On Original Sin and the Grammar of Order

 I. Equivalence and Order: Why Getting Relations Right Matters for Theology

If the new grammar of theology is to speak rightly of grace and righteousness, it must first learn to speak truthfully of sin. Errors at this point are never local. When sin is misconstrued, the entire theological grammar—law, gospel, justification, renewal—loses its orientation.

This requires attending to a basic but frequently neglected distinction: relations that identify are not the same as relations that order. Theology falters precisely when it treats one as the other.

1. Equivalence relations

An equivalence relation is marked by three features: reflexivity, symmetry, and transitivity. Its function is not to structure a domain but to classify it. Wherever an equivalence relation holds, the relata are interchangeable with respect to that relation. No priority is introduced. No direction is given. Distinction is suspended.

Equivalence relations are indispensable in formal reasoning. They are also dangerous when imported into ontology without discipline. Once equivalence is assumed, differentiation becomes unintelligible. What belongs to the same equivalence class cannot be meaningfully ordered within it.

Equivalence flattens.

2. Order relations

An order relation, by contrast, preserves distinction while introducing structure. Of particular importance is antisymmetry: if A stands in an ordering relation to B, and B to A, then the two collapse into identity. Ordering relations therefore resist collapse by design.

Order relations allow us to say that one reality governs another, conditions it, or stands prior to it—without saying that the two are the same. They introduce dependence without identity, seriousness without equivalence.

Ordering does not classify; it orients.

3. Why theology cannot afford confusion here

Theology is saturated with relational claims: God and world, law and gospel, sin and righteousness, old and new humanity. The question is never whether these are relations, but what kind of relations they are.

When equivalence is tacitly assumed where order is required, collapse follows. Sin becomes essence. Corruption becomes creation. Distinction disappears under the guise of seriousness.

When order is denied and sin is treated as a mere accident, seriousness evaporates. Sin becomes superficial. Bondage becomes contingent. Grace is reduced to repair.

The Lutheran confession refuses both errors. It insists that sin is total without being essential, decisive without being definitive. Such claims cannot be sustained by substance-language alone. They require a grammar capable of non-symmetric ordering—a way of speaking that neither trivializes sin nor ontologizes it as essence.

Only once this grammar is in place can original sin be stated correctly. And only when sin is stated correctly can grace be spoken as what it truly is: not improvement, but resurrection.

II. The Formula of Concord and the Ontological Status of Original Sin

The Lutheran tradition did not arrive at its teaching on original sin by accident or compromise. The language of Formula of Concord I is the result of a hard-won struggle to speak truthfully about the depth of sin without surrendering the goodness of creation. That struggle came to focus on a single, deceptively simple question: What kind of relation does original sin bear to human nature?

1. The post-Lutheran crisis

In the decades following Luther’s death, Lutheran theologians found themselves pressed between two unacceptable alternatives.

On the one side stood Matthias Flacius, who insisted—rightly, in intention—that original sin must be taken with utmost seriousness. Against all Pelagianizing tendencies, Flacius argued that original sin is not a superficial defect but a radical corruption. Yet his formulation pressed this claim too far. By identifying original sin with the very substance of fallen humanity, he collapsed corruption into essence. Sin ceased to be that which afflicts human nature and became that which constitutes it.

On the other side stood Victorinus Strigel, who sought to protect the integrity of created human nature. Strigel rightly resisted any view that would make God the author of sin or render creation itself evil. But his solution treated original sin as an accident added to an otherwise intact substance. In doing so, he preserved creation—but at the cost of undermining the totality and seriousness of sin.

The controversy was not merely verbal. It was ontological. Each position presupposed a different grammar of relation, though neither articulated it as such.

2. Why the Formula rejected both positions

The Formula of Concord decisively rejects both accounts. Original sin is not the substance of human nature. Nor is it a removable accident that leaves the core of humanity untouched. The Formula insists instead that original sin is a deep, pervasive corruption of all human powers—reason, will, and affect—while maintaining that human nature remains God’s creature.

This refusal is often read as a diplomatic compromise. It is nothing of the sort. It reflects a disciplined theological judgment: neither equivalence nor superficial accident can state sin truthfully.

To identify sin with substance is to introduce an equivalence relation between sin and humanity. Once that symmetry is granted, distinction collapses. To reduce sin to accident is to deny any real ordering relation at all, rendering sin contingent and secondary.

The Formula chooses neither path. It speaks instead with careful asymmetry.

3. The implicit grammar at work

What the Formula presupposes—but does not formally articulate—is a non-symmetric ordering relation. Original sin stands in a relation of governing corruption to human nature in its fallen state. It orders every power and act of the human person without becoming identical with the essence of humanity itself.

Sin is thus:

• Total, because it orders all human capacities

• Non-essential, because it does not define humanity as such

• Inescapable apart from grace, because the ordering is real and pervasive

This grammar explains how the Formula can say what it says without contradiction. It also explains why both Flacius and Strigel, for all their theological seriousness, were driven into errors by the limited conceptual resources available to them.

