Chapter XXVII: Section V: Imputation Of Adam’s Sin To His Posterity (1)

We have seen that all mankind are sinners; that all men are by nature depraved, guilty, and condemnable; and that the transgression of our first parents, so far as respects the human race, was the first sin. We have still to consider the connection between Adam’s sin and the depravity, guilt, and condemnation of the race.

(_a_) The Scriptures teach that the transgression of our first parents constituted their posterity sinners (Rom. 5:19—“through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners”), so that Adam’s sin is imputed, reckoned, or charged to every member of the race of which he was the germ and head (Rom. 5:16—“the judgment came of one [offence] unto condemnation”). It is because of Adam’s sin that we are born depraved and subject to God’s penal inflictions (Rom. 5:12—“through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin”; Eph. 2:3—“by nature children of wrath”). Two questions demand answer,—first, how we can be responsible for a depraved nature which we did not personally and consciously originate; and, secondly, how God can justly charge to our account the sin of the first father of the race. These questions are substantially the same, and the Scriptures intimate the true answer to the problem when they declare that “in Adam all die” (1 Cor. 15:22) and “that death passed unto all men, for that all sinned” when “through one man sin entered into the world” (Rom. 5:12). In other words, Adam’s sin is the cause and ground of the depravity, guilt, and condemnation of all his posterity, simply because Adam and his posterity are one, and, by virtue of their organic unity, the sin of Adam is the sin of the race.

Amiel says that “the best measure of the profundity of any
religious doctrine is given by its conception of sin and of the
cure of sin.” We have seen that sin is a state; a state of the
will; a selfish state of the will; a selfish state of the will
inborn and universal; a selfish state of the will inborn and
universal by reason of man’s free act. Connecting the present
discussion with the preceding doctrines of theology, the steps of
our treatment thus far are as follows: 1. God’s holiness is purity
of nature. 2. God’s law demands purity of nature. 3. Sin is impure
nature. 4. All men have this impure nature. 5. Adam originated
this impure nature. In the present section we expect to add: 6.
Adam and we are one; and, in the succeeding section, to complete
the doctrine with: 7. The guilt and penalty of Adam’s sin are
ours.

(_b_) According as we regard this twofold problem from the point of view of the abnormal human condition, or of the divine treatment of it, we may call it the problem of original sin, or the problem of imputation. Neither of these terms is objectionable when its meaning is defined. By imputation of sin we mean, not the arbitrary and mechanical charging to a man of that for which he is not naturally responsible, but the reckoning to a man of a guilt which is properly his own, whether by virtue of his individual acts, or by virtue of his connection with the race. By original sin we mean that participation in the common sin of the race with which God charges us, in virtue of our descent from Adam, its first father and head.

We should not permit our use of the term “imputation” to be
hindered or prejudiced by the fact that certain schools of
theology, notably the Federal school, have attached to it an
arbitrary, external, and mechanical meaning—holding that God
imputes sin to men, not because they are sinners, but upon the
ground of a legal fiction whereby Adam, without their consent, was
made their representative. We shall see, on the contrary, that (1)
in the case of Adam’s sin imputed to us, (2) in the case of our
sins imputed to Christ, and (3) in the case of Christ’s
righteousness imputed to the believer, there is always a realistic
basis for the imputation, namely, a real union, (1) between Adam
and his descendants, (2) between Christ and the race, and (3)
between believers and Christ, such as gives in each case community
of life, and enables us to say that God imputes to no man what
does not properly belong to him.

Dr. E. G. Robinson used to say that “imputed righteousness and
imputed sin are as absurd as any notion that ever took possession
of human nature.” He had in mind, however, only that constructive
guilt and merit which was advocated by Princeton theologians. He
did not mean to deny the imputation to men of that which is their
own. He recognized the fact that all men are sinners by
inheritance as well as by voluntary act, and he found this taught
in Scripture, both in the O. T. and in the N. T.; _e. g._, _Neh.
1:6_—“_I confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have
sinned against thee. Yea, I and my father’s house have sinned_”;
_Jer. 3:25_—“_Let us lie down in our shame, and let our confusion
cover us; for we have sinned against Jehovah our God, we and our
fathers_”; _14:20_—“_We acknowledge, O Jehovah, our wickedness,
and the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against
thee._” The word “_imputed_” is itself found in the N. T.; _e.
g._, _2 Tim. 4:16_—“_At my first defence no one took my part: may
it not be laid to their account,_” or “_imputed to them_”—μὴ
αὐτοῖς λογισθείη. _Rom. 5:13_—“_sin is not imputed when there is
no law_”—οὐκ ἐλλογᾶται.

Not only the saints of Scripture times, but modern saints also,
have imputed to themselves the sins of others, of their people, of
their times, of the whole world. Jonathan Edwards, Resolutions,
quoted by Allen, 28—“I will take it for granted that no one is so
evil as myself; I will identify myself with all men and act as if
their evil were my own, as if I had committed the same sins and
had the same infirmities, so that the knowledge of their failings
will promote in me nothing but a sense of shame.” Frederick
Denison Maurice: “I wish to confess the sins of the time as my
own.” Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 87—“The phrase
‘solidarity of humanity’ is growing every day in depth and
significance. Whatever we do, we do not for ourselves alone. It is
not as an individual alone that I can be measured or judged.”
Royce, World and Individual, 2:404—“The problem of evil indeed
demands the presence of free will in the world; while, on the
other hand, it is equally true that no moral world whatever can be
made consistent with the realistic thesis according to which free
will agents are, in fortune and in penalty, independent of the
deeds of other moral agents. It follows that, in our moral world,
the righteous can suffer without individually deserving their
suffering, just because their lives have no independent being, but
are linked with all life—God himself also sharing in their
suffering.”

