Chapter XXII: Section II: Nature Of Sin (1)

I. Definition of Sin.

Sin is lack of conformity to the moral law of God, either in act, disposition, or state.

In explanation, we remark that (_a_) This definition regards sin as predicable only of rational and voluntary agents. (_b_) It assumes, however, that man has a rational nature below consciousness, and a voluntary nature apart from actual volition. (_c_) It holds that the divine law requires moral likeness to God in the affections and tendencies of the nature, as well as in its outward activities. (_d_) It therefore considers lack of conformity to the divine holiness in disposition or state as a violation of law, equally with the outward act of transgression.

In our discussion of the Will (pages 504-513), we noticed that
there are permanent states of the will, as well as of the
intellect and of the sensibilities. It is evident, moreover, that
these permanent states, unlike man’s deliberate acts, are always
very imperfectly conscious, and in many cases are not conscious at
all. Yet it is in these very states that man is most unlike God,
and so, as law only reflects God (see pages 537-544), most lacking
in conformity to God’s law.

One main difference between Old School and New School views of sin
is that the latter constantly tends to limit sin to mere act,
while the former finds sin in the states of the soul. We propose
what we think to be a valid and proper compromise between the two.
We make sin coëxtensive, not with act, but with activity. The Old
School and the New School are not so far apart, when we remember
that the New School “choice” is _elective preference_, exercised
so soon as the child is born (Park) and reasserting itself in all
the subordinate choices of life; while the Old School “state” is
not a dead, passive, mechanical thing, but is a _state of active
movement_, or of tendency to move, toward evil. As God’s holiness
is not passive purity but purity willing (pages 268-275), so the
opposite to this, sin, is not passive impurity but is impurity
willing.

The soul may not always be conscious, but it may always be active.
At his creation man “_became a living soul_” (_Gen. 2:7_), and it
may be doubted whether the human spirit ever ceases its activity,
any more than the divine Spirit in whose image it is made. There
is some reason to believe that even in the deepest sleep the body
rests rather than the mind. And when we consider how large a
portion of our activity is automatic and continuous, we see the
impossibility of limiting the term “sin” to the sphere of
momentary act, whether conscious or unconscious.

E. G. Robinson: “Sin is not mere act—something foreign to the
being. It is a quality of being. There is no such thing as a sin
apart from a sinner, or an act apart from an actor. God punishes
sinners, not sins. Sin is a mode of being; as an entity by itself
it never existed. God punishes sin as a state, not as an act. Man
is not responsible for the consequences of his crimes, nor for the
acts themselves, except as they are symptomatic of his personal
states.” Dorner, Hist. Doct. Person Christ, 5:162—“The knowledge
of sin has justly been termed the β and ψ of philosophy.”

Our treatment of Holiness, as belonging to the nature of God (pages 268-275); of Will, as not only the faculty of volitions, but also a permanent state of the soul (pages 504-513); and of Law as requiring the conformity of man’s nature to God’s holiness (pages 537-544); has prepared us for the definition of sin as a state. The chief psychological defect of New School theology, next to its making holiness to be a mere form of love, is its ignoring of the unconscious and subconscious elements in human character. To help our understanding of sin as an underlying and permanent state of the soul, we subjoin references to recent writers of note upon psychology and its relations to theology.

We may preface our quotations by remarking that mind is always
greater than its conscious operations. The man is more than his
acts. Only the smallest part of the self is manifested in the
thoughts, feelings, and volitions. In counting, to put myself to
sleep, I find, when my attention has been diverted by other
thoughts, that the counting has gone on all the same. Ladd,
Philosophy of Mind, 176, speaks of the “dramatic sundering of the
ego.” There are dream-conversations. Dr. Johnson was once greatly
vexed at being worsted by his opponent in an argument in a dream.
M. Maury in a dream corrected the bad English of his real self by
the good English of his other unreal self. Spurgeon preached a
sermon in his sleep after vainly trying to excogitate one when
awake, and his wife gave him the substance of it after he woke.
Hegel said that “Life is divided into two realms—a night-life of
genius, and a day-life of consciousness.”

Du Prel, Philosophy of Mysticism, propounds the thesis: “The ego
is not wholly embraced in self-consciousness,” and claims that
there is much of psychical activity within us of which our common
waking conception of ourselves takes no account. Thus when “dream
dramatizes”—when we engage in a dream-conversation in which our
interlocutor’s answer comes to us with a shock of surprise—if our
own mind is assumed to have furnished that answer, it has done so
by a process of unconscious activity. Dwinell, in Bib. Sac., July,
1890:369-389—“The soul is only imperfectly in possession of its
organs, and is able to report only a small part of its activities
in consciousness.” Thoughts come to us like foundlings laid at our
door. We slip in a question to the librarian, Memory, and after
leaving it there awhile the answer appears on the bulletin board.
Delbœuf, Le Sommeil et les Rêves, 91—“The dreamer is a momentary
and involuntary dupe of his own imagination, as the poet is the
momentary and voluntary dupe, and the insane man is the permanent
and involuntary dupe.” If we are the organs not only of our own
past thinking, but, as Herbert Spencer suggests, also the organs
of the past thinking of the race, his doctrine may give
additional, though unintended, confirmation to a Scriptural view
of sin.

