# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1892_S11
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1892. 11

Adam's fall all human beings who are naturally born are conceived and born in sin, that is, that they are all full of evil desire and inclination from their mother's womb and can have by nature no true fear of God, no true faith in God; that this same innate disease and original sin is truly sin, etc.... Besides this, the Pelagians and others are rejected who do not hold original sin to be sin, in order that they may make nature righteous by natural powers, to the disgrace of the suffering and merit of Christ."

And in the Formula of Concord [*Concordienformel*] II, Art. I, page 575 f., it says: "Second, this too is clear and true, as the nineteenth article of the Augsburg Confession teaches, that God is not a creator, author, or cause of sins, but through the instigation of the devil, by one man, sin (which is a work of the devil) came into the world, Rom. 5, 1 John 3. And even today, in this connection, God does not create and make sin in us, but with the nature which God still creates and makes today, original sin is propagated along with it through the fleshly conception and birth from father and mother out of sinful seed.

"Third, what this hereditary damage is, no reason knows or recognizes, but it must, as the Smalcald Articles say, be learned and believed from the revelation of Scripture ... p. 576 (10). Second, that it is also a complete lack and want of the concreated original righteousness in paradise, or of the image of God, according to which man was originally created in truth, holiness and righteousness, and at the same time an inability and unfitness for all things of God or ... the description of original sin takes from the unrenewed nature the gifts, power and all capacity to begin or to effect anything in spiritual matters.

"That original sin (in human nature) is not only such a complete lack of all good in spiritual, divine matters, but that it is also, in place of the lost image of God in man, a deep, evil, horrible, bottomless, unfathomable and inexpressible corruption of the whole nature and of all its powers, especially of the highest and foremost powers of the soul in understanding, heart and will, so that now, after the fall, there is inherited by man an innate evil disposition and inward impurity of heart, evil desire and inclination; that we all inherit from Adam by nature such a heart, mind and thoughts as, according to its highest powers and the light of reason, is naturally directly opposed to God and his highest commandments, indeed is enmity against God, so far as divine, spiritual matters especially are concerned. For otherwise, in natural external things that are subject to reason, man still has to some extent understanding, power and ability, although greatly weakened, which yet