The above quotations illustrate the belief in a human
responsibility that goes beyond the bounds of personal sins. What
this responsibility is, and what its limits are, we have yet to
define. The problem is stated, but not solved, by A. H. Bradford,
Heredity, 198, and The Age of Faith, 235—“Stephen prays: ‘_Lord,
lay not this sin to their charge_’ (_Acts 7:60_). To whose charge
then? We all have a share in one another’s sins. We too stood by
and consented, as Paul did. ‘My sins gave sharpness to the nails,
And pointed every thorn’ that pierced the brow of Jesus.... Yet in
England and Wales the severer forms of this teaching [with regard
to sin] have almost disappeared; not because of more thorough
study of the Scripture, but because the awful congestion of
population, with its attendant miseries, has convinced the
majority of Christian thinkers that the old interpretations were
too small for the near and terrible facts of human life, such as
women with babies in their arms at the London gin-shops giving the
infants sips of liquor out of their glasses, and a tavern keeper
setting his four or five year old boy upon the counter to drink
and swear and fight in imitation of his elders.”

(_c_) There are two fundamental principles which the Scriptures already cited seem clearly to substantiate, and which other Scriptures corroborate. The first is that man’s relations to moral law extend beyond the sphere of conscious and actual transgression, and embrace those moral tendencies and qualities of his being which he has in common with every other member of the race. The second is, that God’s moral government is a government which not only takes account of persons and personal acts, but also recognizes race responsibilities and inflicts race-penalties; or, in other words, judges mankind, not simply as a collection of separate individuals, but also as an organic whole, which can collectively revolt from God and incur the curse of the violated law.

On race-responsibility, see H. R. Smith, System of Theology,
288-302—“No one can apprehend the doctrine of original sin, nor
the doctrine of redemption, who insists that the whole moral
government of God has respect only to individual desert, who does
not allow that the moral government of God, _as_ moral, has a
wider scope and larger relations, so that God may dispense
suffering and happiness (in his all-wise and inscrutable
providence) on other grounds than that of personal merit and
demerit. The dilemma here is: the facts connected with native
depravity and with the redemption through Christ either belong to
the moral government of God, or not. If they do, then that
government has to do with other considerations than those of
personal merit and demerit (since our disabilities in consequence
of sin and the grace offered in Christ are not in any sense the
result of our personal choice, though we do choose in our
relations to both). If they do not belong to the moral government
of God, where shall we assign them? To the physical? That
certainly can not be. To the divine sovereignty? But that does not
relieve any difficulty; for the question still remains, Is that
sovereignty, as thus exercised, just or unjust? We must take one
or the other of these. The whole (of sin and grace) is either a
mystery of sovereignty—of mere omnipotence—or a proceeding of
moral government. The question will arise with respect to grace as
well as to sin: How can the theory that all moral government has
respect only to the merit or demerit of personal acts be applied
to our justification? If all sin is in sinning, with a personal
desert of everlasting death, by parity of reasoning all holiness
must consist in a holy choice with personal merit of eternal life.
We say then, generally, that all definitions of sin which mean _a_
sin are irrelevant here.” Dr. Smith quotes Edwards,
2:309—“Original sin, the innate sinful depravity of the heart,
includes not only the depravity of nature but the imputation of
Adam’s first sin, or, in other words, the liableness or
exposedness of Adam’s posterity, in the divine judgment, to
partake of the punishment of that sin.”

The watchword of a large class of theologians—popularly called
“New School”—is that “all sin consists in sinning,”—that is, all
sin is sin of act. But we have seen that the dispositions and
states in which a man is unlike God and his purity are also sin
according to the meaning of the law. We have now to add that each
man is responsible also for that sin of our first father in which
the human race apostatized from God. In other words, we recognize
the guilt of race-sin as well as of personal sin. We desire to say
at the outset, however, that our view, and, as we believe, the
Scriptural view, requires us also to hold to certain
qualifications of the doctrine which to some extent alleviate its
harshness and furnish its proper explanation. These qualifications
we now proceed to mention.

(_d_) In recognizing the guilt of race-sin, we are to bear in mind: (1) that actual sin, in which the personal agent reaffirms the underlying determination of his will, is more guilty than original sin alone; (2) that no human being is finally condemned solely on account of original sin; but that all who, like infants, do not commit personal transgressions, are saved through the application of Christ’s atonement; (3) that our responsibility for inborn evil dispositions, or for the depravity common to the race, can be maintained only upon the ground that this depravity was caused by an original and conscious act of free will, when the race revolted from God in Adam; (4) that the doctrine of original sin is only the ethical interpretation of biological facts—the facts of heredity and of universal congenital ills, which demand an ethical ground and explanation; and (5) that the idea of original sin has for its correlate the idea of original grace, or the abiding presence and operation of Christ, the immanent God, in every member of the race, in spite of his sin, to counteract the evil and to prepare the way, so far as man will permit, for individual and collective salvation.

Over against the maxim: “All sin consists in sinning,” we put the
more correct statement: Personal sin consists in sinning, but in
Adam’s first sinning the race also sinned, so that “_in Adam all
die_” (_1 Cor. 15:22_). Denney, Studies in Theology, 86—“Sin is
not only personal but social; not only social but organic;
character and all that is involved in character are capable of
being attributed not only to individuals but to societies, and
eventually to the human race itself; in short, there are not only
isolated sins and individual sinners, but what has been called a
kingdom of sin upon earth.” Leslie Stephen: “Man not dependent on
a race is as meaningless a phrase as an apple that does not grow
on a tree.” “Yet Aaron Burr and Abraham Lincoln show how a man may
throw away every advantage of the best heredity and environment,
while another can triumph over the worst. Man does not take his
character from external causes, but shapes it by his own willing
submission to influences from beneath or from above.”

