Did Adam's sin affect the whole race, or does each person begin innocent and fall only by his own choices?
21 verses are cited on this page. Each one links to its chapter in the Greek text.
...as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men.Romans 5:12
Sin and death enter through one man and reach all. See the word study for the honest question about the final clause.
But death reigned from Adam unto Moses, even over them also who have not sinned after the similitude of the transgression of Adam.Romans 5:14
Death reigns even over those who committed no sin like Adam's, which is decisive: something besides personal sin is at work.
Therefore, as by the offence of one, unto all men to condemnation; so also by the justice of one, unto all men to justification of life.Romans 5:18-19
The parallel that governs everything. What Adam did reaches all, exactly as what Christ did reaches all.
And as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.1 Corinthians 15:22
The same structure stated compactly: a solidarity in Adam answered by a solidarity in Christ.
All have sinned, and do need the glory of God.Romans 3:23
The most quoted verse in the debate, and both sides accept it. What it does not say is how the condition arrived, which is the question the chapter before and after it takes up.
...and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.Ephesians 2:3
Not children of wrath by our deeds but by nature, by what we are from birth.
Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost... That which is born of the flesh, is flesh.John 3:5-6
Natural birth is not enough; a new birth is required, which implies the first birth leaves something lacking.
For I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is to say, in my flesh, that which is good... I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind.Romans 7:18-23
Paul describes a disorder inside the redeemed man himself, not merely bad habits learned from others.
There is not any man just. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.Romans 3:10-12
Paul's indictment at its strongest, and the ground of the Reformed doctrine of total depravity.
For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will.Philippians 2:13
Even our willing of the good is God's work in us, so no one is saved by unaided nature.
...the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law... who shew the work of the law written in their hearts.Romans 2:14-15
Yet fallen man still perceives the moral law and can do things genuinely good, which is why the Catholic reading calls the nature wounded rather than destroyed.
...for without me you can do nothing.John 15:5
Nothing supernatural, nothing meritorious for salvation, can be done apart from grace.
Scripture teaches that sin and death entered by one man and passed to all, and that death reigned even over those who never sinned as Adam did (Romans 5:12-14), so something besides personal sin is inherited. We are "by nature children of wrath" (Ephesians 2:3), needing a new birth because the first is not enough (John 3:5-6). Honesty requires granting that the clause most often quoted, "in whom all have sinned," rests on a Latin rendering that the Greek does not clearly bear; but the doctrine never depended on it, and Paul's parallel between the two Adams collapses without it. Original sin is not a crime an infant committed. It is the loss of the original holiness in which we were made, inherited with our nature, leaving us wounded and inclined to sin and unable to reach God unaided. The Second Council of Orange (529) condemned the notion that we can turn to God by unaided will, and the Council of Trent (Session 5) defined the doctrine while teaching that baptism truly removes original sin, leaving concupiscence, which is not itself sin but comes from sin and inclines toward it. The Catholic account is neither that man is basically fine nor that he is utterly corrupt: he is a great ruin, and ruins are worth restoring.