Westminster Confession on Original sin & the human will
Will in bondage; needs sovereign grace to be freed
Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation: so as, a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.
THE POSITION
Chapter 6 supplies the anthropology - fallen nature 'utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good' (6.4) - and chapter 9 draws the conclusion about the will. The loss in 9.3 is total but bounded: what is lost is 'all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation', not the will's natural liberty, which 9.1 has already affirmed. Deliverance is by grace alone and produces real freedom rather than compulsion (9.4).
7 because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.
17 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
The confessional standard of English-speaking Presbyterianism, completed by the Westminster Assembly in 1646 and adopted with its Scripture proofs. This entry rests on the 1646 text from the manuscript of Cornelius Burges as edited by S. W. Carruthers (1937) for chapters 1-24, and on the 1647 text for chapters 25-33; the Assembly's own proof texts attached to each paragraph supply every reference below.
Cite this page
"Westminster Confession on Original sin & the human will", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/westminster/original-sin (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/westminster/original-sin).