CHAPTER VI. ORTHODOX IDEA OF SIN, AS DEPRAVITY AND AS GUILT.

§ 1. The Question stated.

We now approach the orthodoxy of Orthodoxy—the system of sin and

redemption, which constitutes its most essential character. The questions

hitherto treated—the natural and supernatural, miracles, the

Scriptures—belong to universal religion. On these points heretics and the

Orthodox may agree. But the essence of heresy, in the eyes of an Orthodox

man, is to vary from the standards of belief in regard to sin and

salvation.

We commence with the subject of human sinfulness; in other words, with the

character of man in relation to Orthodoxy. The theology of the East asked,

“What is God?” and entered on its course from the specially theological

side. It began with ontology, and proceeded to psychology. In this,

Oriental theology followed in the path of Oriental philosophy. But

Occidental theology, originating strictly with Augustine, followed the

practical and experimental method of European thought, and, instead of

asking, “What is God?” asked, instead, “What is man?”

We begin, therefore, with the great question, “What is man?” This is the

radical question in practical, experimental theology, as the question,

“What is God?” is the radical question in speculative theology. But we are

now concerned in the theology of experience and of life. We are seeking

for human wants. Knowing what man is, we can next ask what he needs.

§ 2. The four Moments or Characters of Evil. The Fall, Natural Depravity,

Total Depravity, Inability.

Orthodoxy answers the question, “What is man?” by saying, “Man is a

sinner;” and this answer has these four moments:—

1. Man was created at first righteous and good.

2. Man fell, in and with Adam, and became a sinner.

3. All now born are born totally corrupt and evil;—

4. And are utterly disabled to all good, so as not to have the power of

repenting, or even of wishing to repent.

These four ideas are,—

First, that of THE FALL, or INHERITED EVIL.

Second, of NATURAL DEPRAVITY.

Third, of TOTAL DEPRAVITY.

Fourth, of INABILITY.

These points are fully stated in the following passage from the

“Assembly’s Confession of Faith,” chap. 6:—

“1. Our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety and

temptation of Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. This

their sin God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel,

to permit; having purposed to order it to his own glory.

“2. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness, and

communion with God; and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled

in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.

“3. They being the root of all mankind, the _guilt_ of this sin

was IMPUTED, and the same _death in sin, and corrupted nature_,

CONVEYED, to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary

generation.

“4. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly

indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly

inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.

“5. This corruption of nature during this life doth remain in

those that are regenerated; and although it be, through Christ,

pardoned and mortified, yet both itself and all the motions

thereof are truly and properly sin.

“6. Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of

the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth in its own

nature bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to

the wrath of God and curse of the law, and so made subject to

death, with all miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal.”(13)

We assume the “Assembly’s Catechism” as almost _the_ standard of

Orthodoxy. It was prepared with the concurrence of the best minds in

England, in an age when theological discussion had sharpened all wits in

that direction. Thoroughly Calvinistic, it is also a wonderfully clear and

precise statement of Calvinism. Framed after long controversies, it had

the advantage of all the distinctions which are made only during

controversy. It is a fortress made defensible at all points, because it

has been attacked so often that all its weak places have been seen and

marked. It is a masterpiece of statement.

Now, it is very easy, and what has often been done, _to stand on the

outside_ and show the actual error and logical absurdity of this creed; to

show that men are not by nature totally depraved, and that, if they were,

this would not be guilt; that, if they have no power to repent, they are

not to blame for not repenting; and that God, as a God of justice even (to

say nothing of mercy, of love, of a heavenly Father), cannot condemn and

punish us for a depraved nature inherited from Adam.

It is easy to say all this. But it has often been said; and with what

result? Unitarians have been, by such arguments, confirmed in their

Unitarianism; but the Orthodox have not, by such arguments, been convinced

of the falsity of their creed. Let us see, then, if we cannot find some

truth in this system,—some vital, experimental truth,—for the sake of

which the Orthodox cling to these immense and incredible inconsistencies.

Let us take an _inside_ view of Orthodoxy, and see why, being

unreasonable, it yet commends itself to so many minds of the highest order

of reason.

§ 3. Orthodox and Liberal View of Man, as morally diseased or otherwise.

Let us begin with the substance of Orthodoxy (neglecting, at present, its

form), and say, in general, that it regards human nature as being in an

abnormal or diseased condition. The first thing to be done with man,

according to Calvinism, is to cure him. Many systems, differing from each

other in name, agree in this—that they do not believe in any such diseased

condition of man. According to them, he is not to be cured, but to be

educated. The Church is not a hospital, but an academy. Man needs, mainly,

instruction. His purposes, in the main, are right; but he errs as to what

he has to do. What he requires is precept and example.

As Orthodoxy believes man to be diseased, its object is twofold, and the

truths which it employs are of two kinds. First, it seeks to convince man

that he really has a dangerous disease; and then to convince him, that, by

using the right means, he can be cured. It therefore constantly dwells

upon two classes of truths: first, those which reveal man’s sinfulness and

his ruined condition; and, secondly, those which reveal the plan of saving

him from this condition—a plan which has been devised by the Almighty, and

which is accomplished in Christianity. Orthodoxy dwells upon sin and

salvation: these are its two pivotal doctrines.

On the other hand, all the systems which may be associated under the term

“Liberal Christianity” regard man, not as in a state of disease, and

needing medicine, but as in a state of health, needing diet, exercise, and

favorable circumstances, in order that he may grow up a well-developed

individual. It regards sin, not as a radical disease with which all are

born, but as a temporary malady to which all are liable. It does not,

therefore, mainly dwell on sin and salvation, but on duty and improvement.

Man’s nature it regards, not as radically evil, but as radically good; and

even as divine, because made by God.

Here, then, in the doctrine of evil, lies the essential distinction

between the two great schools of thought which have divided the Church.

What is evil? and how is it to be regarded? This is, perhaps, the most

radical question in Christian theology. Is evil positive, or only

negative? Is it a reality, or only a form? What is it? Whence comes it?

Until these questions are exhaustively discussed, there is little hope of

union in theology.

§ 4. Sin as Disease.

We regard Orthodoxy as substantially right in its views of sin as being a

deep and radical disease. Our Saviour says, “I came not to call the

righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” “The Son of man came to seek and

to save that which is lost.”

But the question recurs, Is there only one kind of sin,—namely, voluntary

and conscious transgression of God’s law, originating with the individual

himself, and in the moment of committing it, by means of his free will,

which is its only seat? or is there sin which is a tendency in man’s

nature, something permanent, involuntary, of which he is not conscious,

and which has its seat not merely in the will, but in the desires and

affections. To this question Liberal Christianity has commonly said, “No,”

and Orthodoxy has said, “Yes.”

And on this point I concur with Orthodoxy. Besides the sin which consists

in free choice, and which is essentially transient, there is also the sin

which consists in wrong desire, and which is essentially permanent,

because it is a habit of the mind. If it were not so, there could be no

such thing as a bad character, and no such thing as a vicious habit.

If we attempt to analyze evil, we shall find that it may be conveniently

distributed into these divisions:—

1. PHYSICAL EVIL.

(_a._) Pain.

(_b._) Weakness.

(_c._) Physical disease.

2. INTELLECTUAL OR MENTAL EVIL.

(_a._) Ignorance.

(_b._) Error, or mistake.

(_c._) Sophism, or falsehood.

3. MORAL EVIL. DISOBEDIENCE TO THE MORAL LAW.

(_a._) Ignorant and accidental, or transgression.

(_b._) Habitual disobedience, or vice.

(_c._) Wilful violation of human law; crime.

(_d._) Diseased moral state, as selfishness, bad temper, &c.

4. SPIRITUAL EVIL.

(_a._) Wilful alienation from God, or perverse choice.

(_b._) Spiritual inability.

Now, we see that in all these divisions of evil,—physical, intellectual,

moral, and spiritual,—it is found in the two forms of active and passive

evil. In the latter form it is disease, and independent of the will.