William James, Will to Believe, 316, quotes from F. W. H. Myers,
in Jour. Psych. Research, who likens our ordinary consciousness to
the visible part of the solar spectrum; the total consciousness is
like that spectrum prolonged by the inclusion of the ultra-red and
the ultra-violet rays—1 to 12 and 96. “Each of us,” he says, “is
an abiding psychical entity far more extensive than he knows—an
individuality which can never express itself completely through
any corporeal manifestation. The self manifests itself through the
organism; but there is always some part of the self unmanifested,
and always, as it seems, some power of organic expression in
abeyance or reserve.” William James himself, in Scribner’s
Monthly, March, 1890:361-373, sketches the hypnotic investigations
of Janet and Binet. There is a secondary, subconscious self.
Hysteria is the lack of synthetising power, and consequent
disintegration of the field of consciousness into mutually
exclusive parts. According to Janet, the secondary and the primary
consciousnesses, added together, can never exceed the normally
total consciousness of the individual. But Prof. James says:
“There are trances which obey another type. I know a
non-hysterical woman, who in her trances knows facts which
altogether transcend her possible normal consciousness, facts
about the lives of people whom she never saw or heard of before.”

Our affections are deeper and stronger than we know. We learn how
deep and strong they are, when their current is resisted by
affliction or dammed up by death. We know how powerful evil
passions are, only when we try to subdue them. Our dreams show us
our naked selves. On the morality of dreams, the London Spectator
remarks: “Our conscience and power of self-control act as a sort
of watchdog over our worse selves during the day, but when the
watchdog is off duty, the primitive or natural man is at liberty
to act as he pleases; our ‘soul’ has left us at the mercy of our
own evil nature, and in our dreams we become what, except for the
grace of God, we would always be.”

Both in conscience and in will there is a self-diremption. Kant’s
categorical imperative is only one self laying down the law to the
other self. The whole Kantian system of ethics is based on this
doctrine of double consciousness. Ladd, in his Philosophy of Mind,
169 _sq._, speaks of “psychical automatism.” Yet this automatism
is possible only to self-conscious and cognitively remembering
minds. It is always the “I” that puts itself into “that other.” We
could not conceive of the other self except under the figure of
the “I.” All our mental operations are ours, and we are
responsible for them, because the subconscious and even the
unconscious self is the product of past self-conscious thoughts
and volitions. The present settled state of our wills is the
result of former decisions. The will is a storage battery, charged
by past acts, full of latent power, ready to manifest its energy
so soon as the force which confines it is withdrawn. On
unconscious mental action, see Carpenter, Mental Physiology, 139,
515-543, and criticism of Carpenter, in Ireland, Blot on the
Brain, 226-238; Bramwell, Hypnotism, its History, Practice and
Theory, 358-398; Porter, Human Intellect, 333, 334; _versus_ Sir
Wm. Hamilton, who adopts the maxim: “Non sentimus, nisi sentiamus
nos sentire” (Philosophy, ed. Wight, 171). Observe also that sin
may infect the body, as well as the soul, and may bring it into a
state of non-conformity to God’s law (see H. B. Smith, Syst.
Theol., 267).

In adducing our Scriptural and rational proof of the definition of sin as a state, we desire to obviate the objection that this view leaves the soul wholly given over to the power of evil. While we maintain that this is true of man apart from God, we also insist that side by side with the evil bent of the human will there is always an immanent divine power which greatly counteracts the force of evil, and if not resisted leads the individual soul—even when resisted leads the race at large—toward truth and salvation. This immanent divine power is none other than Christ, the eternal Word, the Light which lighteth every man; see John 1:4, 9.

_John 1:4, 9_—“_In him was life, and the life was the light of
men.... There was the true light, even the light which lighteth
every man._” See a further statement in A. H. Strong, Cleveland
Sermon, May, 1904, with regard to the old and the new view as to
sin:—“Our fathers believed in total depravity, and we agree with
them that man naturally is devoid of love to God and that every
faculty is weakened, disordered, and corrupted by the selfish bent
of his will. They held to original sin. The selfish bent of man’s
will can be traced back to the apostacy of our first parents; and,
on account of that departure of the race from God, all men are by
nature children of wrath. And all this is true, if it is regarded
as a statement of the facts, apart from their relation to Christ.
But our fathers did not see, as we do, that man’s relation to
Christ antedated the Fall and constituted an underlying and
modifying condition of man’s life. Humanity was naturally in
Christ, in whom all things were created and in whom they all
consist. Even man’s sin did not prevent Christ from still working
in him to counteract the evil and to suggest the good. There was
an internal, as well as an external, preparation for man’s
redemption. In this sense, of a divine principle in man striving
against the selfish and godless will, there was a total
redemption, over against man’s total depravity; and an original
grace, that was even more powerful than original sin.

“We have become conscious that total depravity alone is not a
sufficient or proper expression of the truth; and the phrase has
been outgrown. It has been felt that the old view of sin did not
take account of the generous and noble aspirations, the unselfish
efforts, the strivings after God, of even unregenerate men. For
this reason there has been less preaching about sin, and less
conviction as to its guilt and condemnation. The good impulses of
men outside the Christian pale have been often credited to human
nature, when they should have been credited to the indwelling
Spirit of Christ. I make no doubt that one of our radical
weaknesses at this present time is our more superficial view of
sin. Without some sense of sin’s guilt and condemnation, we cannot
feel our need of redemption. John the Baptist must go before
Christ; the law must prepare the way for the gospel.

“My belief is that the new apprehension of Christ’s relation to
the race will enable us to declare, as never before, the lost
condition of the sinner; while at the same time we show him that
Christ is with him and in him to save. This presence in every man
of a power not his own that works for righteousness is a very
different doctrine from that ’divinity of man’ which is so often
preached. The divinity is not the divinity of man, but the
divinity of Christ. And the power that works for righteousness is
not the power of man, but the power of Christ. It is a power whose
warning, inviting, persuading influence renders only more marked
and dreadful the evil will which hampers and resists it. Depravity
is all the worse, when we recognize in it the constant antagonist
of an ever-present, all-holy, and all-loving Redeemer.”

