The Assyrian Church of the East, following the Syriac and Eastern patristic tradition, understands the consequences of Adam's fall not in terms of forensic guilt transmitted to all humanity, but as the inheritance of mortality, corruptibility, and a weakened will. Each person is responsible for their own personal sins; the sin of Adam is not imputed to his descendants as personal guilt. This position differs from the Western Augustinian doctrine of original sin, which emphasizes inherited guilt.

The consequences of ancestral sin include the mortality of the human body and the weakness of the human will before the temptations to sin. Baptism restores the person to communion with God, incorporates them into Christ, and begins the healing of the effects of ancestral sin. The ongoing Christian life, marked by prayer, fasting, and moral effort, represents the believer's cooperation with God's grace in overcoming the weakness inherited from Adam's transgression.