Returning, then, to the Orthodox view of evil, which it is our business to

examine, we find already that it has the advantage of the Liberal theology

in recognizing this passive side of evil, which we may call _disease_. It

is true that Orthodoxy has not yet succeeded in coming to any clearness on

this question, and has not yet any firm, intellectual hold of the main

points of its argument. Examples of this confusion are quite common. Not

to go back to the Calvinistic and Arminian controversies, which were but a

revival of the Augustinian and Pelagian dispute; not to recur even to the

Hopkinsian and Edwardian discussions,—we have only to refer to the

differences between new and old school theology in the Presbyterian

Church; to the trial of Dr. Beecher; to the book of his son Edward; to the

divergence of Andover from New Haven, and Princeton from Andover.

Unsettled, because superficial, views of evil are at the roots of all

these controversies.

§ 5. Doctrine of the Fall in Adam, and Natural Depravity. Their Truth and

Error.

The first point of the doctrine of evil regards the Fall, including the

doctrine of depravity.

Modern French philosophers have dwelt much on what they call the

solidarity of the human race. By this they mean that two individuals are

not independent of each other, like two trees standing side by side, but

like two buds on the same tree or bough. There is a common life-sap

flowing through them all. Let the life of the tree be attacked

anywhere,—in its roots, its trunk, its limbs,—and all these individual

buds feel it. Yet each bud has also a life of its own, and develops its

own stalk, leaves, blossom, fruit. It can be taken from its own tree, and

put into another tree, and grow. So it is with separate men grafted into

the great tree of mankind. No one lives to himself, nor dies to himself.

If one suffers, all suffer. The life of mankind, becoming diseased, pours

disease into all individual men.

Now, is there not something in this doctrine to which our instincts

assent? Do not we feel it true that we inherit not our own life merely,

but that of our race? and is not this the essential truth in the doctrine

of the fall?

It is true that we fell in Adam. It is also true that we fell in every act

of sin, in every weakness and folly, of any subsequent child of Adam. We

are all drawn downward by every sin; we are lifted upward, too, by every

act of heroic virtue, not by example only, but also by that mysterious

influence, that subtile contagion, finer than anything visible,

ponderable, or tangible,—that effluence from eye, voice, tone, manner,

which, according to the character which is behind, communicates an impulse

of faith and courage, or an impulse of cowardice and untruth; which may be

transmitted onward, forward, on every side, like the widening circles in a

disturbed lake,—circles which meet and cross each other without

disturbance, and whose influence may be strictly illimitable and infinite.

No doubt, sin began with the historical Adam—the first man who lived. “By

one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.” But still more true

is it that we fell in the typical Adam—Adam who stands for innocent,

ignorant human nature before temptation; truest of all, that we _fall_ in

Adam, because we are, each of us, at first an Adam.

We are all in the garden; we are at first placed in paradise; and each has

in himself all the four _dramatis personæ_—Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and the

Voice of God. Adam is the will, the power of choice, the masculine

element, in man; Eve is the affection, the desire, the feminine element,

in man; the Voice of God is the higher reason in the soul, through which

infinite truth commands,—i.e., the higher law; and the Serpent, the lower

reason in the soul, the cunning element, the sophistical understanding,

which can put evil for good, and good for evil. The garden is our early

innocence, where there is no struggle, no remorse, no anxiety; where

goodness is not labor, but impulse. But, when we go out of the garden, we

enter a life of trial, till we reach the higher paradise, the kingdom of

heaven; and then joy and duty become one again. Then—

“Love is an unerring light,

And joy its own security.”

From paradise, through the world, to heaven; from Egypt, through the

wilderness, to Canaan; from innocence, through temptation, sin,

repentance, faith, to regeneration,—such is the progress of man.

To me, the belief that I fell in Adam is not an opinion fraught only with

sadness. This tide of life which comes pouring through me comes from ten

thousand ancestors. All _their_ sorrows and joys, temptations and

struggles, sins and virtues, have helped to make it what it is. I am a

member of a great body. I am willing to be so—to bear the fortunes and

misfortunes of my race.

It is true that I find evil tendencies in me, which I did not cause; but I

know, that, for whatever part I am not the cause, I am not accountable.

For this part of my life I do not dread the wrath, but rather claim the

pity, of my God. My nature I find to be diseased—not well; needing cure,

and not merely food and exercise. I can, therefore, the more easily

believe that God has sent me a physician, and that I shall be cured by

him. I can believe in a future emancipation from these tendencies to

vanity, sensuality, indolence, anger, wilfulness, impatience,

obstinacy—tendencies which are, in me, not crime, but disease; and I can

see how to say with Paul, “Now, then, it is no more _I_ that do it, but

SIN THAT DWELLETH IN ME.”

If, now, we return to the consideration of the Orthodox doctrine of the

fall, as set forth by the Westminster Assembly, we shall find it to be

half true and half false. It states _truly_ (chap. 6, § 1) that our first

parents sinned, and also (§ 2) that by this sin they fell from their

original righteousness; for this only means that the first conscious act

of disobedience by man produced alienation from God, and degeneracy of

nature. This was no arbitrary punishment, but the natural consequence. The

creed also says _truly_ (§ 3) that this corrupted nature was conveyed to

all their posterity; for this only means, that, by the laws of descent,

good and evil qualities are transmitted; which all wise observers of human

nature knew to be the fact. It is also _true_ (§ 5) that this corrupt

nature does remain (to some extent at least), even in the regenerate, in

this life.

So far, so true. Sin, as disease, began with the first man, in his first

sin, and has been transmitted, by physical, moral, and spiritual

influences, from him to us all.

But now we find complicated with these truths other statements, which we

must need regard as falsehoods. Tried either by reason or Scripture, they

are palpably untrue, and are very dangerous errors.

The first error of Orthodoxy is in declaring transmitted or inherited evil

to be total. It declares that our first parents “were _wholly_ defiled in

all faculties and parts of soul and body,” and that _we_, in consequence,

“are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and

wholly inclined to all evil.” This statement is indefensible. But we shall

consider this in another section on “Total Depravity,” and only allude to

it now in passing.

Another error, however, and a very important one, is to attribute the

_guilt_ of Adam and Eve to their descendants. This is the famous doctrine

of _imputation_, which is now rejected by all the leading schools of

modern Orthodoxy. That we can be _guilty_ of Adam’s sin, either by

imputation or in any other way, seems too absurd and immoral a statement

to be now received.

But though many intelligent Orthodox teachers and believers do now reject

the imputation of Adam’s sin, they admit what is just as false and just as

immoral a doctrine. They make us _guilty_ for that part of sin which is

_depravity_, as well as for that which is _wilful_.

Whatever, either of moral good or moral evil, proceeds from our nature,

and not from our will, has no character of merit or demerit. The reason is

evident, and is stated by the apostle Paul. We are only guilty for what we

do ourselves, we are only meritorious for what we do ourselves: but what

our nature does, we do not do. “Now, then, it is no more _I_ that do it,

but sin that dwelleth in me.”

Professor Shedd, late of Andover, some years ago published a very able

essay in the “Christian Review,” the title of which was, “Sin a Nature,

and that Nature Guilt.” This title is a sufficient refutation of the

essay. A man could not utter a more palpable contradiction, if he said,

“The sun solid, and that solid fluid,” or, “The earth black, and that

black white.”(14)

There are two kinds of moral good and two kinds of moral evil, which are

essentially different. The two kinds of moral good may be named _moral

virtue_ and _moral beauty_; the two kinds of moral evil may be named

_guilt_ and _depravity_. Now, so far as goodness proceeds from a beautiful

nature, it is not virtuous, and so far as sin proceeds from a depraved

nature, it is not guilty. We can conceive of an angelic nature with no

capacity of virtue, because incapable of guilt.

We can also conceive of a nature so depraved as to be incapable of guilt,

because incapable of virtue.

§ 6. Examination of Romans, 5:12-21.

The famous passage in Paul (Rom. 5:12-21), which is the direct scriptural

foundation claimed for the doctrine of Adam’s fall producing guilt in his

posterity, is in reality a support of our view. The only other passage (1

Cor. 15:22) where Adam is referred to, declares that we all _die_ in him,

but by no means asserts that we _sin_ in him.

