"Original Sin: Augustine, Luther, and Calvin vs. LDS Doctrine (and the Bible!)
An important theological issue is whether or not we are accountable for Adam's transgression. Do we share guilt in that original sin (i.e., the sin associated with the origin of man)? Concerning evangelical views on original sin, L. Ara Norwood in FARMS Review of Books (Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 164-201) explains that "the source of this doctrine rests with the erroneous scriptural interpretation of Romans 5:12" from Augustine, as Professor Elaine Pagels details:
The Greek text reads, "Through one man [or 'because of one man,'] sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came upon all men, in that all sinned." John Chrysostom, like most Christians, took this to mean that Adam's sin brought death into the world, and death came upon all because "all sinned." But Augustine read the passage in Latin, and so either ignored or was unaware of the connotations of the Greek original; thus he misread the last phrase as referring to Adam. Augustine insisted that it meant that "death came upon all men, in whom all sinned" - that the sin of "one man," Adam, brought upon humanity not only universal death, but also universal, and inevitable, sin. Augustine uses the passage to deny that human beings have free moral choice, which Jews and Christians had traditionally regarded as the birthright of humanity made "in God's image." Augustine decrees, on the contrary, that the whole human race inherited from Adam a nature irreversibly damaged by sin...."
Augustine attempts to rest his case concerning original sin ... upon the evidence of one prepositional phrase in Romans 5:12, insisting that Paul said that death came upon all humanity because of Adam, "in whom all sinned. But Augustine misreads and mistranslates this phrase (which others translate "in that [i.e., because] all sinned") and then proceeds to defend his errors ad infinitum.... Augustine's argument has persuaded the majority of western Catholic and Protestant theologians to agree with him;... But, ... when we actually compare Augustine's interpretation with those of theologians as diverse as Origen, John Chrysostom, and Pelagius, we can see that Augustine found in Romans ... what others had not seen there. (Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, New York: Random House, 1988, pp. 109 and 143, emphasis in the original, as cited by Norwood, pp. 187-188.)
Dr. Seth Farber writes of Augustine's doctrine of original sin in "The Reign of Augustine," The Christian Activist: A Journal of Orthodox Opinion, Vol. 13, Winter/Spring 1999, pp. 40-45,56:
Thus, according to Augustine, due to Adam's sin every person belongs to a "mass of perdition".... Augustine wrote, "The damned lump of humanity was lying prostrate. Nay, was wallowing in evil...." Augustine argues that infants who did not receive baptism would be condemned to suffer the torments of eternal punishment in hell. He wrote that no one who is born of Adam and Eve was "less a sinner than they were." ... "Everyone arising as he does from a condemned stock, is from the first necessarily evil and carnal through Adam." Because it was transmitted by natural propagation, "original sin was as universal and inevitable as life itself." Thus, Augustine writes, "The infant is bad: though little, he is already a great sinner."
Hey, Augustine, speak for your own kids!
Unfortunately, Augustine's views prevailed. They were formally canonized by the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century.
Farber also writes of Luther's views on original guilt (ibid., p. 41):
Like Augustine, Luther denied that God willed the salvation of all human beings [in contrast, see 1 Tim. 2:4, for which Augustine said the "all" only referred to the predestined saved ones], and he asserted that He "saved so few and damned so many." Luther's explanation for this is similar to that of Augustine: By not granting salvation to all, God shows us that His grace cannot be taken for granted.... Like Augustine, Luther conceived God as a majestic sovereign, to whose arbitrary fiat human beings - at least those who are predestined to be saved - ought to succumb in fear, in reverence, and in gratitude.
Luther asserted that original sin had completely abnegated freedom of the will, which was now entirely in bondage to sin, and "not free to strive toward whatever is declared good." He stated that man "neither does the good nor is capable of it in the absence of grace." (Farber, p. 41)
Farber also explains Calvin's position:
Like Augustine and Luther, Calvin believed that man's nature was altered and irreparably damaged by original sin. He stated, "Infants bring their own damnation with them from their mothers' wombs; the moment they are born, their natures are odious and abominable to God." (p. 41)
(Could Calvin's children really have been that ugly? Again, please speak for your own kids!)
Modern Protestant views continue to emphasize the inherited nature of the sin. The related Roman Catholic view is summarized by Byron R. Merrill in the article "Original Sin" in Vol. 3 of The Encyclopedia of Mormonism:
The doctrine of original sin as taught traditionally states that, due to the Fall of Adam, infants are born tainted with actual sin, resulting in the "privation of sanctifying grace"; this dogma "does not attribute to the children of Adam any properly so-called responsibility for the act of their father," nor is it a voluntary sin "in the strict sense of the word," yet it is a "real sin" (S. Harent, "Original Sin," in Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911 ed., Vol. 11, p. 315). All people, according to this doctrine, except the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ, inherit an actual, existing personal guilt.... A corollary of this belief is the doctrine of infant baptism, holding that infants are to be baptized to remove this sin because those who die without baptism remain unsanctified and forever excluded from heaven and the presence of God.
In the Eastern Christian tradition, Orthodoxy, the misanthropic concept of original sin never became entrenched. As Farber explains, "The source of evil lies in the freedom of man. Sin is not in the nature of humanity but is entirely an act of will. Sin is sin because it is voluntary. Otherwise God would not condemn us for it" (p. 44).
In LDS doctrine, free will is a vital gift from God - but a dangerous gift that makes evil possible. God wants all of us to be saved, but does not force us to accept Him. We must choose. Infants are free from guilt and are saved in the glories of heaven if they die before becoming accountable. In fact, they're precious, clean, and cute, not "odious." The Fall of Adam affects us all in bringing spiritual death (sin) and temporal death (which can be understood as physical death or, in what may be a preferred interpretation, our physical separation from God here in mortality--see "The Earth and Man" by James Talmage). But we are accountable for our own actions, not for Adam's. Byron R. Merrill explains (ibid.):