1. Proof.

As it is readily admitted that the outward act of transgression is properly denominated sin, we here attempt to show only that lack of conformity to the law of God in disposition or state is also and equally to be so denominated.

A. From Scripture.

(_a_) The words ordinarily translated “sin,” or used as synonyms for it, are as applicable to dispositions and states as to acts (חטאה and ἁμαρτία = a missing, failure, coming short [_sc._ of God’s will]).

See _Num. 15:28_—“_sinneth unwittingly_”; _Ps. 51:2_—“_cleanse me
from my sin_”; _5_—“_Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; And
in sin did my mother conceive me_”; _Rom. 7:17_—“_sin which
dwelleth in me_”; compare _Judges 20:16_, where the literal
meaning of the word appears: “_sling stones at a hair-breadth, and
not miss_” (חטא). In a similar manner, משע [LXX ἀσέβεια] =
separation from, rebellion against [sc. God]; see _Lev. 16:16,
21_; _cf._ Delitzsch on _Ps. 32:1_. עון [LXX ἀδικία] = bending,
perversion [sc. of what is right], iniquity; see _Lev. 5:17_;
_cf._ _John 7:18_. See also the Hebrew רע, רשע, [= ruin,
confusion], and the Greek ἀποστασία, ἐπιθυμία, ἔχθρα, κακία,
πονηρία, σάρξ. None of these designations of sin limits it to mere
act,—most of them more naturally suggest disposition or state.
Ἁμαρτία implies that man in sin does not reach what he seeks
therein; sin is a state of delusion and deception (Julius Müller).
On the words mentioned, see Girdlestone, O. T. Synonyms; Cremer,
Lexicon N. T. Greek; Present Day Tracts, 5: no. 28, pp. 43-47;
Trench, N. T. Synonyms, part 2:61, 73.

(b) The New Testament descriptions of sin bring more distinctly to view the states and dispositions than the outward acts of the soul (1 John 3:4—ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐστὶν ἡ ἀνομία, where ἀνομία =, not “transgression of the law,” but, as both context and etymology show, “lack of conformity to law” or “lawlessness”—Rev. Vers.).

See _1 John 5:17_—“_All unrighteousness is sin_”; _Rom.
14:23_—“_whatsoever is not of faith is sin_”; _James 4:17_—“_To
him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it
is sin._” Where the sin is that of _not doing_, sin cannot be said
to consist in _act_. It must then at least be a _state_.

(_c_) Moral evil is ascribed not only to the thoughts and affections, but to the heart from which they spring (we read of the “evil thoughts” and of the “evil heart”—Mat. 15:19 and Heb. 3:12).

See also _Mat. 5:22_—anger in the heart is murder; _28_—impure
desire is adultery. _Luke 6:45_—“_the evil man out of the evil
treasure_ [of his heart] _bringeth forth that which is evil._”
_Heb. 3:12_—“_an evil heart of unbelief_”; _cf._ _Is. 1:5_—“_the
whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint_”; _Jer. 17:9_—“_The
heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly
corrupt: who can know it?_”—here the sin that cannot be known is
not sin of act, but sin of the heart. “Below the surface stream,
shallow and light, Of what we _say_ we feel; below the stream, As
light, of what we _think_ we feel, there flows, With silent
current, strong, obscure and deep, The central stream of what we
feel _indeed_.”

(_d_) The state or condition of the soul which gives rise to wrong desires and acts is expressly called sin (Rom. 7:8—“Sin ... wrought in me ... all manner of coveting”).

_John 8:34_—“_Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of
sin_”; _Rom. 7:11, 13, 14, 17, 20_—“_sin ... beguiled me ...
working death to me ... I am carnal, sold under sin ... sin which
dwelleth in me._” These representations of sin as a principle or
state of the soul are incompatible with the definition of it as a
mere act. John Byrom, 1691-1763: “Think and be careful what thou
art within, For there is sin in the desire of sin. Think and be
thankful in a different case, For there is grace in the desire of
grace.”

Alexander, Theories of the Will, 85—“In the person of Paul is
represented the man who has been already justified by faith and
who is at peace with God. In the 6th chapter of Romans, the
question is discussed whether such a man is obliged to keep the
moral law. But in the 7th chapter the question is not, _must_ man
keep the moral law? but why is he so _incapable_ of keeping the
moral law? The struggle is thus, not in the soul of the
unregenerate man who is dead in sin, but in the soul of the
regenerate man who has been pardoned and is endeavoring to keep
the law.... In a state of sin the will is determined toward the
bad; in a state of grace the will is determined toward
righteousness; but not wholly so, for the flesh is not at once
subdued, and there is a war between the good and bad principles of
action in the soul of him who has been pardoned.”

(_e_) Sin is represented as existing in the soul, prior to the consciousness of it, and as only discovered and awakened by the law (Rom. 7:9, 10—“when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died”—if sin “revived,” it must have had previous existence and life, even though it did not manifest itself in acts of conscious transgression).

_Rom. 7:8_—“_apart from the law sin is dead_”—here is sin which is
not yet sin of act. Dead or unconscious sin is still sin. The fire
in a cave discovers reptiles and stirs them, but they were there
before; the light and heat do not create them. Let a beam of
light, says Jean Paul Richter, through your window-shutter into a
darkened room, and you reveal a thousand motes floating in the air
whose existence was before unsuspected. So the law of God reveals
our “_hidden faults_” (_Ps. 19:12_)—infirmities, imperfections,
evil tendencies and desires—which also cannot all be classed as
_acts_ of transgression.

