Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

Today, the Doctrine of Man, Part 22.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

Thank you for joining us in Defender's class this morning.

Today, we want to turn to the subject

of original sin, a subject to which we've alluded several times in our previous sessions.

We want to begin by looking at some of the biblical data concerning the doctrine of original sin.

You will not find the doctrine of original sin. You will not find the doctrine of original sin,

as you might expect, in the story of the fall, in the book of Genesis.

There's nothing in the curses pronounced upon Adam and Eve

as a result of their fall about their sin being imputed to all of their

descendants or about their falls corrupting human nature. Neither do we find the doctrine in Psalm

51-5. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin, did my mother conceive me.

Sometimes those overzealous to find proof texts for the doctrine of original sin appeal to this

verse. But I think that that's a mistake hermeneutically. The Psalms are poetry. They often employ

hyperbolic language. Here, as a way of saying how sinful David feels, the verse is not a theological

reflection upon how the sin of Adam was imputed to David. Rather, it's

just a poetic and hyperbolic way of affirming his intense sinfulness or feeling of sinfulness

before the Lord. Rather, the doctrine of original sin is based upon New Testament evidence,

particularly Romans 5, verses 12 to 21. There, Paul writes, therefore as sin came into the world

through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sin,

sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.

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