Editing Reformed Christianity (section)

=== Sin ===
{{See also|Christian views on sin|Total depravity|Original sin}}
In Christian theology, people are created good and in the [[image of God]] but have become corrupted by [[sin]], which causes them to be imperfect and overly self-interested.{{sfn|McKim|2001|p=66}} Reformed Christians, following the tradition of [[Augustine of Hippo]], believe that this corruption of human nature was brought on by Adam and Eve's first sin, a doctrine called [[original sin]].

Although earlier Christian authors taught the elements of physical death, moral weakness, and a sin propensity within original sin, Augustine was the first Christian to add the concept of inherited guilt (''reatus'') from Adam whereby every infant is born eternally damned and humans lack any residual ability to respond to God.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Kenneth |title=Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to 'Non-fee' Free Will: A Comprehensive Methodology |date=2018 |publisher=Mohr Siebeck |location=Tübingen, Germany |isbn=978-3-16-155753-8 |pages=35, 37, 93, 127, 140, 146, 150, 153, 221, 231–233, 279–280, 295}}</ref> Reformed theologians emphasize that this sinfulness affects all of a person's nature, including their will. This view, that sin so dominates people that they are unable to avoid sin, has been called [[total depravity]].{{sfn|McKim|2001|pp=71–72}} As a consequence, every one of their descendants inherited a stain of corruption and depravity. This condition, innate to all humans, is known in Christian theology as ''original sin''.

Calvin thought original sin was "a hereditary corruption and depravity of our nature, extending to all the parts of the soul." Calvin asserted people were so warped by original sin that "everything which our mind conceives, meditates, plans, and resolves, is always evil." The depraved condition of every human being is not the result of sins people commit during their lives. Instead, before we are born, while we are in our mother's womb, "we are in God's sight defiled and polluted." Calvin thought people were justly condemned to hell because their corrupted state is "naturally hateful to God."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Calvin |first=John |title=Institutes of the Christian Religion |publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company |year=1989 |volume=1 |location=Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S. |pages=214–220, 244 |language=English |author-link=John Calvin}}</ref>

In colloquial English, the term "total depravity" can be easily misunderstood to mean that people are absent of any goodness or unable to do any good. However the Reformed teaching is actually that while people continue to bear God's image and may do things that appear outwardly good, their sinful intentions affect all of their nature and actions so that they are not pleasing to God.<ref name="muller 2012"/>{{rp|51}}