(_f_) The allusions to sin as a permanent power or reigning principle, not only in the individual but in humanity at large, forbid us to define it as a momentary act, and compel us to regard it as being primarily a settled depravity of nature, of which individual sins or acts of transgression are the workings and fruits (Rom. 5:21—“sin reigned in death”; 6:12—“let not therefore sin reign in your mortal body”).

In _Rom. 5:21_, the reign of sin is compared to the reign of
grace. As grace is not an act but a principle, so sin is not an
act but a principle. As the poisonous exhalations from a well
indicate that there is corruption and death at the bottom, so the
ever-recurring thoughts and acts of sin are evidence that there is
a principle of sin in the heart,—in other words, that sin exists
as a permanent disposition or state. A momentary act cannot
“reign” nor “dwell”; a disposition or state can. Maudsley, Sleep,
its Psychology, makes the damaging confession: “If we were held
responsible for our dreams, there is no living man who would not
deserve to be hanged.”

(_g_) The Mosaic sacrifices for sins of ignorance and of omission, and especially for general sinfulness, are evidence that sin is not to be limited to mere act, but that it includes something deeper and more permanent in the heart and the life (Lev. 1:3; 5:11; 12:8; _cf._ Luke 2:24).

The sin-offering for sins of ignorance (_Lev. 4:14, 20, 31_), the
trespass-offering for sins of omission (_Lev. 5:5, 6_), and the
burnt offering to expiate general sinfulness (_Lev. 1:3_; _cf._
_Luke 2:22-24_), all witness that sin is not confined to mere act.
_John 1:29_—“_the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin,_” not the
sins, “_of the world_”. See Oehler, O. T. Theology, 1:233; Schmid,
Bib. Theol. N. T., 194, 381, 442, 448, 492, 604; Philippi,
Glaubenslehre, 3:210-217; Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin,
2:259-306; Edwards, Works. 3:16-18. For the New School definition
of sin, see Fitch, Nature of Sin, and Park, in Bib. Sac., 7:551.

B. From the common judgment of mankind.

(_a_) Men universally attribute vice as well as virtue not only to conscious and deliberate acts, but also to dispositions and states. Belief in something more permanently evil than acts of transgression is indicated in the common phrases, “hateful temper,” “wicked pride,” “bad character.”

As the beatitudes (_Mat. 5:1-12_) are pronounced, not upon acts,
but upon dispositions of the soul, so the curses of the law are
uttered not so much against single acts of transgression as
against the evil affections from which they spring. Compare the
“_works of the flesh_” (_Gal. 5:19_) with the “_fruit of the
Spirit_” (_5:22_). In both, dispositions and states predominate.

(_b_) Outward acts, indeed, are condemned only when they are regarded as originating in, and as symptomatic of, evil dispositions. Civil law proceeds upon this principle in holding crime to consist, not alone in the external act, but also in the evil motive or intent with which it is performed.

The _mens rea_ is essential to the idea of crime. The
“_idle-word_” (_Mat 12:36_) shall be brought into the judgment,
not because it is so important in itself, but because it is a
floating straw that indicates the direction of the whole current
of the heart and life. Murder differs from homicide, not in any
outward respect, but simply because of the motive that prompts
it,—and that motive is always, in the last analysis, an evil
disposition or state.

(_c_) The stronger an evil disposition, or in other words, the more it connects itself with, or resolves itself into, a settled state or condition of the soul, the more blameworthy is it felt to be. This is shown by the distinction drawn between crimes of passion and crimes of deliberation.

Edwards: “Guilt consists in having one’s heart wrong, and in doing
wrong from the heart.” There is guilt in evil desires, even when
the will combats them. But there is greater guilt when the will
consents. The outward act may be in each case the same, but the
guilt of it is proportioned to the extent to which the evil
disposition is settled and strong.

(_d_) This condemning sentence remains the same, even although the origin of the evil disposition or state cannot be traced back to any conscious act of the individual. Neither the general sense of mankind, nor the civil law in which this general sense is expressed, goes behind the fact of an existing evil will. Whether this evil will is the result of personal transgression or is a hereditary bias derived from generations passed, this evil will is the man himself, and upon him terminates the blame. We do not excuse arrogance or sensuality upon the ground that they are family traits.

The young murderer in Boston was not excused upon the ground of a
congenitally cruel disposition. We repent in later years of sins
of boyhood, which we only now see to be sins; and converted
cannibals repent, after becoming Christians, of the sins of
heathendom which they once committed without a thought of their
wickedness. The peacock cannot escape from his feet by flying, nor
can we absolve ourselves from blame for an evil state of will by
tracing its origin to a remote ancestry. We are responsible for
what we are. How this can be, when we have not personally and
consciously originated it, is the problem of original sin, which
we have yet to discuss.

(_e_) When any evil disposition has such strength in itself, or is so combined with others, as to indicate a settled moral corruption in which no power to do good remains, this state is regarded with the deepest disapprobation of all. Sin weakens man’s power of obedience, but the can-not is a will-not, and is therefore condemnable. The opposite principle would lead to the conclusion that, the more a man weakened his powers by transgression, the less guilty he would be, until absolute depravity became absolute innocence.

The boy who hates his father cannot change his hatred into love by
a single act of will; but he is not therefore innocent.
Spontaneous and uncontrollable profanity is the worst profanity of
all. It is a sign that the whole will, like a subterranean
Kentucky river, is moving away from God, and that no recuperative
power is left in the soul which can reach into the depths to
reverse its course. See Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:110-114; Shedd,
Hist. Doct., 2:79-92, 152-157; Richards, Lectures on Theology,
256-301; Edwards, Works, 2:134; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 243-262;
Princeton Essays, 2:224-239; Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 394.