Wm. Adams Brown: “The idea of inherited guilt can be accepted only
if paralleled by the idea of inherited good. The consequences of
sin have often been regarded as social, while the consequences of
good have been regarded as only individual. But heredity transmits
both good and evil.” Mrs. Lydia Avery Coonley Ward: “Why bowest
thou, O soul of mine, Crushed by ancestral sin? Thou hast a noble
heritage, That bids thee victory win. The tainted past may bring
forth flowers, As blossomed Aaron’s rod: No legacy of sin annuls
Heredity from God.” For further statements with regard to
race-responsibility, see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:29-39 (System
Doctrine, 2:324-333). For the modern view of the Fall, and its
reconciliation with the doctrine of evolution, see J. H. Bernard,
art.: The Fall, in Hastings’ Dict. of Bible; A. H. Strong, Christ
in Creation, 163-180; Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ.

(_e_) There is a race-sin, therefore, as well as a personal sin; and that race-sin was committed by the first father of the race, when he comprised the whole race in himself. All mankind since that time have been born in the state into which he fell—a state of depravity, guilt, and condemnation. To vindicate God’s justice in imputing to us the sin of our first father, many theories have been devised, a part of which must be regarded as only attempts to evade the problem by denying the facts set before us in the Scriptures. Among these attempted explanations of the Scripture statements, we proceed to examine the six theories which seem most worthy of attention.

The first three of the theories which we discuss may be said to be
evasions of the problem of original sin; all, in one form or
another, deny that God imputes to all men Adam’s sin, in such a
sense that all are guilty for it. These theories are the Pelagian,
the Arminian, and the New School. The last three of the theories
which we are about to treat, namely, the Federal theory, the
theory of Mediate Imputation, and the theory of Adam’s Natural
Headship, are all Old School theories, and have for their common
characteristic that they assert the guilt of inborn depravity. All
three, moreover, hold that we are in some way responsible for
Adam’s sin, though they differ as to the precise way in which we
are related to Adam. We must grant that no one, even of these
latter theories, is wholly satisfactory. We hope, however, to show
that the last of them—the Augustinian theory, the theory of Adam’s
natural headship, the theory that Adam and his descendants are
naturally and organically one—explains the largest number of
facts, is least open to objection, and is most accordant with
Scripture.

I. Theories of Imputation.

1. The Pelagian Theory, or Theory of Man’s natural Innocence.

Pelagius, a British monk, propounded his doctrines at Rome, 409. They were condemned by the Council of Carthage, 418. Pelagianism, however, as opposed to Augustinianism, designates a complete scheme of doctrine with regard to sin, of which Pelagius was the most thorough representative, although every feature of it cannot be ascribed to his authorship. Socinians and Unitarians are the more modern advocates of this general scheme.

According to this theory, every human soul is immediately created by God, and created as innocent, as free from depraved tendencies, and as perfectly able to obey God, as Adam was at his creation. The only effect of Adam’s sin upon his posterity is the effect of evil example; it has in no way corrupted human nature; the only corruption of human nature is that habit of sinning which each individual contracts by persistent transgression of known law.

Adam’s sin therefore injured only himself; the sin of Adam is imputed only to Adam,—it is imputed in no sense to his descendants; God imputes to each of Adam’s descendants only those acts of sin which he has personally and consciously committed. Men can be saved by the law as well as by the gospel; and some have actually obeyed God perfectly, and have thus been saved. Physical death is therefore not the penalty of sin, but an original law of nature; Adam would have died whether he had sinned or not; in Rom. 5:12, “death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,” signifies: “all incurred eternal death by sinning after Adam’s example.”

Wiggers, Augustinism and Pelagianism, 59, states the seven points
of the Pelagian doctrine as follows: (1) Adam was created mortal,
so that he would have died even if he had not sinned; (2) Adam’s
sin injured, not the human race, but only himself; (3) new-born
infants are in the same condition as Adam before the Fall; (4) the
whole human race neither dies on account of Adam’s sin, nor rises
on account of Christ’s resurrection; (5) infants, even though not
baptized, attain eternal life; (6) the law is as good a means of
salvation as the gospel; (7) even before Christ some men lived who
did not commit sin.

In Pelagius’ Com. on _Rom. 5:12_, published in Jerome’s Works,
vol. xi, we learn who these sinless men were, namely, Abel, Enoch,
Joseph, Job, and, among the heathen, Socrates, Aristides, Numa.
The virtues of the heathen entitle them to reward. Their worthies
were not indeed without evil thoughts and inclinations; but, on
the view of Pelagius that all sin consists in act, these evil
thoughts and inclinations were not sin. “Non pleni nascimur”: we
are born, not full, but vacant, of character. Holiness, Pelagius
thought, could not be concreated. Adam’s descendants are not
weaker, but stronger, than he; since they have fulfilled many
commands, while he did not fulfil so much as one. In every man
there is a natural conscience; he has an ideal of life; he forms
right resolves; he recognizes the claims of law; he accuses
himself when he sins,—all these things Pelagius regards as
indications of a certain holiness in all men, and
misinterpretation of these facts gives rise to his system; he
ought to have seen in them evidences of a divine influence
opposing man’s bent to evil and leading him to repentance. Grace,
on the Pelagian theory, is simply the grace of _creation_—God’s
originally endowing man with his high powers of reason and will.
While Augustinianism regards human nature as _dead_, and
Semi-Pelagianism regards it as _sick_, Pelagianism proper declares
it to be _well_.

Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:43 (Syst. Doct., 2:338)—“Neither the
body, man’s surroundings, nor the inward operation of God, have
any determining influence upon the will. God reaches man only
through external means, such as Christ’s doctrine, example, and
promise. This clears God of the charge of evil, but also takes
from him the authorship of good. It is Deism, applied to man’s
nature. God cannot enter man’s being if he would, and he would not
if he could. Free will is everything.” _Ib._, 1:626 (Syst. Doct.,
2:188, 189)—“Pelagianism at one time counts it too great an honor
that man should be directly moved upon by God, and at another, too
great a dishonor that man should not be able to do without God. In
this inconsistent reasoning, it shows its desire to be rid of God
as much as possible. The true conception of God requires a living
relation to man, as well as to the external universe. The true
conception of man requires satisfaction of his longings and powers
by reception of impulses and strength from God. Pelagianism, in
seeking for man a development only like that of nature, shows that
its high estimate of man is only a delusive one; it really
degrades him, by ignoring his true dignity and destiny.” See
_Ib._, 1:124, 125 (Syst. Doct., 1:136, 137); 2:43-45 (Syst. Doct.,
2:338, 339); 2:148 (Syst. Doct., 3:44). Also Schaff, Church
History, 2:783-856; Doctrines of the Early Socinians, in Princeton
Essays, 1:194-211; Wörter, Pelagianismus. For substantially
Pelagian statements, see Sheldon, Sin and Redemption; Ellis, Half
Century of Unitarian Controversy, 76.

Of the Pelagian theory of sin, we may say:

A. It has never been recognized as Scriptural, nor has it been formulated in confessions, by any branch of the Christian church. Held only sporadically and by individuals, it has ever been regarded by the church at large as heresy. This constitutes at least a presumption against its truth.

As slavery was “the sum of all villainy,” so the Pelagian doctrine
may be called the sum of all false doctrine. Pelagianism is a
survival of paganism, in its majestic egoism and self-complacency.
“Cicero, in his Natura Deorum, says that men thank the gods for
external advantages, but no man ever thanks the gods for his
virtues—that he is honest or pure or merciful. Pelagius was first
roused to opposition by hearing a bishop in the public services of
the church quote Augustine’s prayer: ‘Da quod jubes, et jube quod
vis’—‘Give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt.’ From
this he was led to formulate the gospel according to St. Cicero,
so perfectly does the Pelagian doctrine reproduce the Pagan
teaching.” The impulse of the Christian, on the other hand, is to
refer all gifts and graces to a divine source in Christ and in the
Holy Spirit. _Eph. 2:10_—“_For we are his workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we
should walk in them_”; _John 15:16_—“_Ye did not choose me, but I
chose you_”; _1:13_—“_who were born, not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God._” H. Auber: “And
every virtue we possess, And every victory won, And every thought
of holiness, Are his alone.”

Augustine had said that “Man is most free when controlled by God
alone”—“[Deo] solo dominante, liberrimus” (De Mor. Eccl., xxi).
Gore, in Lux Mundi, 320—“In Christ humanity is perfect, because in
him it retains no part of that false independence which, in all
its manifold forms, is the secret of sin.” Pelagianism, on the
contrary, is man’s declaration of independence. Harnack, Hist.
Dogma, 5:200—“The essence of Pelagianism, the key to its whole
mode of thought, lies in this proposition of Julian: ‘Homo libero
arbitrio emancipatus a Deo’—man, created free, is in his whole
being independent of God. He has no longer to do with God, but
with himself alone. God reënters man’s life only at the end, at
the judgment,—a doctrine of the orphanage of humanity.”

B. It contradicts Scripture in denying: (_a_) that evil disposition and state, as well as evil acts, are sin; (_b_) that such evil disposition and state are inborn in all mankind; (_c_) that men universally are guilty of overt transgression so soon as they come to moral consciousness; (_d_) that no man is able without divine help to fulfil the law; (_e_) that all men, without exception, are dependent for salvation upon God’s atoning, regenerating, sanctifying grace; (_f_) that man’s present state of corruption, condemnation, and death, is the direct effect of Adam’s transgression.

The Westminster Confession, ch. vi. § 4, declares that “we are
utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and
wholly inclined to all evil.” To Pelagius, on the contrary, sin is
a mere incident. He knows only of _sins_, not of _sin_. He holds
the atomic, or atomistic, theory of sin, which regards it as
consisting in isolated volitions. Pelegianism, holding, as it
does, that virtue and vice consist only in single decisions, does
not account for _character_ at all. There is no such thing as a
state of sin, or a self-propagating power of sin. And yet upon
these the Scriptures lay greater emphasis than upon mere acts of
transgression. _John 3:6_—“_That which is born of the flesh is
flesh_”—“that which comes of a sinful and guilty stock is itself,
from the very beginning, sinful and guilty” (Dorner). Witness the
tendency to degradation in families and nations.

Amiel says that the great defect of liberal Christianity is its
superficial conception of sin. The tendency dates far back:
Tertullian spoke of the soul as naturally Christian—“anima
naturaliter Christiana.” The tendency has come down to modern
times: Crane, The Religion of To-morrow, 246—“It is only when
children grow up, and begin to absorb their environment, that they
lose their artless loveliness.” A Rochester Unitarian preacher
publicly declared it to be as much a duty to believe in the
natural purity of man, as to believe in the natural purity of God.
Dr. Lyman Abbott speaks of “the shadow which the Manichæan
theology of Augustine, borrowed by Calvin, cast upon all children,
in declaring them born to an inheritance of wrath as a viper’s
brood.” Dr. Abbott forgets that Augustine was the greatest
opponent of Manichæanism, and that his doctrine of inherited guilt
may be supplemented by a doctrine of inherited divine influences
tending to salvation.