The Formula’s achievement lies not in inventing a new doctrine, but in refusing false grammars. It preserves the goodness of creation without weakening the bondage of the will. It confesses sin as radical without granting it ontological ultimacy.

Only once this relational structure is grasped can we see why the Lutheran doctrine of sin is neither Manichaean nor optimistic—and why any theology of grace that does not begin here will inevitably misstate grace itself.

III. Why Equivalence Collapses and Accident Evaporates

Once the distinction between equivalence and order is in view, the inner logic of the controversy becomes transparent. The failures of both positions are not accidental missteps; they follow inexorably from the kinds of relations each presupposes.

1. The collapse of equivalence: why Flacius could not stop where he wanted

To identify original sin with the substance of fallen humanity is, in logical terms, to place sin and human nature within an equivalence relation. Whatever differences may be verbally asserted, symmetry does the decisive work. If sin and humanity stand in an equivalence relation, then what is said of one is said of the other without remainder.

The consequences are unavoidable. If humanity is sin, then sin is humanity. Corruption becomes constitutive. Creation itself is rendered intrinsically evil—not merely damaged, but defined by sin. Distinction vanishes under the weight of seriousness.

Flacius did not intend this outcome. His aim was to secure the radicality of sin against all moralizing reduction. But equivalence cannot express radical corruption without identity. Once symmetry is granted, antisymmetry is impossible. Collapse follows.

The Formula of Concord rejects this not because it takes sin lightly, but because it refuses a grammar that makes sin ontologically ultimate.

2. The evaporation of accident: why Strigel could not make sin serious enough

At the opposite extreme, to treat original sin as a mere accident is to deny any genuine ordering relation between sin and human nature. Accidents, by definition, do not govern essence. They modify without determining. They can be removed without reconstitution.

This grammar cannot sustain the Lutheran claim that sin is total. If sin does not order the will, reason, and affections at their root, then the bondage of the will becomes contingent. The need for grace becomes reparative rather than re-creative. Sin becomes an unfortunate overlay rather than a decisive condition.

Strigel rightly sought to preserve the goodness of creation. But in denying a real ordering relation, he deprived sin of ontological depth. Seriousness evaporates—not because sin is denied, but because it is rendered structurally secondary.

3. The Lutheran alternative: ordered corruption without equivalence

The Formula of Concord rejects both grammars because it presupposes a third: asymmetric ordering. Original sin is neither identical with human nature nor external to it. It is a real, governing corruption that orders every human power in the fallen condition without becoming the essence of humanity as such.

This grammar allows Lutheran theology to say, without contradiction:

• Human nature remains God’s creation

• Sin is total and decisive

• Sin does not define what humanity is as created

• Deliverance requires not correction but resurrection

Equivalence would destroy creation. Accident would trivialize sin. Ordered corruption does neither.

4. Why this matters for the whole grammar of theology

This is not a local clarification. Once equivalence is rejected, sin cannot be ontologized as essence. Once accident is rejected, grace cannot be reduced to assistance. The grammar adopted here governs everything that follows.

Justification will not be misheard as moral improvement. Sanctification will not be confused with self-repair. Grace will be confessed as what it truly is: God’s act of re-creation addressing a condition that cannot undo itself.

The Formula’s refusal of both positions is therefore not a compromise between extremes. It is a judgment rendered from within a deeper grammar—one capable of preserving distinction without dilution and seriousness without collapse.

IV. Ordered Sin and the Grammar of Grace

Once original sin is stated correctly—as an ordered, governing corruption rather than an equivalence or an accident—the grammar of grace comes into view with new clarity. Grace is always spoken in relation to sin. If the relation is misconstrued at the first step, grace will inevitably be misheard.

1. Why grace cannot be stated without an ordering grammar

If sin were equivalent to human nature, grace could only negate humanity itself. Redemption would require annihilation rather than restoration. This path leads either to metaphysical despair or to a quiet Manichaeism, regardless of protestations to the contrary.

If sin were a mere accident, grace would appear as assistance, supplementation, or repair. Grace would help what is already fundamentally capable. Bondage would be partial. Salvation would be cooperative.

The Lutheran confession accepts neither implication. Grace does not destroy creation, and it does not assist a neutral or intact subject. It addresses a humanity that is truly God’s creature and truly bound under sin.

This requires the same grammar already established: asymmetric ordering without equivalence.

2. Grace as counter-order, not counter-property

Grace is not a new property added to an otherwise unchanged subject. Nor is it the replacement of one essence with another. Grace is the establishment of a new governing order—a new lordship—over a subject whose powers are already ordered, but wrongly.

Sin orders the fallen human being toward the self, toward death, toward unbelief. Grace re-orders the human being toward God, toward life, toward trust. The two orders are not equivalent, and they are not symmetrical. One rules until displaced; the other rules by gift.

