This year’s State of Theology survey revealed that 71% of U.S. adults and 65% of evangelicals agreed with the statement, “Everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God.”

Commenting on the finding, Ligonier Ministries explained:

• When God created the world, everything He made was good (Gen. 1:10, 21, 25, 31). Yet through Adam and Eve’s rebellion in the Garden of Eden, humankind became corrupted. The Bible teaches the concept of original sin, which means that since the Fall, every human being inherits a sin nature from the time of their conception (Ps. 51:5; Rom. 5:12). In other words, we are not sinners because we sin; rather, we sin because we are sinners.
• It is unsurprising that most U.S. adults believe that humans are born innocent, given the influence of humanistic philosophies and worldviews that teach self-determinism and a view of humankind as basically good.

Theologians contend that Genesis chapter 3 is arguably the most important chapter in the Bible, explaining,

“Those who do not understand the Fall cannot diagnose properly the human dilemma…It is impossible to understand man’s behavior if you do not understand that it is all a product of sin. And all sin in the world is a result of what happened in Genesis 3.”

Perhaps that is why it is so encouraging to listen to Dominican Pastor Roberto Araujo King of Iglesia Bíblica Bautista Mi Esperanza, after ten months of study in the Genesis Family Life Program, explain the vital importance a proper understanding of sin and theology play in the spiritual transformation of the mind (Romans 12:2).