Original righteousness

Original righteousness is a concept variously appraised in Roman Catholic and Reformed theology relating to the Edenic state of sinlessness.

According to this doctrine, Adam and Eve were created without sin (a point that all Christian churches agree upon), and this original righteousness meant that a number of conditions that are now "natural" did not apply.

The Adamic man was immortal, experienced no excess of desire (in either lust or gluttony or greed), and had neither obesity nor starvation.

Where Roman Catholicism believes the original moral state of humanity to have been the result of a donum superadditum, humanity having been created in a morally-neutral state with an extra grace that was rescinded at the fall, Reformed theology holds to original righteousness as facultative and an inherent personal quality of goodness obtained at creation, a donum concreatum.

[1][2] However, even within scholastic and Roman Catholic theology, the precise relationship between a donum superadditum and original righteousness is debated.