Major Works

Original Sin (1758)

INTRODUCTION

The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended was Edwards’s defense of the Calvinist view of human depravity in response to the increasingly accepted conception of human nature as essentially good and innocent at birth, and that environment, experience, and custom made persons wicked. Edwards counters by arguing that Scripture, history, and reason prove the innate evil of humankind. Depravity, a tendency or inclination to sin, and imputation of that state from Adam, were for Edwards connected arguments. Only divine grace could alter those inherent states. God dealt with humankind not individually but, because of Adam’s federal headship, collectively. Adam and his posterity were not distinct agents. This Edwards referred to as a “constitutional identity.” Original Sin was in the press at the time Edwards died in Princeton.

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