ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the argument put forward by Jonathan Edwards for the concept of inherited guilt in Original Sin. It concentrates in particular on William Wainwright's attack on Edwards' defence of this notion. The chapter shows that Wainwright is wrong in several important respects, and that Edwards' argument does represent a coherent and original articulation of the traditional doctrine of inherited guilt. Inherited guilt, then, accumulates because of the extended pollution in spacetime as a result of humanity being somehow identified with Adam's sin. Moreover, Wainwright claims that Edwards is guilty of conflating corrupt inclinations and guilty choices, thereby obscuring the distinction between the transmission and effects of Adam's sin, and the guilt pertaining to Adam's particular first sin. In particular, Wainwright seems to have underplayed the truly radical nature of Edwards' argument, which has implications for some of the more damaging aspects of his attack upon Edwards.