Prof. G. A. Coe tells us that “all children are within the
household of God”; that “they are already members of his kingdom”;
that “the adolescent change” is “a step not _into_ the Christian
life, but _within_ the Christian life.” We are taught that
salvation is by education. But education is only a way of
presenting truth. It still remains needful that the soul should
accept the truth. Pelagianism ignores or denies the presence in
every child of a congenital selfishness which hinders acceptance
of the truth, and which, without the working of the divine Spirit,
will absolutely counteract the influence of the truth. Augustine
was taught his guilt and helplessness by transgression, while
Pelagius remained ignorant of the evil of his own heart. Pelagius
might have said with Wordsworth, Prelude, 534—“I had approached,
like other youths, the shield Of human nature from the golden
side; And would have fought, even unto the death, to attest The
quality of the metal which I saw.”

Schaff, on the Pelagian controversy, in Bib. Sac., 5:205-243—The
controversy “resolves itself into the question whether redemption
and sanctification are the work of man or of God. Pelagianism in
its whole mode of thinking starts from man and seeks to work
itself upward gradually, by means of an imaginary good-will, to
holiness and communion with God. Augustinianism pursues the
opposite way, deriving from God’s unconditioned and all-working
grace a new life and all power of working good. The first is led
from freedom into a legal, self-righteous piety; the other rises
from the slavery of sin to the glorious liberty of the children of
God. For the first, revelation is of force only as an outward
help, or the power of a high example; for the last, it is the
inmost life, the very marrow and blood of the new man. The first
involves an Ebionitic view of Christ, as noble man, not
high-priest or king; the second finds in him one in whom dwells
all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. The first makes conversion
a process of gradual moral purification on the ground of original
nature; with the last, it is a total change, in which the old
passes away and all becomes new.... Rationalism is simply the form
in which Pelagianism becomes theoretically complete. The high
opinion which the Pelagian holds of the natural will is
transferred with equal right by the Rationalist to the natural
reason. The one does without grace, as the other does without
revelation. Pelagian divinity is rationalistic. Rationalistic
morality is Pelagian.” See this Compendium, page 89.

Allen, Religious Progress, 98-100—“Most of the mischief of
religious controversy springs from the desire and determination to
impute to one’s opponent positions which he does not hold, or to
draw inferences from his principles, insisting that he shall be
held responsible for them, even though he declares that he does
not teach them. We say that he ought to accept them; that he is
bound logically to do so; that they are necessary deductions from
his system; that the tendency of his teaching is in these
directions; and then we denounce and condemn him for what he
disowns. It was in this way that Augustine filled out for Pelagius
the gaps in his scheme, which he thought it necessary to do, in
order to make Pelagius’s teaching consistent and complete; and
Pelagius, in his turn, drew inferences from the Augustinian
theology, about which Augustine would have preferred to maintain a
discreet silence. Neither Augustine nor Calvin was anxious to make
prominent the doctrine of the reprobation of the wicked to
damnation, but preferred to dwell on the more attractive, more
rational tenet of the elect to salvation, as subjects of the
divine choice and approbation; substituting for the obnoxious word
reprobation the milder, euphemistic word preterition. It was their
opponents who were bent on forcing them out of their reserve,
pushing them into what seemed the consistent sequence of their
attitude, and then holding it up before the world for execration.
And the same remark would apply to almost every theological
contention that has embittered the church’s experience.”

C. It rests upon false philosophical principles; as, for example: (_a_) that the human will is simply the faculty of volitions; whereas it is also, and chiefly, the faculty of self-determination to an ultimate end; (_b_) that the power of a contrary choice is essential to the existence of will; whereas the will fundamentally determined to self-gratification has this power only with respect to subordinate choices, and cannot by a single volition reverse its moral state; (_c_) that ability is the measure of obligation,—a principle which would diminish the sinner’s responsibility, just in proportion to his progress in sin; (_d_) that law consists only in positive enactment; whereas it is the demand of perfect harmony with God, inwrought into man’s moral nature; (_e_) that each human soul is immediately created by God, and holds no other relations to moral law than those which are individual; whereas all human souls are organically connected with each other, and together have a corporate relation to God’s law, by virtue of their derivation from one common stock.

(_a_) Neander, Church History, 2:564-625, holds one of the fundamental principles of Pelagianism to be “the ability to choose, equally and at any moment, between good and evil.” There is no recognition of the law by which acts produce states; the power which repeated acts of evil possess to give a definite character and tendency to the will itself.—“Volition is an everlasting ‘tick,’ ‘tick,’ and swinging of the pendulum, but no moving forward of the hands of the clock follows.” “There is no continuity of moral life—no _character_, in man, angel, devil, or God.”—(_b_) See art. on Power of Contrary Choice, in Princeton Essays, 1:212-233; Pelagianism holds that no confirmation in holiness is possible. Thornwell, Theology: “The sinner is as free as the saint; the devil as the angel.” Harris, Philos. Basis of Theism, 399—“The theory that indifference is essential to freedom implies that will never acquires character; that voluntary action is atomistic, every act disintegrated from every other; that character, if acquired, would be incompatible with freedom.” “By mere volition the soul now a _plenum_ can become a _vacuum_, or now a _vacuum_ can become a _plenum_.” On the Pelagian view of freedom, see Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 37-44.

