.

2. Original sin is not actually sin.

Q.E.D.

Born This Way

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If that feels like wordplay, consider Zwingli’s own primary argument.

(By the way, the above is not wordplay. It is wordplay to acknowledge that something is not actual x, but then argue that it really is x.)

Zwingli’s primary argument for his position rests on this principle: “For things which come from nature cannot be put down as crimes or guilt.” From that principle, it follows that original sin is not sin, but defect.

Now many object to this principle as a humanistic and philosophic rejection of original sin. After all, our contemporaries plead that they were “born this way,” and on that basis, reject Christian beliefs about sin.

The trouble is that the principle is obviously correct, even though it is humanistic. What comes from nature does not come from our will.

Conservatives, Christian or not, recognize this in the modern voluntaristic and social constructionist view of the self and the body. Masculinity and femininity are not mere social constructions, and the male and female body are certainly not mere social constructions. Nature is not the product of the human will, even if the human will is capable of interfering with and destroying nature.

The rejection of the humanistic principle cannot be the solution.

What’s a Christian to do, then? The Christian should recognize that original sin “cannot be put down as [crime] or guilt,” since it comes from nature.

But the Christian can retain the doctrine of original sin, since he can hold that original sin is not sin, but defect.

Our Unnatural Nature

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Another objection remains: That original sin does not come from nature but is, instead, contrary to nature. Original sin does not come from human nature, in the sense of our original design and makeup. It is a change to human nature introduced as punishment for Adam’s fall.

But so are all diseases. The man born blind possesses a condition that is “contrary to nature,” in the sense of original design. That is the misery of our condition. But it is no less true that the man’s blindness comes from nature, rather than from human will or sin. In this sense, “nature” refers not to our original design but to our nature as it now is, and as we are born with it.

After the fall, ours is an unnatural nature. Human nature has been broken, become defective, been corrupted as a punishment for Adam’s fall. Things do not work as they should. Our nature now operates contrary to nature.

But our unnatural nature is the hand of cards we are dealt. It is no more our fault than that.

The Zwingli Option

In the recent theological tome, Ruined Sinners to Reclaim: Sin and Depravity in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective, David and Jonny Gibson write:

“Being attracted to sin and sinning are distinct but inseparable parts of the sin-guilt complex. The Reformed tradition has always held that the corruption of nature is itself sin.”

Well, apparently, not always.

Given that Calvin did not become a Calvinist until 1533, and that Zwingli’s entire career ended with his death in 1531, the Reformed tradition for that period held that the corruption of nature was not itself sin.

Contributor Raymond Blacketer acknowledges as much on page 143 of the volume, though he calls Zwingli’s “an unusual position”:

“Like the medieval theologian Peter Abelard (c. 1079-1142), Zwingli claimed that original sin is a tendency to sin, but not sin itself; original sin is a disease, but it is not guilt.”

In context, the Gibsons present their volume as coalescing the whole field of Reformed scholars to present a unified doctrine of sin not so subtly directed at a small subset of congregants: the same-sex attracted.

The effect is to tell those beset by a particular challenge to Christian obedience that they are extra sinful.

These Calvinists would no doubt reply that they think everyone is subject to concupiscence and original sin, and that therefore everyone is guilty for having propensities to desire sinful objects.

But in the midst of this Calvinist barrage, one option has been overlooked: The Zwingli Option.

The Zwingli Option is to view the doctrine of original sin as not something that further incriminates those beset by temptation. Rather, original sin is a doctrine that enables us to acknowledge our own weakness and to sympathize with our fellow sinner.

At least one atheist already knows this. Alain de Botton argues that, in sacrificing the doctrine of original sin, modern people become less understanding of human weakness and more perfectionistic.

“The Christian concept of ‘original sin’ has many dark undertones and associations. But, really, what it’s trying to get you to take on board is that, from the very beginning, there’s something a bit wrong with you.” (Laughter)

Zwingli would be proud.

In closing, let me repeat: Original sin is not sin, but defect.

And as a result, there is, indeed, something a bit wrong with each of us.

1. All references are to Oliver Crisp’s article “Retrieving Zwingli's Doctrine of Original Sin,” in which he frequently quotes Zwingli’s Declaration Regarding Original Sin Addressed to Urbanus Rhegius, available here.