ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by clarifying the traditional theological problem of the fall under consideration. It discusses Jonathan Edwards' defence of one central aspect of the traditional doctrine of the fall. Edwards' articulation of the doctrine of the fall depends upon several related metaphysical commitments that it is important to grasp, in order to do justice to Edwards' case. The substance of Edwards' account of how Adam sinned develops out of a distinction between sufficient and confirming grace. Edwards was convinced that moral agency consists in both a moral faculty, such that a person can distinguish right courses of action from wrong ones, and a capacity to reason whereby the agent is subject to the influence of moral inducements. Edwards qua theological determinist wants to say that virtue is concreated with Adam, and that this concreation constitutes the endowment of original righteousness, 'the creation of our first parents with holy principles and dispositions'.