The passage referred to runs thus (Rom. 5:12-18):—

Verse 12: “As by one man sin entered into the world,”—

(Paul here refers to the fact that sin BEGAN with the first man.)

“And death by sin;”—

(By means of the sin of one man, _death_ entered.)

“And so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

(Rather “death _came upon_ all men, _because_ all have sinned.” The

Vulgate has here _in quo_, “in whom;” that is, in Adam. So Augustine. But

even those who, like Olshausen, contend for Augustine’s views, admit that

ἐφ᾽ ῷ here is a conjunction, equivalent to _because_, and not a relative.)

The next five verses (13, 14, 15, 16, 17) constitute a parenthesis, and

refer to an objection which is not stated. Some one might say, “How could

all sin, from Adam to Moses, when there was no law till Moses? and you,

Paul, have said (Rom. 4:15), that ‘where there is no law there is no

transgression.’ ”

Paul replies that “sin is not _imputed_ without law;” that is, as I think

evident, it is not regarded as _guilt_. A man who sins ignorantly is not

_guilty_; but he _suffers_ the consequences of his sin, which are

depravity of his nature, or moral death. “Sin is not imputed,” says Paul;

“but death reigns.” Those who do not sin “after the similitude of Adam’s

transgression,”—that is, who do not violate a positive

command,—nevertheless are depraved morally, and are dead spiritually. The

Hottentots and Fejee Islanders violate no positive law given them by God,

and consequently are not guilty of that; but because they violate (even

ignorantly) the laws of their moral nature, they are depraved morally.

We see, then, that Paul distinctly recognizes the distinction made above

between _sin as guilt_ and _sin as depravity_.

He distinguishes between sin as sinfulness, or unconscious transgression

(ἡ ἁμαρτία), and sin as conscious transgression of a known command

(παράβασις).

The consequence of the first is death, or moral and spiritual depravity;

the consequence of the second is condemnation, or a sense of guilt.

Sinfulness, bringing with it depravity (the general demoralization of

human nature), began with Adam. All became involved in sinfulness, and

consequently all partook of the depravity which belongs to it as its

wages.

It should, however, be observed that it is not the purpose of Paul to

teach anything about Adam. His intention is to teach something about

Christ. He refers to Adam’s case as something they all are acquainted

with; he compares Christ’s case with it both by contrast and resemblance.

But his object is not to instruct us about Adam, but about Christ. He uses

Adam as an example to enforce his doctrine about Christ. Through Christ,

goodness and happiness were to come into the world. He illustrated this

fact, and made it appear probable, by the fact which they already

knew—that through Adam sin and death had entered the world. If it seemed

strange, in an age in which men were so disunited, that one man should be

the medium of communicating goodness to the whole human race, they might

remember that Adam also had been the medium of introducing sin to the

whole human race. If the Jews wondered that Christ should bring salvation

to those who were not under the law, they might remember that Adam had

brought death to those not under the law, and who did not sin as he did.

If they doubted how Christ’s goodness could help to make men righteous,

they might remember that in some way Adam’s transgression had helped to

make men sinners. Yet, after all, the main fact which he states is in the

twelfth verse, chapter five—“that by one man sin _entered into_ the world,

and death by sin.” This amounts to saying that sin _began_ with Adam. Then

he adds, in the same verse, “that death has passed upon all men, _because

all have sinned_.” He therefore distinctly declares that every man is

punished for his own sin, and not for the sin of Adam.

In the other passage (1 Cor. 15:22), Paul says, “As in Adam all die, even

so, in Christ, shall all be made alive.” He does not say here, either that

“all sinned in Adam,” or that “all fell in Adam,” or that “all died in

Adam.” It is the present tense, “all die in Adam.”

What he means by this, he explains himself afterwards. He tells us that as

“souls” descended from Adam, we are liable to death; as spirits quickened

by Christ, we are filled with spiritual and immortal life.

In the forty-fourth verse he gives the explanation. The body “is _sown_ a

natural body” (σῶμα ψυχικὸν)—literally a soul-body, a body vitalized by

the soul. “It is raised a spiritual body”—literally spirit-body (σῶμα

πνευματικὸν), a body vitalized by the spirit. “There is a soul-body, and

there in a spirit-body.” “And so it is written, The first man, Adam, was

made a living soul” (which is a quotation from Genesis 2:7—“and man became

a living soul”), “but the last Adam,” says Paul (meaning Christ), “became

a life-making spirit.” But, continues Paul, the soul-man (psychical man)

comes first; the spiritual-man afterwards, according to a regular order.

“The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second is the Lord from

heaven.” And then he adds,—and this is the key to the whole passage,—“_As

we have borne the __ image of the earthy_, we shall also bear the image of

_the heavenly_.” The doctrine, then, is plainly this: that we have two

natures—a soul-nature, which we derive from Adam, and share with all

mankind, which nature is liable to weakness, sin, and death; and a

spirit-nature, which we derive from God, which Christ comes to quicken and

vitalize, and the life of which constitutes our true immortality.

The apostle Paul, therefore, does not by any means teach Calvinism. The

Catechism says that “our first parents being the root of all mankind, the

guilt of their sin was imputed to all their posterity.” But Paul says, “So

death passed upon all men, because all have sinned.” The Catechism says

that “this same death in sin, and corrupted nature, being conveyed to

their posterity, makes us utterly indisposed and opposite to all good,”

and that “from this original corruption do proceed all actual

transgressions.”

But if this is so, there has been no such thing in the world as guilt

since Adam fell. If all actual transgressions proceed from original

corruption, and original corruption comes from the first transgression of

Adam, it logically follows that there has been but one sin committed in

the world since it was made, namely, the sin of Adam. All other sins have

been pure misfortunes; his alone was guilt. His transgression alone came

from a free choice; all others have come from an involuntary necessity of

nature.

Nothing can be more certain from reason and Scripture than this—that

transgressions which come from a corrupt nature are just so far done in

us, and not done by us. This the apostle distinctly affirms when he says

(7:17), “Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in

me.” No man is responsible for disease, when he has not brought that

disease on himself, but inherited it from his ancestors. The disease may

make him very odious, very disagreeable, but cannot make him blamable.

Therefore, when Calvin says that hereditary depravity “renders us

obnoxious to the divine wrath,” he utters an absurdity. This confusion of

ideas runs through all Orthodox statements on the subject, and the only

cure is, that we should learn how to make this distinction between natural

evil and moral evil, or the evil which proceeds from a corrupt nature and

the evil which comes from a free will.

If we were to sum up the doctrine of the apostle Paul on this subject, it

would be thus:—

1. The first man, Adam, consisted, as we all consist, of nature and will.

His nature consisted of innocent tendencies and appetites. None were

excessive; all were well balanced. His nature inclined him no more to evil

than to good, but each faculty was in proper poise. The first sin,

therefore, could not have been a gross one; it was a simple transgression;

but its effect was to introduce what the apostle calls _death_; that is, a

diseased or corrupt nature. The process is this: With the first conscious

and free transgression there arises a sense of guilt. This sense of guilt

leads the soul away from God. Adam and Eve hide in the garden. Every act

of sin tends to create a habit, and so destroys the moral equipoise. There

hence arises a tendency _towards_ evil, and _from_ good; and this is

called death, because it takes us away from God, who is the source of

life.

2. A tendency towards evil is thus introduced into the world by the

transgression of the first man. His descendants are now born with a nature

which is not in equipoise, but which leans more towards evil than towards

good. Their will remains free as before; but they cannot perform the same

amount of good as before. These corrupt tendencies tempt to greater sin

than the pure tendencies did, and, whenever yielded to, bring a greater

amount of moral evil into the race.