C. From the experience of the Christian.

Christian experience is a testing of Scripture truth, and therefore is not an independent source of knowledge. It may, however, corroborate conclusions drawn from the word of God. Since the judgment of the Christian is formed under the influence of the Holy Spirit, we may trust this more implicitly than the general sense of the world. We affirm, then, that just in proportion to his spiritual enlightenment and self-knowledge, the Christian

(_a_) Regards his outward deviations from God’s law, and his evil inclinations and desires, as outgrowths and revelations of a depravity of nature which lies below his consciousness; and

(_b_) Repents more deeply for this depravity of nature, which constitutes his inmost character and is inseparable from himself, than for what he merely feels or does.

In proof of these statements we appeal to the biographies and writings of those in all ages who have been by general consent regarded as most advanced in spiritual culture and discernment.

“Intelligentia prima est, ut te noris peccatorem.” Compare David’s
experience, _Ps. 51:6_—“_Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward
parts: And in the hidden part thou wilt make me to know
wisdom_”—with Paul’s experience in _Rom. 7:24_—“_Wretched man that
I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?_”—with
Isaiah’s experience (_6:5_), when in the presence of God’s glory
he uses the words of the leper (_Lev. 13:45_) and calls himself
“_unclean_,” and with Peter’s experience (_Luke 5:8_) when at the
manifestation of Christ’s miraculous power he “_fell down at
Jesus’ __ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O
Lord._” So the publican cries: _“__God, be thou merciful to me the
sinner__”__ (Luke 18:13)_, and Paul calls himself the “_chief_” of
sinners (_1 Tim. 1:15_). It is evident that in none of these cases
were there merely single acts of transgression in view; the
humiliation and self-abhorrence were in view of permanent states
of depravity. Van Oosterzee: “What we do outwardly is only the
revelation of our inner nature.” The outcropping and visible rock
is but small in extent compared with the rock that is underlying
and invisible. The iceberg has eight-ninths of its mass below the
surface of the sea, yet icebergs have been seen near Cape Horn
from 700 to 800 feet high above the water.

It may be doubted whether any repentance is genuine which is not
repentance for _sin_ rather than for _sins_; compare _John
16:8_—the Holy Spirit “_will convict the world in respect of
sin_/” On the difference between conviction of sins and conviction
of sin, see Hare, Mission of the Comforter. Dr. A. J. Gordon, just
before his death, desired to be left alone. He was then overheard
confessing his sins in such seemingly extravagant terms as to
excite fear that he was in delirium. Martensen, Dogmatics,
389—Luther during his early experience “often wrote to Staupitz:
‘Oh, my sins, my sins!’ and yet in the confessional he could name
no sins in particular which he had to confess; so that it was
clearly a sense of the general depravity of his nature which
filled his soul with deep sorrow and pain.” Luther’s conscience
would not accept the comfort that he _wished_ to be without sin,
and therefore had no real sin. When he thought himself too great a
sinner to be saved, Staupitz replied: “Would you have the
semblance of a sinner and the semblance of a Savior?”

After twenty years of religious experience, Jonathan Edwards wrote
(Works 1:22, 23; also 3:16-18): “Often since I have lived in this
town I have had very affecting views of my own sinfulness and
vileness, very frequently to such a degree as to hold me in a kind
of loud weeping, sometimes for a considerable time together, so
that I have been often obliged to shut myself up. I have had a
vastly greater sense of my own wickedness and the badness of my
heart than ever I had before my conversion. It has often appeared
to me that if God should mark iniquity against me, I should appear
the very worst of all mankind, of all that have been since the
beginning of the world to this time; and that I should have by far
the lowest place in hell. When others that have come to talk with
me about their soul’s concerns have expressed the sense they have
had of their own wickedness, by saying that it seemed to them they
were as bad as the devil himself; I thought their expressions
seemed exceeding faint and feeble to represent my wickedness.”

Edwards continues: “My wickedness, as I am in myself, has long
appeared to me perfectly ineffable and swallowing up all thought
and imagination—like an infinite deluge, or mountains over my
head. I know not how to express better what my sins appear to me
to be, than by heaping infinite on infinite and multiplying
infinite by infinite. Very often for these many years, these
expressions are in my mind and in my mouth: ‘Infinite upon
infinite—infinite upon infinite!’ When I look into my heart and
take a view of my wickedness, it looks like an abyss infinitely
deeper than hell. And it appears to me that were it not for free
grace, exalted and raised up to the infinite height of all the
fulness and glory of the great Jehovah, and the arm of his power
and grace stretched forth in all the majesty of his power and in
all the glory of his sovereignty, I should appear sunk down in my
sins below hell itself, far beyond the sight of everything but the
eye of sovereign grace that can pierce even down to such a depth.
And yet it seems to me that my conviction of sin is exceeding
small and faint; it is enough to amaze me that I have no more
sense of my sin. I know certainly that I have very little sense of
my sinfulness. When I have had turns of weeping for my sins, I
thought I knew at the time that my repentance was nothing to my
sin.... It is affecting to think how ignorant I was, when a young
Christian, of the bottomless, infinite depths of wickedness,
pride, hypocrisy, and deceit left in my heart.”

Jonathan Edwards was not an ungodly man, but the holiest man of
his time. He was not an enthusiast, but a man of acute,
philosophic mind. He was not a man who indulged in exaggerated or
random statements, for with his power of introspection and
analysis he combined a faculty and habit of exact expression
unsurpassed among the sons of men. If the maxim “cuique in arte
sua credendum est” is of any value, Edwards’s statements in a
matter of religious experience are to be taken as correct
interpretations of the facts. H. B. Smith (System. Theol., 275)
quotes Thomasius as saying: “It is a striking fact in Scripture
that statements of the depth and power of sin are chiefly from the
regenerate.” Another has said that “a serpent is never seen at its
whole length until it is dead.” Thomas à Kempis (ed. Gould and
Lincoln, 142)—“Do not think that thou hast made any progress
toward perfection, till thou feelest that thou art less than the
least of all human beings.” Young’s Night Thoughts: “Heaven’s
Sovereign saves all beings but himself That hideous sight—a naked
human heart.”