(_c_) _Ps. 79:8_—“_Remember not against us the iniquities of our
forefathers_”; _106:6_—“_We have sinned with our fathers._” Notice
the analogy of individuals who suffer from the effects of parental
mistakes or of national transgression. Julius Müller, Doct. Sin,
2:316, 317—“Neither the _atomistic_ nor the _organic_ view of
human nature is the complete truth.” Each must be complemented by
the other. For statement of race-responsibility, see Dorner,
Glaubenslehre, 2:30-39, 51-64, 161, 162 (System of Doctrine,
2:324-334, 345-359; 3:50-54)—“Among the Scripture proofs of the
moral connection of the individual with the race are the visiting
of the sins of the fathers upon the children; the obligation of
the people to punish the sin of the individual, that the whole
land may not incur guilt; the offering of sacrifice for a murder,
the perpetrator of which is unknown. Achan’s crime is charged to
the whole people. The Jewish race is the better for its parentage,
and other nations are the worse for theirs. The Hebrew people
become a legal personality.

“Is it said that none are punished for the sins of their fathers
unless they are like their fathers? But to be unlike their fathers
requires a new heart. They who are not held accountable for the
sins of their fathers are those who have recognized their
responsibility for them, and have repented for their likeness to
their ancestors. Only the self-isolating spirit says: ‘_Am I my
brother’s keeper?_’ (_Gen. 4:9_), and thinks to construct a
constant equation between individual misfortune and _individual_
sin. The calamities of the righteous led to an ethical conception
of the relation of the individual to the community. Such
sufferings show that men can love God disinterestedly, that the
good has unselfish friends. These sufferings are substitutionary,
when borne as belonging to the sufferer, not foreign to him, the
guilt of others attaching to him by virtue of his national or
race-relation to them. So Moses in Ex. 34:9, David in Ps. 51:6,
Isaiah in Is. 59:9-16, recognize the connection between personal
sin and race-sin.

“Christ restores the bond between man and his fellows, turns the
hearts of the fathers to the children. He is the creator of a new
race-consciousness. In him as the head we see ourselves bound to,
and responsible for others. Love finds it morally impossible to
isolate itself. It restores the consciousness of unity and the
recognition of common guilt. Does every man stand for himself in
the N. T.? This would be so, only if each man became a sinner
solely by free and conscious personal decision, either in the
present, or in a past state of existence. But this is not
Scriptural. Something comes before personal transgression: ‘_That
which is born of the flesh is flesh_’ (_John 3:6_). Personality is
the stronger for recognizing the race-sin. We have common joy in
the victories of the good; so in shameful lapses we have sorrow.
These are not our worst moments, but our best,—there is something
great in them. Original sin must be displeasing to God; for it
perverts the reason, destroys likeness to God, excludes from
communion with God, makes redemption necessary, leads to actual
sin, influences future generations. But to complain of God for
permitting its propagation is to complain of his not destroying
the race,—that is, to complain of one’s own existence.” See Shedd,
Hist. Doctrine, 2:93-110; Hagenbach, Hist. Doctrine, 1:287,
296-310; Martensen, Dogmatics, 354-362; Princeton Essays, 1:74-97;
Dabney, Theology, 296-302, 314, 315.

2. The Arminian Theory, or Theory of voluntarily appropriated Depravity.

Arminius (1560-1609), professor in the University of Leyden, in South Holland, while formally accepting the doctrine of the Adamic unity of the race propounded both by Luther and Calvin, gave a very different interpretation to it—an interpretation which verged toward Semi-Pelagianism and the anthropology of the Greek Church. The Methodist body is the modern representative of this view.

According to this theory, all men, as a divinely appointed sequence of Adam’s transgression, are naturally destitute of original righteousness, and are exposed to misery and death. By virtue of the infirmity propagated from Adam to all his descendants, mankind are wholly unable without divine help perfectly to obey God or to attain eternal life. This inability, however, is physical and intellectual, but not voluntary. As matter of justice, therefore, God bestows upon each individual from the first dawn of consciousness a special influence of the Holy Spirit, which is sufficient to counteract the effect of the inherited depravity and to make obedience possible, provided the human will coöperates, which it still has power to do.

The evil tendency and state may be called sin; but they do not in themselves involve guilt or punishment; still less are mankind accounted guilty of Adam’s sin. God imputes to each man his inborn tendencies to evil, only when he consciously and voluntarily appropriates and ratifies these in spite of the power to the contrary, which, in justice to man, God has specially communicated. In Rom. 5:12, “death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,” signifies that physical and spiritual death is inflicted upon all men, not as the penalty of a common sin in Adam, but because, by divine decree, all suffer the consequences of that sin, and because all personally consent to their inborn sinfulness by acts of transgression.

See Arminius, Works, 1:252-254, 317-324, 325-327, 523-531,
575-583. The description given above is a description of
Arminianism proper. The expressions of Arminius himself are so
guarded that Moses Stuart (Bib. Repos., 1831) found it possible to
construct an argument to prove that Arminius was not an Arminian.
But it is plain that by inherited sin Arminius meant only
inherited evil, and that it was not of a sort to justify God’s
condemnation. He denied any inbeing in Adam, such as made us
justly chargeable with Adam’s sin, except in the sense that we are
obliged to endure certain consequences of it. This Shedd has shown
in his History of Doctrine, 2:178-196. The system of Arminius was
more fully expounded by Limborch and Episcopius. See Limborch,
Theol. Christ., 3:4:6 (p. 189). The sin with which we are born
“does not inhere in the soul, for this [soul] is immediately
created by God, and therefore, if it were infected with sin, that
sin would be from God.” Many so-called Arminians, such as Whitby
and John Taylor, were rather Pelagians.