3. Things, therefore, are thus growing worse continually; for every new

act of sin makes it easier to sin again. And this tendency to death, or

estrangement from God, must go on increasing, unless some antagonist

principle can be communicated to the race. This is actually done by Jesus

Christ. The principle of life which Christ introduces consists in

reconciliation to God. Sin separates us from God, and therefore tends to

death. Christ reconciles us to God, and so gives life. The way in which

Christ reconciles us to God is by manifesting God’s pardoning and saving

love to the sinful soul. In his own life, but especially by his death, he

communicates this pardoning love, and so produces the atonement. This is

the central, Pauline view of the relation of Adam and Christ to the race.

Adam introduces death into the world: Christ introduces life. He does not

speak at all of _imputation_, or transfer of guilt; but he speaks of an

_actual communication_ of death and life. Adam and Christ both stand in

actual, and not merely ideal, connection with the whole race of man. Adam

is a living soul; Christ, a life-giving spirit. By inheritance, we receive

a depraved life of the soul from Adam; by communion, we receive an eternal

or spiritual life from Christ. And, in regard to both of these acts, the

notion of blame or merit is entirely excluded. We are not to blame for our

inherited depravity derived from Adam. We deserve no credit for the

salvation which comes to us from Christ. The compensation for the

misfortune of inherited evil is the free gift of divine goodness in Jesus.

We have thus considered the truth and the error contained in the Orthodox

doctrine of the fall. The truth of it is in its assertion of a depravity

of nature, to which we are liable in consequence of ancestral sins: the

error is in imputing guilt to us in consequence of them.

§ 7. Orthodox View of Total Depravity and Inability.

In speaking of the fall of man, we necessarily anticipated somewhat the

doctrine of total depravity. Still, we must say something further on this

doctrine, because it is so important in the Church system: it is, indeed,

at its foundation. Those who accept, in its strictness, the doctrine of

total depravity cannot avoid any point of the severest Calvinism.

Schleiermacher has shown, in his “Essay on Election,” that this latter

doctrine necessarily follows the doctrine of total depravity; for, if man

is wholly depraved, he has no power to do anything for his own conversion;

therefore God must do it. And if some are converted, and not others, it

must be because God chooses to convert some, and does not choose to

convert others.

Let us look, then, at what Orthodoxy says of the _extent_ of human

depravity. In all the principal creeds, this is stated to be unlimited.

Man’s sin is total and entire. There is nothing good in him. The

Westminster Confession and the Confession of the New England

Congregational churches describe him as “dead in sin, and wholly defiled

in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.” Other creeds use similar

language.

In considering this theory, we are struck at first by the circumstance,

that the Bible gives it very little support. The Bible continually speaks

of man as a sinner; but there are very few texts which can, without

straining, be made to _seem_ to teach that he is totally depraved. Let us

examine a few of them.

§ 8. Proof Texts.

1. A text often cited is Genesis 6:5,—the reason given for destroying the

human race, in the time of Noah, by the deluge: “And God saw that the

wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of

the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” But this seems to be

a description of the state of the world at that particular time, not of

its character in all ages. It is not a description of man’s natural

condition, but of an extremely degenerate condition. If the state of the

world here described was its natural state, it would rather be a reason

for not having created the race at first; or, if it was a reason for

destroying it, it would, at best, seem to be as strong a one against

creating it again. If a man plants a tree in his garden, whose nature he

knows is to produce a certain kind of fruit, it would seem hardly a good

reason for cutting it down, that it produced that kind of fruit: certainly

it would not be a good reason for cutting it down, and planting another of

precisely the same kind in its place. The reason why the race of men was

destroyed was, that it had _degenerated_. But there were some good even

then; for in the ninth verse we are told that “Noah was a just man, and

perfect in his generation, and walked with God.”

2. There is another passage, in the fourteenth Psalm which is quoted by

Paul in Rom. 3: “There is none righteous; no, not one: there is none that

understandeth, none that seeketh after God. They have all gone out of the

way, they are together become unprofitable: there is none that doeth good;

no, not one. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

This passage is relied on to prove total depravity. But we may reply,

that—

This also is a degenerate condition, not a natural one. It was a condition

into which men had fallen, not one in which they were born. “They have all

_gone_ out of the way; they are together _become_ unprofitable.” It does

not, therefore, apply to men _universally_, but to men in those particular

times.

It was not true of _all_, even at that particular time. It was not true of

David himself, that he did not seek after God, or have the fear of God

before his eyes; or else other passages in the same book are not true, in

which he says the contrary. “O God! early will I seek thee: my soul

thirsteth for thee; my flesh longeth for thee.” He also frequently speaks

of and to those who fear the Lord, and says, “I am a companion to all

those that fear thee.”

The “all” is not to be taken strictly. It means people generally at that

time. Just so it is said, “There went out to him Jerusalem and _all_

Judea, and _all_ the region round about Jordan;” which does not imply that

_no one_ staid at home.

“But,” it may be said, “does not Paul teach that this is to be taken

universally, when he quotes it, and adds, ‘Now we know that what the law

saith, it saith to those under the law, that every mouth be stopped, and

all the world guilty before God’ ”? We think he means to say, that, as

this is said to Jews, it proves that _Jews_, as well as Gentiles, are very

guilty. He is addressing the Jews, who boasted of their knowledge of the

law. Chap. 2: “Behold, thou art called a Jew,” &c.

3. Jer. 17:9. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately

wicked.”

If we suppose that we are to take this as an unlimited expression, and not

merely a strong declaration of the wickedness of the Jews, it still does

not prove total depravity of the nature, but merely that of the

affections, or “the heart.” Man’s nature has other things besides desire:

it has conscience, reason, and will; and it does not follow that these are

also depraved.

4. Rom. 8:7. “The carnal mind is enmity against God.”

This does not intend that the mind of man, in its _natural_ state, is

enmity, but in its _carnal_ state; that is, when subject to fleshly

desires. Nearly the same phrase is used in the verse before, and is

translated, “To be carnally minded is death.”

5. There is one famous passage, however, which seems to say that God is

angry with us on account of our nature. This is a passage very much

quoted, and we hear it so often that it seems as if the Bible was full of

such texts. It is in Eph. 2:3. “We were by nature _children of wrath_,

even as others.” This is quoted to prove that God is angry with men for

their natures, and hates them for being born evil—just as we may hate a

snake, a scorpion, or spider, for its nature. But, as it happens, the very

next verses show that this is impossible, unless God can be hating one of

his creatures and loving it at the very same moment.

For, in the next verse Paul says that God loved us with a great love _when

we were dead in trespasses and sins_, and children _of wrath_. It is

therefore evident that “_children of wrath_” must mean something else. It

may mean that men outside of Christianity—Jews and Gentiles—were afraid of

God; living under a constant sense of his displeasure; that God seemed to

them a terrible being, always disposed to punish them with severity. This

was the fact. Jews and Gentiles were afraid of their gods, before Christ

came, and so were “children of wrath.” Or it may mean that men are exposed

to the consequences of sin; for, in Scripture language,—

“God’s wrathful said to be, when he doth do

That _without wrath_ which wrath doth force us to.”

Moreover, “nature,” in Scripture usage, does not necessarily mean, “as

human beings.” It often intends external position, origin, and race. So

(in Gal. 2:15) we read, “Jews by nature;” and so (in Rom. 2:27)

“uncircumcision, which is by nature.”

The same word is used twice in James 3:7, and is translated _kind_. “Every

_kind_ of beasts, birds, serpents, things in the sea, is tamed of

man-_kind_:” literally, “the whole animal _race_ is tamed by the human

_race_.”

If φυσις here meant “constitutional depravity,” the same word in Rom. 2:14

must mean _constitutional goodness_, where we are told that some “do _by

nature_ the things contained in the law.” So, too, we read of the olive

tree, wild by nature, in Rom. 11:24.

“By nature,” here, plainly means the original condition, not the original

constitution. Just so we say that wild animals are in a state of nature,

and call savages the children of nature.

These five texts are the strongest in the Bible to support the doctrine of

total depravity, and, as such, are constantly quoted. They have very

little weight, and not one of them is from the words of Jesus.

On the other hand, there are many passages which seem to declare that

there is something good in man in his unconverted or natural state, and

that even in that state he may turn towards the light, and struggle

against evil.