Law’s Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life: “You may justly
condemn yourself for being the greatest sinner that you know, 1.
Because you know more of the folly of your own heart than of other
people’s, and can charge yourself with various sins which you know
only of yourself and cannot be sure that others are guilty of
them. 2. The greatness of our guilt arises from the greatness of
God’s goodness to us. You know more of these aggravations of your
sins than you do of the sins of other people. Hence the greatest
saints have in all ages condemned themselves as the greatest
sinners.” We may add: 3. That, since each man is a peculiar being,
each man is guilty of peculiar sins, and in certain particulars
and aspects may constitute an example of the enormity and
hatefulness of sin, such as neither earth nor hell can elsewhere
show.

Of Cromwell, as a representative of the Puritans, Green says
(Short History of the English People, 454): “The vivid sense of
the divine Purity close to such men, made the life of common men
seem sin.” Dr. Arnold of Rugby (Life and Corresp., App. D.): “In a
deep sense of moral evil, more perhaps than anything else, abides
a saving knowledge of God.” Augustine, on his death-bed, had the
32d Psalm written over against him on the wall. For his
expressions with regard to sin, see his Confessions, book 10. See
also Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 284, note.

2. Inferences.

In the light of the preceding discussion, we may properly estimate the elements of truth and of error in the common definition of sin as “the voluntary transgression of known law.”

(_a_) Not all sin is voluntary as being a distinct and conscious volition; for evil disposition and state often precede and occasion evil volition, and evil disposition and state are themselves sin. All sin, however, is voluntary as springing either directly from will, or indirectly from those perverse affections and desires which have themselves originated in will. “Voluntary” is a term broader then “volitional,” and includes all those permanent states of intellect and affection which the will has made what they are. Will, moreover, is not to be regarded as simply the faculty of volitions, but as primarily the underlying determination of the being to a supreme end.

Will, as we have seen, includes preference (θέλημα, _voluntas_,
_Wille_) as well as volition (βουλή, _arbitrium_, _Willkür_). We
do not, with Edwards and Hodge, regard the sensibilities as states
of the will. They are, however, in their character and their
objects determined by the will, and so they may be called
voluntary. The permanent state of the will (New School “elective
preference”) is to be distinguished from the permanent state of
the sensibilities (dispositions, or desires). But both are
voluntary because both are due to past decisions of the will, and
“whatever springs from will we are responsible for” (Shedd,
Discourses and Essays, 243). Julius Müller, 2:51—“We speak of
self-consciousness and reason as something which the ego _has_,
but we identify the will _with_ the ego. No one would say, ‘my
will has decided this or that,’ although we do say, ‘my reason, my
conscience teaches me this or that.’ The will is the very man
himself, as Augustine says: ‘Voluntas est in omnibus; imo omnes
nihil aliud quam voluntates sunt.’ ”

For other statements of the relation of disposition to will, see
Alexander, Moral Science, 151—“In regard to dispositions, we say
that they are in a sense voluntary. They properly belong to the
will, taking the word in a large sense. In judging of the morality
of voluntary acts, the principle from which they proceed is always
included in our view and comes in for a large part of the blame”;
see also pages 201, 207, 208. Edwards on the Affections, 3:1-22;
on the Will, 3:4—“The affections are only certain modes of the
exercise of the will.” A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 234—“All
sin is voluntary, in the sense that all sin has its root in the
perverted dispositions, desires, and affections which constitute
the depraved state of the will.” But to Alexander, Edwards, and
Hodge, we reply that the first sin was not voluntary in this
sense, for there was no such depraved state of the will from which
it could spring. We are responsible for dispositions, not upon the
ground that they are a part of the will, but upon the ground that
they are effects of will, in other words, that past decisions of
the will have made them what they are. See pages 504-513.

(_b_) Deliberate intention to sin is an aggravation of transgression, but it is not essential to constitute any given act or feeling a sin. Those evil inclinations and impulses which rise unbidden and master the soul before it is well aware of their nature, are themselves violations of the divine law, and indications of an inward depravity which in the case of each descendant of Adam is the chief and fontal transgression.

Joseph Cook: “Only the surface-water of the sea is penetrated with
light. Beneath is a half-lit region. Still further down is
absolute darkness. We are greater than we know.” Weismann,
Heredity, 2:8—“At the depth of 170 meters, or 552 feet, there is
about as much light as that of a starlight night when there is no
moon. Light penetrates as far as 400 meters, or 1,300 feet, but
animal life exists at a depth of 4,000 meters, or 13,000 feet.
Below 1,300 feet, all animals are blind.” (_Cf._ _Ps. 51:6;
19:12_—“_the inward parts ... the hidden parts ... hidden
faults_”—hidden not only from others, but even from ourselves.)
The light of consciousness plays only on the surface of the waters
of man’s soul.

(_c_) Knowledge of the sinfulness of an act or feeling is also an aggravation of transgression, but it is not essential to constitute it a sin. Moral blindness is the effect of transgression, and, as inseparable from corrupt affections and desires, is itself condemned by the divine law.

It is our duty to do better than we know. Our duty of knowing is
as real as our duty of doing. Sin is an opiate. Some of the most
deadly diseases do not reveal themselves in the patient’s
countenance, nor has the patient any adequate understanding of his
malady. There is an ignorance which is indolence. Men are often
unwilling to take the trouble of rectifying their standards of
judgment. There is also an ignorance which is intention. Instance
many students’ ignorance of College laws.