John Wesley, however, greatly modified and improved the Arminian
doctrine. Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:329, 330—“Wesleyanism (1) admits
entire moral depravity; (2) denies that men in this state have any
power to coöperate with the grace of God; (3) asserts that the
guilt of all through Adam was removed by the justification of all
through Christ; (4) ability to coöperate is of the Holy Spirit,
through the universal influence of the redemption of Christ. The
order of the decrees is (1) to permit the fall of man; (2) to send
the Son to be a full satisfaction for the sins of the whole world;
(3) on that ground to remit all original sin, and to give such
grace as would enable all to attain eternal life; (4) those who
improve that grace and persevere to the end are ordained to be
saved.” We may add that Wesley made the bestowal upon our depraved
nature of ability to coöperate with God to be a matter of grace,
while Arminius regarded it as a matter of justice, man without it
not being accountable.

Wesleyanism was systematized by Watson, who, in his Institutes,
2:53-55, 59, 77, although denying the imputation of Adam’s sin in
any proper sense, yet declares that “Limborch and others
materially departed from the tenets of Arminius in denying inward
lusts and tendencies to be sinful till complied with and augmented
by the will. But men universally choose to ratify these
tendencies; therefore they are corrupt in heart. If there be a
universal depravity of will previous to the actual choice, then it
inevitably follows that though infants do not commit actual sin,
yet that theirs is a sinful nature....As to infants, they are not
indeed born justified and regenerate; so that to say original sin
is taken away, as to infants, by Christ, is not the correct view
of the case, for the reasons before given; but they are all born
under ‘the free gift,’ the effects of the ‘righteousness’ of one,
which is extended to all men; and this free gift is bestowed on
them in order to justification of life, the adjudging of the
condemned to live....Justification in adults is connected with
repentance and faith; in infants, we do not know how. The Holy
Spirit may be given to children. Divine and effectual influence
may be exerted on them, to cure the spiritual death and corrupt
tendency of their nature.”

It will be observed that Watson’s Wesleyanism is much more near to
Scripture than what we have described, and properly described, as
Arminianism proper. Pope, in his Theology, follows Wesley and
Watson, and (2:70-86) gives a valuable synopsis of the differences
between Arminius and Wesley. Whedon and Raymond, in America,
better represent original Arminianism. They hold that God was
under _obligation_ to restore man’s ability, and yet they
inconsistently speak of this ability as a _gracious_ ability. Two
passages from Raymond’s Theology show the inconsistency of calling
that “grace,” which God is bound in justice to bestow, in order to
make man responsible: 2:84-86—“The race came into existence under
grace. Existence and justification are secured for it only through
Christ; for, apart from Christ, punishment and destruction would
have followed the first sin. So all gifts of the Spirit necessary
to qualify him for the putting forth of free moral choices are
secured for him through Christ. The Spirit of God is not a
bystander, but a quickening power. So man is by grace, not by his
fallen nature, a moral being capable of knowing, loving, obeying,
and enjoying God. Such he ever will be, if he does not frustrate
the grace of God. Not till the Spirit takes his final flight is he
in a condition of total depravity.”

Compare with this the following passage of the same work in which
this “grace” is called a debt: 2:317—“The relations of the
posterity of Adam to God are substantially those of newly created
beings. Each individual person is obligated to God, and God to
him, precisely the same as if God had created him such as he is.
Ability must equal obligation. God was not obligated to provide a
Redeemer for the first transgressors, but having provided
Redemption for them, and through it having permitted them to
propagate a degenerate race, an adequate compensation is due. The
gracious influences of the Spirit are then a debt due to man—a
compensation for the disabilities of inherited depravity.”
McClintock and Strong (Cyclopædia, art.: Arminius) endorse
Whedon’s art. in the Bib. Sac., 19:241, as an exhibition of
Arminianism, and Whedon himself claims it to be such. See
Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 2:214-216.

With regard to the Arminian theory we remark:

A. We grant that there is a universal gift of the Holy Spirit, if by the Holy Spirit is meant the natural light of reason and conscience, and the manifold impulses to good which struggle against the evil of man’s nature. But we regard as wholly unscriptural the assumptions: (_a_) that this gift of the Holy Spirit of itself removes the depravity or condemnation derived from Adam’s fall; (_b_) that without this gift man would not be responsible for being morally imperfect; and (_c_) that at the beginning of moral life men consciously appropriate their inborn tendencies to evil.

John Wesley adduced in proof of universal grace the text: _John
1:9_—“_the light which lighteth every man_”—which refers to the
natural light of reason and conscience which the preincarnate
Logos bestowed on all men, though in different degrees, before his
coming in the flesh. This light can be called the Holy Spirit,
because it was “_the Spirit of Christ_” (_1 Pet. 1:11_). The
Arminian view has a large element of truth in its recognition of
an influence of Christ, the immanent God, which mitigates the
effects of the Fall and strives to prepare men for salvation. But
Arminianism does not fully recognize the evil to be removed, and
it therefore exaggerates the effect of this divine working.
Universal grace does not remove man’s depravity or man’s
condemnation; as is evident from a proper interpretation of _Rom.
5:12-19_ and of _Eph. 2:3_; it only puts side by side with that
depravity and condemnation influences and impulses which
counteract the evil and urge the sinner to repentance: _John
1:5_—“_the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness
apprehended it not._” John Wesley also referred to _Rom.
5:18_—“_through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto
all men to justification of life_”—but here the “all men” is
conterminous with “the many” who are “_made righteous_” in _verse
19_, and with the “_all_” who are “_made alive_” in _1 Cor.
15:22_; in other words, the “_all_” in this case is “all
believers”: else the passage teaches, not universal gift of the
Spirit, but universal salvation.