John 3:20, 21. “Every one that doeth truth cometh to the light.”

Matt. 26:41. “... The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.”

Rom. 2:24. “Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature the things

contained in the law, and show the work of that law which is written in

the heart.”

Acts 10:35. “In every nation, he that feareth God, and worketh

righteousness, is accepted of him.”

But the passage most strikingly and thoroughly opposed to the doctrine of

total depravity, is the description, in the seventh chapter of Romans, of

the conflict between the law in the members and the law of the mind. Paul,

speaking evidently from his own experience in his unconverted state,

describes the condition of one morally depraved, who is trying to do

right, but is prevented by evil habits which have become a part of

himself. He describes this as moral death, but _not_ guilt. He says, “It

is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” He describes

himself as morally impotent—_wishing_ to do right, but unable to do it. He

says _he delights in the law of God after the inner man_. The inmost is

right, but outside of that are evil habits, in the body, which drag down

the soul and enslave it. Paul therefore distinctly says that a man in such

a condition is not himself a sinner, because he does not commit the sin.

Thus he makes clear and strong the distinction we referred to above,

between depravity and guilt—between _natural evil_ and _moral evil_.

Paul teaches that man is not totally depraved, but that even in the carnal

man there is a good principle, only that it is conquered by the evil. If

the mind delights in the law of God, and the will to do right is present

with us, we evidently are not _totally_ depraved; but the total depravity,

if anywhere, is in the flesh only, as Paul plainly says: “I know that in

me (that is, in _my flesh_) dwelleth no good thing;” that is, the

depravity is physical, not moral. But physical depravity is not guilt, but

only disease.

§ 9. Truth in the Doctrine of Total Depravity.

Nevertheless there is a sense in which man may be said to be often totally

sinful; but this is only in a total alienation of the will from God. It is

not a total depravity, but a total alienation. There is a natural

depravity, but it is not total. But the choice may be totally perverted,

when it chooses darkness instead of light, evil instead of good.

Let us see what there is of this in man.

The gospel of Christ, as we understand it, undertakes to effect an entire

change, a radical reformation, in human character. It proposes to reform

the life by changing the heart, by giving new aims, new affections, new

aspirations, new objects of love and pursuit. Jesus does not endeavor to

alter and improve, a little here and a little there, on the outside of the

character, to improve a little our modes of action in this and the other

particular; but he alters the conduct and character by altering the

fundamental ideas, and inspiring an inward life. This wonderful change,

which takes place in the profoundest depth of our nature, under the

influence of the Gospel,—this great event of life, which forms the

turning-point of our being and history,—is called in the New Testament

“the new birth,” “regeneration,” “to be born again,” “conversion,” “a new

creation,” “to be born of God,” “to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and

with fire,” “to put off the old man,” “to have Christ formed within us.”

It is a very superficial view which explains away the meaning of all these

profound expressions, and supposes that they only signify a little outward

improvement and reformation. We need just such a change as is here

described—a radical one, not a superficial one. All need it. Those who are

the most pure in heart and most blameless in character (spotless children,

as they seem to us, of a heavenly world) feel their own need of this

change no less than do the profligate and openly vicious. Parents and

friends say, “We have no fault to find with them.” They do not say they

have no fault to find with themselves. They feel they have all kinds of

fault to find with themselves, and nothing is so painful to them as this

commendation. They say, “Outwardly we may seem innocent, but we feel an

inward want that weighs on our heart like a frost.”

“This is a true saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus

came into the world to save sinners.” It is because we are sinners that we

need to experience this great change. We do not wish to exaggerate the

amount of human sinfulness. Theologians have carried their attacks on

human nature quite too far, and the result has often been that men have

looked on sin as a sort of theological matter, which has nothing to do

with actual life. They have cheerfully admitted that they were totally

depraved by nature, and could not think or will a good thing, and then

have thought no worse of themselves than before. We know that there is

something good in man, something which God loves, some pure aspiration

even in the natural heart, some throbs of generosity, some warnings of

conscience, some pure love, some courageous virtue, in the humblest, the

most depraved, the most abandoned. There are some flowers of sweetest

perfume which spring up in the uncultivated soil of the natural heart on

which God and his angels smile, for the seeds of those flowers God himself

planted. We have seen harebells, graceful and lovely as the sweetest

greenhouse plant, growing out of a sand-heap; and we have seen some

disinterested, generous benevolence in the mind of a hardened profligate.

It is not, therefore, because there is nothing good in man that he needs a

change of heart, but because he is destitute of a deep-rooted and living

goodness till this change has taken place.

Look at the _actual sins_ of men. The majority of men, in a civilized

community like ours, do not commit great crimes, or fall into flagrant

vices, because they have little to attract them to such a course, and much

to deter them from it. They are aiming at those objects which they need

the countenance, aid, and good opinion of their fellow-men to obtain, to

be glaringly vicious would make it impossible. Also, there is a certain

amount of conscience which restrains them—the influence of good education

and good habits which preserves a certain uprightness and purity of

character. But is it a deep principle? If so, why do the vast majority of

men allow themselves in many small violations of the same laws which they

would not break on a large scale? They would not steal; yet they commit

every day some slight acts not perfectly honest; they take advantage of

others in little things. They would not lie; yet they exaggerate, and

conceal part of the truth, and color their statements to produce an

effect. They would not kill; but they are willing to injure one who has

interfered with their interests. With these tendencies and feelings, why

would they not, under different influences, commit greater crimes? How

often do we feel, in talking with the criminal and abandoned, that, in

their circumstances and with their temptations, we might have been as bad

as they!

Does not all this show that there is a deep and hidden fountain of evil

within our hearts which is restrained by external influences, by checks

and barriers with which God has kindly surrounded us? and if these were

taken away, it would break out into something far worse than now appears.

How much there is of evil under the smooth surface of refined society! How

many thoughts of sin pass to and fro in the heart while the countenance

seems pure and calm! Who ever looked into the interior depths of our most

moral community, and saw all the secret sins and pollutions which are

hidden there? Every now and then there occurs in the midst of the most

refined classes some startling revelation of long-concealed wickedness

which makes men look each other in the face and draw a long breath, as

though they should say, “Which of us will next fall?” So in the midst of a

fruitful country, of lakes, and valleys, and vine-clad hills, the earth

will sometimes open, and a river of melted lava pour forth, desolating all

around. We hear of this with wonder, and do not think that right beneath

our own feet, a few miles down, under these smooth fields and gentle

plains, that same fiery ocean is rolling its red billows. God has laid his

hand upon our heart, and restrains its lawless passions as he restrains

the tornadoes, and earthquakes, and volcanic fires; else they might easily

hurry us to swift destruction.

Still, if this were all, no radical change might be necessary. It might be

enough that by effort, and self-discipline, and direction of the thoughts,

we gradually overcome our evil habits and tendencies; but when we resolve

to do so, and make the effort, we meet with an unexpected resistance. “The

spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” “I find a law in my members

warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the

law of sin in my members.” The Church has long asserted the doctrine of an

hereditary depravity; and we have seen that there is more truth in it than

we have sometimes supposed. It is not total, but it is real. Besides the

sins of our own committing, there are the sins which our ancestors have

committed, which have made themselves part of our bone and flesh. We are

not exactly balanced in our natural state; there is a preponderating

tendency towards evil in one or another direction.

This forms too fearful an alliance with circumstances, the moment they

become powerful to draw us away from good. A friend of ours, some years

since, was making a trip up the Lakes, late in the season. As they entered

Lake Huron from the River St. Clair in the noble steamer, the skies were

serene, and she ploughed her way on towards the north, so that by night

the land had sunk almost out of sight. But then the wind began to freshen,

the sea rose, and as the night advanced, and the wind blew harder and

harder, the boat strained and staggered along, occasionally struck hard by

a heavier sea, till at last one of her wheels was carried away, and the

fires were put out by the water. How long and anxious was that night! How

many prayed then who never prayed before! When morning came, the boat was

found to be drifting before the wind and waves, directly upon a rocky

shore on the south-east side of the lake. There was no help in man; but a

gracious Providence all at once caused the storm to lull, so that a fire

could be built, and with one wheel the boat got into a harbor. Man seems a

powerful being when he is surrounded by favorable circumstances, and is

going with a fair wind and fair weather; but let the wind change, and his

weakness becomes apparent. He who just now breasted the tide, is now

drifting helplessly before it.