This is why Lutheran theology speaks of grace as dominion, reign, lordship. These are ordering terms, not adjectival ones.

3. Justification as ordered righteousness

Justification, on this grammar, is not the eradication of sin as a metaphysical residue, nor the infusion of a moral quality. It is the establishment of a new relation that governs the person before God.

Righteousness does not stand in an equivalence relation to the believer. The believer is not righteousness itself. Nor is righteousness a detachable accident that leaves the subject fundamentally unchanged. Righteousness is a relational status grounded in God’s judgment and promise, one that orders the believer’s standing coram Deo even while sin continues to order the flesh.

Here again asymmetry is decisive. Righteousness governs the believer’s relation to God without becoming a property of the believer as such. It is real, decisive, and effective—precisely because it is grounded in God’s act rather than in human capacity.

4. Simul iustus et peccator re-heard grammatically

The much-misunderstood simul iustus et peccator becomes intelligible once ordering replaces equivalence. The believer is not half righteous and half sinful, nor divided into metaphysical parts. Rather, two incompatible orders intersect in one subject under different relations.

Sin orders the flesh. Grace orders the person before God. These are not equivalent relations, nor do they cancel one another symmetrically. Grace reigns without annihilating; sin persists without defining.

This grammar preserves the realism of both claims. It prevents triumphalism without surrendering assurance. It speaks honestly of sin without denying righteousness.

5. Why this grammar safeguards the gospel

Only an ordered account of sin allows grace to be proclaimed as sheer gift. Only an ordered account of righteousness prevents it from becoming possession. Only an ordered grammar allows theology to speak decisively without collapsing into either despair or moralism.

Grace does not hover over sin as commentary. It overcomes sin by re-ordering the subject under a new word and a new lord. That re-ordering is not visible as a property, but it is real as judgment, promise, and life.

V. On the Identity of the Relata: What Is Ordered, and How

At this point, one final clarification is required. We have spoken of equivalence and order, of sin and grace as governing relations. But relations do not float free. Every relation presupposes relata. If the identity of the relata is left vague, the grammar collapses back into the very confusions we have sought to avoid.

1. Relations do not create their relata

An order relation presupposes that the things ordered are already distinct. Ordering does not generate identities; it governs how already-identified realities stand to one another. This is why the distinction between equivalence and order matters so deeply: equivalence threatens to erase distinction, while order presupposes and preserves it.

In the doctrine of original sin, the primary relata are not abstract properties. They are:

• the human creature as created by God, and

• sin as a corrupting power or condition that governs that creature in the fallen state.

Failure to identify these relata clearly leads either to their collapse into one another (as in substantialist accounts) or to their dissociation (as in accidentalist accounts).

2. What is ordered in original sin

Original sin does not relate two substances as equals. Nor does it relate a substance to a detachable property. Rather, it orders:

• the powers and acts of the human creature

• under a condition of alienation from God

The relation is asymmetrical. Sin orders the human being; the human being does not order sin. The directionality matters. The ordering is real, pervasive, and decisive—yet it does not redefine what the human being is as a creature.

This is why the Lutheran confession can speak of total corruption without speaking of ontological equivalence.

3. What is ordered in grace and righteousness

Likewise, when we speak of grace and righteousness, the relata must be named with equal care.

The relation of justification does not obtain between:

• a moral quality and a subject, or

• a neutral agent and divine assistance.

Rather, it obtains between:

• God as judging and promising, and

• the human person as addressed by that Word

Here the ordering is again asymmetrical. God’s act establishes the relation. The human being receives it. Righteousness governs the believer’s standing coram Deo without becoming an intrinsic possession.

This is why righteousness can be real without being essential, decisive without being descriptive, and certain without being visible.

4. Multiple orders, one subject

Once the relata are clearly identified, it becomes possible to say something that otherwise appears contradictory: the same human subject stands within different ordering relations at once.

• Under one order, the human being is governed by sin in the flesh.

• Under another, the same human being is governed by righteousness before God.

These are not competing equivalence relations. They are distinct orders with distinct relata and distinct directions. Confusion arises only when the relations are forced to do work they were never meant to do.

5. Why this clarification matters

Theological errors about sin and grace are rarely caused by denying doctrines outright. They are caused by misidentifying what is related to what, and how. When relata are blurred, relations collapse. When relations collapse, doctrine follows.

By attending carefully to equivalence, order, and the identity of the relata, theology gains a grammar capable of saying what the Lutheran confession has always insisted upon:

• Sin is real and total, but not defining.

• Grace is decisive and effective, but not possessive.

• Righteousness governs without becoming essence.

This grammar does not replace the gospel. It serves it. It clears the ground so that the Word of grace may be heard as what it truly is: not commentary on the human condition, but God’s act of re-ordering a fallen creature for life.