Man & His Fallen Condition

"As every group is descended from Adam, so everyone has been affected by his one act of disobedience: ‘sin came into the world through one man … death spread to all men because all men sinned … death reigned from Adam … by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners …’ (Rom. 5:12ff.); ‘by man came death … the sting of death is sin’ (1 Cor. 15:21, 56). The reality of evil as a force which pervades and affects the decision-making processes and relationships of all human beings can only be accounted for on the basis of a total human solidarity which is both historical—going back to Adam—and lateral—spreading out to engulf all sons and daughters of Adam living at the same time. Sin is manifest most clearly in the refusal to love and serve God (Rom. 1:21–25). The consequence is anarchy in interpersonal relationships (Rom. 1:26–31). No-one is exempt: ‘all men, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin’ (Rom. 3:9).- J. A. Kirk

"Man naturally would be a god to himself, though for clambering so high he got his fall; and whatever doctrine nourisheth a good opinion of man in his own eye, this is acceptable to him; and this hath spawned another fry of dangerous errors -- the Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian, which set nature upon its legs, and persuade man he got alone to Christ, or at least with a little external help, of a hand to lead, or argument to excite, without creating any work in the soul. O, we cannot conceive how glib such stuff goes down. If one workman should tell you that your house is rotten, and must be pulled down, and all new materials prepared; and another should say, No such matter; such a beam is good, and such a spar may stand--a little cost will serve the turn; it were no wonder that you should listen to him that would put you to least cost and trouble. The faithful servants of Christ tell sinners from the Word, that man in his natural state is corrupt and rotten, that nothing of the old frame will serve, and there must needs be all new; but in comes an Arminian, and blows up the sinner's pride, and tells him he is not so weak or wicked as the other represents him. If thou wilt, thou mayest repent and believe; or, at least, by exerting thy natural abilities oblige God to superadd that thou hast not. This is the workman that will please proud man best." - William Gurnall (The Christian in Complete Armour pg. 81)

Also see: Sin & Temptation; Original Sin & the Fall; Total Depravity; Anthropology