But there is a difficulty far worse than any we have mentioned. We might

conquer the sin which most easily besets us, we might conquer our inherent

evil tendencies, and outgrow them, if we really wished to do so; but the

deepest of all evils is a want of love for God and for goodness. We know

that we ought to love and obey God; but our heart is alienated from him.

The great mass of men are living away from God. They are not conscious of

his presence, though they know that he is near to them. Though they know

that his eye is upon them, it does not restrain them from sin. Though they

know that their heavenly Father and best Friend is close at hand, how

seldom do they pray! how seldom look up with gratitude for all their

mercies and joys! This shows a terrible estrangement of soul from God. The

veil is on their _hearts_, not on their minds.

The question is sometimes asked, “whether sin is a positive or merely a

negative evil.” Now, whatever may be the case with other kinds of sin,

this alienation of the heart seems to us a very positive evil; for it is

an antagonism, and resistance of goodness. If the supreme goodness of God

does not attract us, does not excite our affection, does not irresistibly

draw us to him, then it repels us; it makes the thought of his presence a

restraint and burden; it makes us wish to go away from God. The goodness

of God is so very positive a thing, that we cannot be indifferent to it;

we cannot be neutral in regard to it. If we do not love it, it is

disagreeable, and we are uncomfortable in the thought of it. Swedenborg

relates that certain wicked persons were allowed to enter heaven on a

certain occasion; but they immediately became almost lifeless, and, from

the torment and pain in their head and body, prostrated themselves on the

ground, and writhed like worms; but, being taken and carried into hell,

became comparatively comfortable. What can be more terrible than the idea

thus conveyed of our aversion to goodness, which makes heaven intolerable,

and the presence of God insufferable torture! Can anything express, more

than this, the need of a change of heart?

Jesus, we think, asserts a similar view when he says, “He that is not with

me is against me.” “No man can serve two masters; for he will either love

the first and hate the last, or love the last and hate the first.” He will

not be indifferent to either, if their characters and commands are of an

opposite kind.

We do not mean to say that we _hate_ God; but we mean that there is

something within us, while our hearts are not wholly his, which makes it

unpleasant and burdensome to think of God and pray to him. We feel a

certain repugnance to a familiar and happy intercourse with our heavenly

Father. Our prayers, if we pray, are formal and cold; our hearts are hard,

and their affections do not flow easily upward.

Now, if there be such a thing as a change of heart, which will make it a

pleasure to pray, a joy to think of God; which will make it natural to us

to approach him, and dwell on the thought of his goodness; which will

enable us to see him in the majesty and sweetness of nature, in the rise

of empires or the death of an infant, in the coming of Christ, and in

every good thought which swells in our souls,—then it is evident that this

is what we need. Let us dig deep, and build our house upon a rock.

We shall see in another section that there is such a change of heart as we

have described. Jesus saves sinners by taking away the heart of stone, and

giving a heart of flesh. He saw the whole depth and extent of the disease

which he came to cure. There are some preachers who do not know how great

an evil sin is, and would not know what to do for a penitent and anxious

soul which really saw the greatness of its needs. Thus, when George Fox

went to the rector of his church to ask advice for the distress of his

soul, he was told to amuse himself and divert his mind. But Jesus saw all

the extent of sin, and yet was ready to encourage and help the sinner. He

knew that his remedy was equal to the emergency. The gospel of Christ can

give to us love to God and love to man; can soften our hearts in humility,

can enable us to fight with and conquer even the hereditary evil of our

organization; can ultimately redeem us from all evil. This is the

depravity we are to conquer; not of nature, but of will, and aim, and

purpose.

§ 10. Ability and Inability.

One of the pivotal points in the Orthodox theory of evil is that of _moral

inability_. Indeed, the doctrine of total depravity seems to be taught for

the sake of this. Total depravity resolves itself, in the mind of the

Orthodox teacher, into total inability, and means that man, unable to do

right by any power in himself, must throw himself wholly and absolutely on

the divine grace. The secret motive of the whole Orthodox doctrine of evil

is to lead through a sense of sin to humility, and at last to dependence.

Orthodoxy here becomes intelligible, so soon as we perceive that its

purpose is not speculative, but practical. As religion consists so greatly

in the sentiment of dependence, it is a leading purpose in the Orthodox

system to produce this sense of dependence. That group of

graces—reverence, humility, submission, trust, prayer—which lend such an

ineffable charm to the moral nature, which purify and refine it to its

inmost depths,—these spring almost wholly from the sense of dependence on

a higher and better being than ourselves. These being absent, the

elevating principle is wanting; the man cannot rise above himself. There

may be truth, courage, conscience, purity, but they are all stoical and

self-relying. It is only he who relies on a higher power, clings to a

higher being, and draws his moral life from above, who can ascend. He who

humbles himself, and he only, shall be exalted. But humility does not

consist in looking down, but in looking up. It does not come from looking

at our own meanness, but at something higher and better than ourselves.

The sense of sin is only elevating when connected with the sight of a

higher beauty and holiness.

It is, therefore, in order to produce a conviction of absolute dependence

that Orthodoxy urges so strongly the doctrines of total depravity and

total inability. A man will not pray, says the Orthodox system, till he

feels himself helpless. He will not seek a Saviour so long as he hopes to

save himself. He must see that he can do nothing more for himself; and

then, for the first time, he exercises a real faith in God, and casts

himself on the divine mercy.

Reasoning in this way, consciously or unconsciously, Orthodoxy has built

up its doctrine of human inability, which we will proceed to state,—first,

however, indicating the scriptural view of this subject.

Scripture teaches that man is able to choose the right, but not always

able to perform it. He is free in his spirit, but bound by circumstances

of position, and by bodily organization. He is free to choose, but not

free to do. His freedom is in effort, not necessarily in accomplishment.

He can always try; he cannot always effect what he tries.

Thus Jesus says (Matt. 26:41), “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into

temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And so

Paul says, in the passage on this subject before referred to (Rom. 7:18),

“To will is present with me, but how to perform that which I will, I find

not.”

Without attempting here to enter into the tormented question of fate and

freedom, of necessity so irrefragably demonstrated by the logic of Edwards

and others,—of free-will perpetually reasserted by the intuitive reason in

the soul,—we may say this: Whether there be such a thing as metaphysical

freedom or not, there is such a thing as moral freedom. In proportion as

man sinks into the domain of nature, he is bound by irresistible laws. In

proportion as he rises into the sphere of reason, justice, truth, love, he

is emancipated, and can direct his own course. “Ye shall know the truth,

and the truth shall make you free.” “If the Son, therefore, shall make you

free, ye shall be free indeed.” (John 8:32, 36.) “Stand fast in the

liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.” (Gal. 5:1.) It is therefore

true that only as we direct our course by eternal laws, we rise above the

controlling influence of habit, prejudice, public opinion, inherited and

original tendencies of the blood and brain. According to Paul (Rom.

6:16-22), man must be either the servant of sin or the servant of God. He

must serve, willingly or unwillingly. He must be the degraded slave of

desire and selfishness, or the willing, loyal subject of truth and right.

Paradoxically enough, however, he only feels free in these two cases. For

in these two states he is doing what he chooses to do. When he is blindly

and willingly following his lower instincts he feels free. When he is

rationally and freely choosing right, and doing it, he also feels free.

But when half way between these two states, when his conscience is pulling

one way and his desires drawing him the other, when he is choosing right

and doing wrong, he feels himself a slave.

There are therefore these three conditions of the will, corresponding to

the Pauline division of man into spirit, soul, and body (1 Tim. 5:23)—a

view of man which was held throughout antiquity. The carnal man (σαρκικος)

is one in whom the earthly appetites are supreme, and the soul, (ψυχη) and

spirit (πνευμα) subordinate. The natural man (ψυχικος ανθρωπος, 1 Cor.