We cannot excuse disobedience by saying: “I forgot.” God’s
commandment is: “_Remember_”—as in _Ex. 20:8_; _cf._ _2 Pet.
3:5_—“_For this they wilfully forget._” “Ignorantia legis neminem
excusat.” _Rom. 2:12_—“_as many as have sinned without the law
shall also perish without the law_”; _Luke 12:48_—“_he that knew
not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten_ [though]
_with few stripes._” The aim of revelation and of preaching is to
bring man “_to himself_” (_cf._ _Luke 15:17_)—to show him what he
has been doing and what he is. Goethe: “We are never deceived: we
deceive ourselves.” Royce, World and Individual, 2:359—“The sole
possible free moral action is then a freedom that relates to the
present fixing of attention upon the ideas of the Ought which are
already present. To sin is _consciously to choose to forget_,
through a narrowing of the field of attention, an Ought that one
already recognizes.”

(_d_) Ability to fulfill the law is not essential to constitute the non-fulfilment sin. Inability to fulfill the law is a result of transgression, and, as consisting not in an original deficiency of faculty but in a settled state of the affections and will, it is itself condemnable. Since the law presents the holiness of God as the only standard for the creature, ability to obey can never be the measure of obligation or the test of sin.

Not power to the contrary, in the sense of ability to change all
our permanent states by mere volition, is the basis of obligation
and responsibility; for surely Satan’s responsibility does not
depend upon his power at any moment to turn to God and be holy.

Definitions of sin—Melanchthon: Defectus vel inclinatio vel actio
pugnans cum lege Dei. Calvin: Illegalitas, seu difformitas a lege.
Hollaz: Aberratio a lege divina. Hollaz adds: “Voluntariness does
not enter into the definition of sin, generically considered. Sin
may be called voluntary, either in respect to its cause, as it
inheres in the will, or in respect to the act, as it procedes from
deliberate volition. Here is the antithesis to the Roman Catholics
and to the Socinians, the latter of whom define sin as a voluntary
[_i. e._, a volitional] transgression of law”—a view, says Hase
(Hutterus Redivivus, 11th ed., 162-164), “which is derived from
the necessary methods of civil tribunals, and which is
incompatible with the orthodox doctrine of original sin.” On the
New School definition of sin, see Fairchild, Nature of Sin, in
Bib. Sac., 25:30-48; Whedon, in Bib. Sac., 19:251, and On the
Will, 328. _Per contra_, see Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:180-190;
Lawrence, Old School in N. E. Theol., in Bib. Sac., 20:317-328;
Julius Müller, Doc. Sin, 1:40-72; Nitzsch, Christ. Doct., 216;
Luthardt, Compendium der Dogmatik, 124-126.

II. The Essential Principle of Sin.

The definition of sin as lack of conformity to the divine law does not exclude, but rather necessitates, an inquiry into the characterizing motive or impelling power which explains its existence and constitutes its guilt. Only three views require extended examination. Of these the first two constitute the most common excuses for sin, although not propounded for this purpose by their authors: Sin is due (1) to the human body, or (2) to finite weakness. The third, which we regard as the Scriptural view, considers sin as (3) the supreme choice of self, or selfishness.

In the preceding section on the Definition of Sin, we showed that sin is a _state_, and a state of the _will_. We now ask: What is the nature of this state? and we expect to show that it is essentially a _selfish_ state of the will.

1. Sin as Sensuousness.

This view regards sin as the necessary product of man’s sensuous nature—a result of the soul’s connection with a physical organism. This is the view of Schleiermacher and of Rothe. More recent writers, with John Fiske, regard moral evil as man’s inheritance from a brute ancestry.

For statement of the view here opposed, see Schleiermacher, Der
Christliche Glaube, 1:361-364—“Sin is a prevention of the
determining power of the spirit, caused by the independence
(Selbständigkeit) of the sensuous functions.” The child lives at
first a life of sense, in which the bodily appetites are supreme.
The senses are the avenues of all temptation, the physical
domineers over the spiritual, and the soul never shakes off the
body. Sin is, therefore, a malarious exhalation from the low
grounds of human nature, or, to use the words of Schleiermacher,
“a positive opposition of the flesh to the spirit.” Pfleiderer,
Prot. Theol. seit Kant, 113,—says that Schleiermacher here repeats
Spinoza’s “inability of the spirit to control the sensuous
affections.” Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 1:230—“In the
development of man out of naturality, the lower impulses have
already won a power of self-assertion and resistance, before the
reason could yet come to its valid position and authority. As this
propensity of the self-will is grounded in the specific nature of
man, it may be designated as inborn, hereditary, or _original_
sinfulness.”

Rothe’s view of sin may be found in his Dogmatik, 1:300-302;
notice the connection of Rothe’s view of sin with his doctrine of
continuous creation (see page 416 of this Compendium).
Encyclopædia Britannica, 21:2—“Rothe was a thorough going
evolutionist who regarded the natural man as the consummation of
the development of physical nature, and regarded spirit as the
personal attainment, with divine help, of those beings in whom the
further creative process of moral development is carried on. This
process of development necessarily takes an abnormal form and
passes through the phase of sin. This abnormal condition
necessitates a fresh creative act, that of salvation, which was
however from the very first a part of the divine plan of
development. Rothe, notwithstanding his evolutionary doctrine,
believed in the supernatural birth of Christ.”