Arminianism holds to inherited sin, in the sense of infirmity and
evil tendency, but not to inherited guilt. John Wesley, however,
by holding also that the giving of ability is a matter of grace
and not of justice, seems to imply that there is a common guilt as
well as a common sin, before consciousness. American Arminians are
more logical, but less Scriptural. Sheldon, Syst. Christian
Doctrine, 321, tells us that “guilt cannot possibly be a matter of
inheritance, and consequently original sin can be affirmed of the
posterity of Adam only in the sense of hereditary corruption,
which first becomes an occasion of guilt when it is embraced by
the will of the individual.” How little the Arminian means by
“sin,” can be inferred from the saying of Bishop Simpson that
“Christ inherited sin.” He meant of course only physical and
intellectual infirmity, without a tinge of guilt. “A child
inherits its parent’s nature,” it is said, “not as a punishment,
but by natural law.” But we reply that this natural law is itself
an expression of God’s moral nature, and the inheritance of evil
can be justified only upon the ground of a common non-conformity
to God in both the parent and the child, or a participation of
each member in the common guilt of the race.

In the light of our preceding treatment, we can estimate the
element of good and the element of evil in Pfleiderer, Philos.
Religion, 1:232—“It is an exaggeration when original sin is
considered as personally imputable guilt; and it is going too far
when it is held to be the whole state of the natural man, and yet
the actually present good, the ‘original grace,’ is
overlooked....We may say, with Schleiermacher, that original sin
is the common deed and common guilt of the human race. But the
individual always participates in this collective guilt in the
measure in which he takes part with his personal doing in the
collective act that is directed to the furtherance of the bad.”
Dabney, Theology, 315, 316—“Arminianism is orthodox as to the
legal consequences of Adam’s sin to his posterity; but what it
gives with one hand, it takes back with the other, attributing to
grace the restoration of this natural ability lost by the Fall. If
the effects of Adam’s Fall on his posterity are such that they
would have been unjust if not repaired by a redeeming plan that
was to follow it, then God’s act in providing a Redeemer was not
an act of pure grace. He was under obligation to do some such
thing,—salvation is not grace, but debt.” A. J. Gordon, Ministry
of the Spirit, 187 _sq._, denies the universal gift of the Spirit,
quoting _John 14:17_—“_whom the world cannot receive; for it
beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him_”; _16:7_—“_if I go, I will
send him unto you_”; _i. e._, Christ’s disciples were to be the
recipients and distributers of the Holy Spirit, and his church the
mediator between the Spirit and the world. Therefore _Mark
16:15_—“_Go ye into all the world, and preach,_” implies that the
Spirit shall go only with them. Conviction of the Spirit does not
go beyond the church’s evangelizing. But we reply that _Gen. 6:3_
implies a wider striving of the Holy Spirit.

B. It contradicts Scripture in maintaining: (_a_) that inherited moral evil does not involve guilt; (_b_) that the gift of the Spirit, and the regeneration of infants, are matters of justice; (_c_) that the effect of grace is simply to restore man’s natural ability, instead of disposing him to use that ability aright; (_d_) that election is God’s choice of certain men to be saved upon the ground of their foreseen faith, instead of being God’s choice to make certain men believers; (_e_) that physical death is not the just penalty of sin, but is a matter of arbitrary decree.

(_a_) See Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:58 (System of Doctrine,
2:352-359)—“With Arminius, original sin is original _evil_ only,
not _guilt_. He explained the problem of original sin by denying
the fact, and turning the native sinfulness into a morally
indifferent thing. No sin without consent; no consent at the
beginning of human development; therefore, no guilt in evil
desire. This is the same as the Romanist doctrine of
concupiscence, and like that leads to blaming God for an
originally bad constitution of our nature....Original sin is
merely an enticement to evil addressed to the free will. All
internal disorder and vitiosity is morally indifferent, and
becomes sin only through appropriation by free will. But
involuntary, loveless, proud thoughts are recognized in Scripture
as sin; yet they spring from the heart without our conscious
consent. Undeliberate and deliberate sins run into each other, so
that it is impossible to draw a line between them. The doctrine
that there is no sin without consent implies power to withhold
consent. But this contradicts the universal need of redemption and
our observation that none have ever thus entirely withheld consent
from sin.”

(_b_) H. B. Smith’s Review of Whedon on the Will, in Faith and
Philosophy, 359-399—“A child, upon the old view, needs only growth
to make him guilty of actual sin; whereas, upon this view, he
needs growth and grace too.” See Bib. Sac., 20:327, 328. According
to Whedon, Com. on _Rom. 5:12_, “the condition of an infant apart
from Christ is that of a sinner, _as one sure to sin_, yet never
actually condemned before personal apostasy. This _would_ be its
condition, rather, for in Christ the infant is regenerate and
justified and endowed with the Holy Spirit. Hence all actual
sinners are apostates from a state of grace.” But we ask: 1. Why
then do infants die before they have committed actual sin? Surely
not on account of Adam’s sin, for they are delivered from all the
evils of that, through Christ. It must be because they are still
somehow sinners. 2. How can we account for all infants sinning so
soon as they begin morally to act, if, before they sin, they are
in a state of grace and sanctification? It must be because they
were still somehow sinners. In other words, the universal
regeneration and justification of infants contradict Scripture and
observation.