2:14) is one in whom the soul, or central principle, the finite will, is

supreme. The spiritual man (πνευματικος, 1 Cor. 2:15) is he in whom the

infinite principle, the sense of eternal truth and right, is supreme. In

the first condition—that of the carnal man—one is the slave of sin, but

without knowing it, because there is no wish to become anything different.

In the second state—that of the natural man (or psychical man)—the soul

chooses the good, but is drawn down by the evil. The law of the mind is

warring against the law of the members, and the man is torn asunder by

this conflict. He tries to do right, and does wrong. He now first feels

himself a slave; yet he is in reality _less_ a slave than before, for now

he is endeavoring to escape. His _will_ is emancipated, though his habits

of conduct, his habits of thought, his habits of feeling, still bind him

fast. In the third condition, that of the spiritual man, he has broken

these chains. He not only wills to do right, but does it. His body shares

in the new life of his soul. He now is made free by the truth and the

spirit from the service of evil, and shares in “the glorious liberty of

the children of God.”

In all these conditions the human being has some freedom, but differing in

degree in each. In the lowest state he has freedom of action, for he does

what he wishes to do; but he has not freedom of choice, for he does not

choose at all. He acts not by intelligent choice, but by blind instinct,

habit or custom. In the middle state he has freedom of choice, but not of

action. He chooses the good, but performs the evil. This is the condition

described by Ovid, and other profane writers, before Paul described it in

the seventh chapter of Romans.(15) But in the highest state—a spiritual

condition—he has both freedoms; he can both choose and perform. The carnal

man seems to be free, but is most thoroughly enslaved of all. The

psychical man seems to himself to be enslaved, but has begun to be free.

The spiritual man both seems to be free and is so. The apparent freedom of

the carnal man differs from the real freedom of the spiritual man in

this—the spiritual man could do wrong if he chose to do so, but chooses to

do right. But the carnal man could not do right if he should choose. A

good man, if he chose to do so, might lie, and steal, and drink, and be

profane; but a bad man could not, by choosing, become temperate, pure,

truthful, and honest.

Scripture and experience give, therefore, the same account of human

ability and inability. In the lowest state man is the servant of sense,

and can neither will nor do right. In the higher condition he can will,

but cannot perform; for his ideal aim is above his actual power. In the

highest, or regenerate, state he can both will and do. Body, as well as

soul, serve the spirit.

-------------------------------------

These are the truths which lie at the basis of the Orthodox doctrine of

inability. But Orthodoxy, in its desire to awaken a sense of dependence,

has pushed them to an unreasonable extreme. It asserts that man, in his

natural state, before he is regenerated, has _no_ power to will or to do

right. It is evident, however, that all men have power to will and to do

_many_ right things. Even in the lowest condition, a man wills and does

much that is right. Though the governing principle be the lowest one, he

can yet perform many good actions. In the second condition also, the

psychical man, though not able _always_ to do right, _often_ succeeds in

doing so. And in this state the apostle declares that _he_ does not do the

evil, but “sin that dwells in him.” So long as his _purpose_ is right, he

is right.

§ 11. Orthodox Doctrine of Inability.

Let us see what Orthodoxy says of the inability of the unregenerate man.

The Assembly’s Confession declares (chap. 6, § 4), that by our corrupt

nature “we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all

good, and wholly inclined to all evil.” In chap. 9, § 3, it says that

“man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of

will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation.”

This seems plain enough. It would justify the charge made by Dr. Cox, that

there are those who teach that “a man has no ability to do his duty,”(16)

and “that, where the means of grace are abundantly vouchsafed, a man can

do nothing for, but can only counteract, his own salvation.” It would also

seem to lay a fit foundation for that kind of Calvinistic preaching which,

according to Professor Finney, of Oberlin (see “Revival Lectures”),

virtually amounts to saying,

“You can, and you can’t;

You shall, and you shan’t;

You will, and you won’t;

You’ll be damned if you don’t.”

These charges, it must be noticed, are brought against Calvinism, not by

us, but by Presbyterian divines, themselves holding to this same

Westminster Confession.

But let us look at some of the expositions given to this doctrine of

inability by modern Orthodox authorities.

(_a._) _The Old School Presbyterians._—As stated by one of their own

number (Professor Atwater, of Princeton College, Bibliotheca Sacra,

January, 1864), they hold an inability “moral, sinful, and real,”

“irremovable by the sinner’s own power.” He sets aside the objection that

we are not bound to do what we are unable to do, by saying that this

applies to actions only, not to sinful dispositions. He illustrates this

by saying that an irrepressible disposition to slander would be only so

much more culpable. But in this he is evidently wrong. Such a habit has

become a disease, and the unfortunate victim is no longer accountable for

what he does.

(_b._) _The New School Presbyterians._—(Rev. George Duffield, in

Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1863.) Although Dr. Duffield objects to the

language of the Old School Presbyterians in denying “free agency,” and

regarding man “as destitute of ability as a block of marble,” he yet

declares that the New School, as well as the Old, believe that in the

unconverted state “man can do nothing morally good.” Still, he adds, men

can accept the offers of salvation made by Jesus Christ. But he positively

denies that “man, in his natural state, independent of the gospel and

Spirit of Christ, has ability _perfectly_ to obey _all_ the commandments

of God.” We suppose that most persons would agree with him in this

statement.

(_c._) _The Old School in New England Theology._—(Bibliotheca Sacra,

April, 1863. Article by Professor Lawrence, East Windsor, Connecticut.)

This writer contends that human inability is moral, and not natural—a

distinction much dwelt upon by the Hopkinsians, but rejected by the Old

School Presbyterians. This system differs from the Arminian or Methodist

view in insisting that man has power enough to sin, though not enough to

obey.

(_d._) _Hopkinsianism._—(Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1862.) The Hopkinsians

profess to contend for free agency, in order to save responsibility. They

adopt the ideas of Edwards on free agency. But freedom, with them,

consists only in choice. Whatever we choose, we choose freely. The carnal

man is as free in choosing evil as the spiritual man in choosing good. All

real freedom in this system disappears in a juggle of words.

The result of this examination will show that the great body of the

Orthodox, of all schools, continues to deny any real ability in the

unregenerate man to do the will of God. They do not _say_ that “man has no

power to do his duty,” but that is the impression left by their teaching.

The distinction between natural and moral inability is insufficient; for

it is as absurd to say that a man is unable not to sin, when you only mean

that he chooses to sin, as it would he to say, when invited to eat your

dinner, “I am unable to eat,” meaning only that you were unwilling.

Besides, if inability is moral, it is in the will, and not in the nature,

and so is not natural depravity at all. It is also making God unjust to

teach that he considers us guilty for a misfortune. If we derive a

corrupted nature from Adam, that is our misfortune, and not our fault, and

God owes us not anger, but pity. Instead of punishing us, he should

compensate us for this disaster.

Therefore the unreason, the want of logic, and the absence of any just

view of God, appear, more or less, throughout these statements. For where

there is no ability, there can be no guilt. Just as soon as man ceases to

have the power to do right, he ceases to have the power to do wrong.

Inability and guilt, which are connected by all these creeds, logically

exclude each other. If our nature is incapable of doing good, then it is

incapable of committing sin. One or the other must be given up. Keep which

you will, but you cannot keep both. We may be totally depraved by our

nature; but then we cease to be sinners, and cease to be guilty. Or we may

be going wholly wrong, and so be sinful, but then we have the power of

going right.

This is the inconsistency in almost all Orthodox systems. By dwelling so

much on human weakness, they destroy at last the sense of responsibility.

§ 12. Some further Features of Orthodox Theology concerning Human

Sinfulness.

