Original Sin Refuted
The confessions say the guilt of Adam’s sin is imputed to every infant born. Ezekiel says the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father. Only one of those two sentences is in the Bible.
The Doctrine, in Its Own Words
This is another argument that should be conducted on the actual documents, because the actual documents are more severe than most believers realize.
Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter VI
“They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed, to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.”
Augsburg Confession, Article II
“Since the fall of Adam all men begotten in the natural way are born with sin… and this disease, or vice of origin, is truly sin, even now condemning and bringing eternal death upon those not born again through Baptism and the Holy Ghost.”
Read what is being claimed. Not that we inherit a fallen condition — every Christian believes that. That the GUILT is imputed. That a newborn arrives already condemned, already liable, already under sentence, for an act committed before the world had a history.
And grant the concern that produced it. The doctrine exists to protect a real truth: that sin is not a series of unlucky choices but a condition, and that no one climbs out of it unaided. That much is correct, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ teaches it. The error is in the word guilt.
God Has Already Ruled on Inherited Guilt
He did not leave it to be inferred. He legislated it, and then had a prophet state it as a principle when Israel tried to plead heredity.
“The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.”
The whole chapter exists to demolish exactly this idea. Israel had a proverb — the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge — and God tells them to stop using it (Ezekiel 18:2–3). Inherited liability is named, addressed, and abolished by name.
He had already written it into the law: “the fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin” (Deuteronomy 24:16). God held Israel’s courts to a standard the confessions do not hold God to.
The Proof Text Proves Too Much
Everything rests on Romans 5. So read the sentence the doctrine is built on all the way to its end, because Paul builds a parallel and the second half is load-bearing.
“Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.”
The two halves are built to match. Same preposition, same scope, same “all men” on both sides of the comparison. So take the reading seriously and follow it: if Adam’s act imputes guilt to every person automatically and without their participation, then by the identical grammar Christ’s act imputes justification to every person automatically and without their participation.
That is universalism, and no Reformed confession accepts it. Which means the reading gets applied to the first half of the verse and abandoned in the second half — the same selective move that turned up in John 17, and for the same reason: a doctrine is steering the grammar.
Paul explains his own meaning two chapters later in the passage everyone quotes for a different purpose: “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). What comes from Adam universally is DEATH — mortality, separation, a fallen world. Not a criminal record.
What the Lord Said About Children
If infants arrived condemned, one would expect the Savior to have handled them cautiously. Watch what He actually does.
- Matthew 19:14 — “Suffer little children… to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
- Matthew 18:3 — “except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
He holds up children as the STANDARD adults must be converted back toward. That is not a description of the guilty. Nobody tells a congregation to become as a condemned criminal in order to be saved.
The Doctrine Has a Body Count
This is not an abstraction. For centuries, parents who lost an infant before baptism were taught that the child was outside salvation, and mothers carried that to their graves. The doctrine of inherited guilt is what made that teaching possible.
Restored scripture answers it with more heat than anywhere else in the canon. Mormon wrote to his son about people who were baptizing infants, and he did not soften it.
“Little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin… and he that saith that little children need baptism denieth the mercies of Christ, and setteth at naught the atonement of him and the power of his redemption.”
And the reason is given plainly a few verses on: children “are all alive in him because of his mercy” (Moroni 8:19). The Atonement covers the effects of the Fall for every person who never had the capacity to choose. Universally, unconditionally, with no ordinance required.
What the Gospel of Jesus Christ Actually Teaches
The second Article of Faith states it in one line: men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression (Articles of Faith 1:2). That is Ezekiel 18:20 restated, and it is the whole of the disagreement.
What we do inherit from Adam is real and serious: mortality, a fallen world, bodies subject to appetite, and separation from God’s presence. Nobody escapes that unaided, and nobody argues otherwise. What we do not inherit is his GUILT, because guilt requires a choice and an infant has made none.
And the Fall itself is not a catastrophe God failed to prevent. “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:25). It opened the door to mortality, agency, family, and growth — the conditions under which a person can actually become something. “Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning” (D&C 93:38), and what a man becomes after that is his own.
The Verdict
Original sin is not a biblical doctrine that Latter-day Saints reject. It is a confessional doctrine that the Bible rejects.
This is what God legislated: every man shall be put to death for his own sin. This is what Ezekiel was sent to abolish: the proverb about the fathers’ sour grapes. This is what Romans 5:18 actually says: the same “all men” on both sides, which nobody applies consistently. This is what Paul clarified: in Adam all DIE. This is what the Lord said about children: of such is the kingdom of heaven. This is what Mormon called infant baptism: a denial of the mercies of Christ.
Reject this and you have not rejected Joseph Smith. You have rejected Ezekiel 18:20, Deuteronomy 24:16, and Matthew 19:14 — and you are left explaining to a grieving mother why the God who told Israel not to punish children for their fathers made an exception for hers.
See also TULIP Calvinism Refuted Systematically, Profile of the Damned — Innocent Children, and Imputed Righteousness — Declared Clean, or Made Clean?