John Fiske, Destiny of Man, 103—“Original sin is neither more nor
less than the brute inheritance which every man carries with him,
and the process of evolution is an advance toward true salvation.”
Thus man is a sphynx in whom the human has not yet escaped from
the animal. So Bowne, Atonement, 69, declares that sin is “a relic
of the animal not yet outgrown, a resultant of the mechanism of
appetite and impulse and reflex action for which the proper
inhibitions are not yet developed. Only slowly does it grow into a
consciousness of itself as evil.... It would be hysteria to regard
the common life of men as rooting in a conscious choice of
unrighteousness.”

In refutation of this view, it will be sufficient to urge the following considerations:

(_a_) It involves an assumption of the inherent evil of matter, at least so far as regards the substance of man’s body. But this is either a form of dualism, and may be met with the objections already brought against that system, or it implies that God, in being the author of man’s physical organism, is also the responsible originator of human sin.

This has been called the “caged-eagle theory” of man’s existence;
it holds that the body is a prison only, or, as Plato expressed
it, “the tomb of the soul,” so that the soul can be pure only by
escaping from the body. But matter is not eternal. God made it,
and made it pure. The body was made to be the servant of the
spirit. We must not throw the blame of sin upon the senses, but
upon the spirit that used the senses so wickedly. To attribute sin
to the body is to make God, the author of the body, to be also the
author of sin,—which is the greatest of blasphemies. Men cannot
“justly accuse Their Maker, or their making, or their fate”
(Milton, Paradise Lost, 3:112). Sin is a contradiction within the
spirit itself, and not simply between the spirit and the flesh.
Sensuous activities are not themselves sinful—this is essential
Manichæanism. Robert Burns was wrong when he laid the blame for
his delinquencies upon “the passions wild and strong.” And Samuel
Johnson was wrong when he said that “Every man is a rascal so soon
as he is sick.” The normal soul has power to rise above both
passion and sickness and to make them serve its moral development.
On the development of the body, as the organ of sin, see
Straffen’s Hulsean Lectures on Sin, 33-50. The essential error of
this view is its identification of the moral with the physical. If
it were true, then Jesus, who came in human flesh, must needs be a
sinner.

(_b_) In explaining sin as an inheritance from the brute, this theory ignores the fact that man, even though derived from a brute ancestry, is no longer brute, but man, with power to recognize and to realize moral ideals, and under no necessity to violate the law of his being.

See A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 163-180, on The Fall and the
Redemption of Man, in the Light of Evolution: “Evolution has been
thought to be incompatible with any proper doctrine of a fall. It
has been assumed by many that man’s immoral course and conduct are
simply survivals of his brute inheritance, inevitable remnants of
his old animal propensities, yieldings of the weak will to fleshly
appetites and passions. This is to deny that sin is truly sin, but
it is also to deny that man is truly man.... Sin must be referred
to freedom, or it is not sin. To explain it as the natural result
of weak will overmastered by lower impulses is to make the animal
nature, and not the will, the cause of transgression. And that is
to say that man at the beginning is not man, but brute.” See also
D. W. Simon, in Bib. Sac., Jan. 1897:1-20—“The key to the strange
and dark contrast between man and his animal ancestry is to be
found in the fact of the Fall. Other species live normally. No
remnant of the reptile hinders the bird. The bird is a true bird.
Only man fails to live normally and is a true man only after ages
of sin and misery.” Marlowe very properly makes his Faustus to be
tempted by sensual baits only after he has sold himself to Satan
for power.

To regard vanity, deceitfulness, malice, and revenge as inherited
from brute ancestors is to deny man’s original innocence and the
creatorship of God. B. W. Lockhart: “The animal mind knows not
God, is not subject to his law, neither indeed can be, just
because it is animal, and as such is incapable of right or
wrong.... If man were an animal and nothing more, he could not
sin. It is by virtue of being something more, that he becomes
capable of sin. Sin is the yielding of the known higher to the
known lower. It is the soul’s abdication of its being to the
brute.... Hence the need of spiritual forces from the spiritual
world of divine revelation, to heal and build and discipline the
soul within itself, giving it the victory over the animal passions
which constitute the body and over the kingdom of blind desire
which constitutes the world. The final purpose of man is growth of
the soul into liberty, truth, love, likeness to God. Education is
the word that covers the movement, and probation is incident to
education.” We add that reparation for past sin and renewing power
from above must follow probation, in order to make education
possible.

Some recent writers hold to a real fall of man, and yet regard
that fall as necessary to his moral development. Emma Marie
Caillard, in Contemp. Rev., Dec. 1893: 879—“Man passed out of a
state of innocence—unconscious of his own imperfection—into a
state of consciousness of it. The will became slave instead of
master. The result would have been the complete stoppage of his
evolution but for redemption, which restored his will and made the
continuance of his evolution possible. Incarnation was the method
of redemption. But even apart from the fall, this incarnation
would have been necessary to reveal to man the goal of his
evolution and so to secure his coöperation in it.” Lisle,
Evolution of Spiritual Man, 39, and in Bib. Sac., July, 1892:
431-452—“Evolution by catastrophe in the natural world has a
striking analogue in the spiritual world.... Sin is primarily not
so much a fall from a higher to a lower, as a failure to rise from
a lower to a higher; not so much eating of the forbidden tree, as
failure to partake of the tree of life. The latter represented
communion and correspondence with God, and had innocent man
continued to reach out for this, he would not have fallen. Man’s
refusal to choose the higher preceded and conditioned his fall to
the lower, and the essence of sin is therefore in this refusal,
whatever may cause the will to make it.... Man chose the lower of
his own free will. Then his centripetal force was gone. His
development was swiftly and endlessly away from God. He reverted
to his original type of savage animalism; and yet, as a
self-conscious and free-acting being, he retained a sense of
responsibility that filled him with fear and suffering.”