In the article in the Bibliotheca Sacra before referred to (April, 1863),

by Edward A. Lawrence, D. D., Professor at East Windsor, Connecticut, on

“The Old School in New England Theology,” the writer gives the following

account of the doctrines of this body concerning sin:—

“God created man a holy being. He was not merely innocent, as not having

committed sin, not merely pure, as not inheriting any derived evil, but

was positively holy in his very being.” This, we suppose, must mean that

he was inclined by nature to do right, rather than wrong. It was as

natural for him to love God as for a fish to swim or a bird to fly.

Nothing less than this, certainly, would deserve to be called “holiness of

being.”

“The first man,” says Professor Lawrence, “was the federal head of this

race, representatively and by covenant, as no other father has been or can

be with his children.” This is illustrated by the fact of a legal

corporation, whose members are responsible in law for the actions of their

agent.

Professor Lawrence explains the belief of the Old School in the imputation

of Adam’s sin thus: It was not the personal guilt of Adam which was

imputed to his descendants, but “certain disastrous consequences.” They,

as well as he, became “subject to temporal and eternal death.” The next

consequence of Adam’s sin we must give in Professor Lawrence’s own

language, in order not to misrepresent him. “The first evil disposition

which led to the evil choice was not only confirmed in him as an

individual, but also as a quality of human nature, and it reappears,

successively, in each one of them.” Imputation, therefore, means not the

transfer of guilt, but of a corrupt nature. “It is not a sin to be born

sinful; but the sin with which men are born is nevertheless sinful.” Then

follows this statement: “We are strictly guilty only for our own sin; but

the sinfulness with which we are born is as really ours as if it

originated in our own act.”

This, again, is explained by defining guilt as liability to punishment on

account of the acts of another, “as when the members of a corporation

suffer from the ill management of its agent.” This he calls corporate

guilt.

The Old School doctrine, according to this writer, concerning sin, makes

it a state rather than an act. It is not merely the act of disobedience,

but the wrong bias of the will, out of which the act proceeds. He thinks

it wrong to call “sin a nature,” for neither the substance of the soul,

nor its faculties, are sinful. The depravity of nature is not choice, so

much as tendency which leads to choice. It is hereditary, being

transmitted from father to son.

The old theology, therefore, predicates sinfulness of human nature;

affirms sin to be a wrong state or bias of will; considers it to be

hereditary; regards new-born infants as depraved, but thinks that those of

them who die in infancy, before actual transgression, are renewed and

saved by the blood of Christ; and considers temporal death as a part of

the penalty of sin.

Upon this statement of the Old School doctrine, the following criticisms

naturally occur:—

First. If original righteousness was holiness of nature, and not mere

innocence; if it was a positive tendency to good, and not merely a state

of indifference between good and evil; then, we ask, What produced the

fall? What motive led to the commission of the first sin? If the nature of

the first man was holy, there was nothing in it which could lead him to

sin, and any external temptation addressed to such a nature must fall

powerless before it. It would be like trying to tempt a fish to fly in the

air, or like tempting a bird to go into the water. Even if the first man

could have been induced by any deception or external influence to commit a

wrong act, this would not be sinful, because there would be no sinful

motive behind it. A wrong act proceeding from a holy nature is either an

impossibility or a mere innocent mistake. Our first criticism, therefore,

on the Old School doctrine of sin, is, that it makes Adam’s fall an

impossibility.

Second. As regards Adam’s federal headship and the illustration of a

corporation, we say, that the members of a corporation are not considered

guilty in consequence of the acts of their agent, although they may suffer

in consequence of these acts. If he commits forgery they may lose money

thereby, but no one would think of calling them forgers. The sin of a

parent may be visited upon his children to the third or fourth generation,

but in their case it is neither punishment nor guilt, but only misfortune.

When Professor Lawrence, therefore, says, that “we are guilty for the

sinfulness with which we are born, because it is really ours,” he utters a

moral absurdity, and strikes at the root of all moral distinctions. He

says, “The sinfulness with which we are born is really ours;” but in what

sense ours? Only as any congenital disease may be called _ours_. If a man

is born with a tendency to consumption, blindness, lameness, he may say,

“my lameness, my near-sightedness.” But no one would suppose that he meant

thereby to hold himself responsible for them, or to consider himself

guilty because of them. It is absurd to speak of “corporate guilt.” The

corporate guilt, for example, of the stockholders of a bank, because of

the crime of an absconding teller!

The natural objection to this illustration of a corporation is, that those

who enter into a corporation do it by a free act, and make themselves

voluntarily responsible. But _we_ did not consent that Adam should be our

agent. We did not agree that if Adam should commit a single act of

disobedience we should be born totally depraved, and liable to everlasting

torments in consequence. Professor Lawrence replies, that it would have

been impossible for God to ask our consent, and therefore, apparently he

supposes that God took for granted that we would consent. This seems to be

no answer to the objection. If it was impossible for God to obtain our

consent, before we were born, to incur this awful danger, he was not

compelled to expose us to it. It is an insult to the justice of the

Almighty to assume that he could have done so.

Third. Professor Lawrence does not think it correct to say that “sin is a

nature.” But why not, if it be a universal and constant element, an

original and permanent state of the soul? To say that human nature is

sinful, but deny that sin is a nature, seems to be making a distinction

without a difference. It is a disposition to sin born with the child. Now,

say what we will, such a disposition to sin thus born with us is not guilt

but misfortune. A just God will not hold us responsible for it, but will

hold himself responsible to help us out of it. As a faithful Creator, he

is bound to do so, and will do so.

It is common for theologians to deny all such assertions as these last.

They hold it irreverent to say that God owes anything to his creatures.

They accumulate responsibility upon man, but deny responsibility to God.

But in doing this they take from the Almighty all moral character.

Calvinism, especially, makes of the Deity infinite power and infinite

will. But no blasphemy is worse than that which, though with the best

intentions, virtually destroys the moral character of the Almighty,

reducing him to an infinite will: that is, making of him an infinite

tyrant. For the essence of tyranny is the union of power and will in a

ruler, who recognizes no obligations towards his subjects.

The book of Job seems to have been written partly to refute this sort of

Calvinism. The friends of Job were Calvinists in this sense. The sum of

their argument was that, since God was all-powerful, therefore whatever he

did must be right; and, since he punished Job, Job must be a sinner, and

ought to confess his sin whether he saw it or not. This has been, in all

ages, the substance of Calvinism—Jewish Calvinism, Mohammedan Calvinism,

Christian Calvinism. It declares that we are bound to submit to God, not

because he is good, but because he is powerful. But the answer of Job to

his friends is a rebuke to the same spirit wherever shown. He asks them

“if they will speak with unfairness for God,” and “speak deceitfully for

him,” and “accept his person.” He declares that if he could find God he

would go before his throne and defend his own cause. “Would he contend

with me with his mighty power? No! he would have regard unto me.”

This is the sin of Calvinism, that it “accepts the person of the

Almighty,” assuming that he has a right to do as he pleases with his

creatures, and that they have no rights which he is bound to respect,

except that of being punished. Thus it destroys the moral character of the

Almighty.

Fourth. Professor Lawrence says, “It is the general belief of the Old

School that those who die in infancy before actual transgression, are

renewed and saved by the blood of Christ.”

The power of infancy is wonderful. It can even break down the logic of

Calvinism. Wordsworth was right in calling the infant—

“Mighty prophet! Seer blest!

On whom those truths do rest

Which we are toiling all our lives to find.”

Every kind of theology, however savage and bitter it may be against adult

sinners, sending them into an eternal hell without the least hesitation or

remorse, hesitates and stammers when it comes to speak of little children.

Even the idolatrous Jews, sacrificing their children to Moloch in the

valley of Hinnom, beat drums to drown their cries, which they could not

bear to hear. Both schools of theology, Old and New, hasten to say that

infants are not to be damned. But _why_ not, if they are born with a

depraved nature, and die without being converted? Both the great schools

of Presbyterian theology hold to the doctrine of the Assembly’s Catechism,

which declares (chap. 6, § 6), that “every sin, both original and actual,

being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto,

doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound

over to the wrath of God.” Therefore the infant who dies before he has

exercised repentance and faith in Christ, is under the wrath of God.

Orthodoxy does not allow of repentance in the other life: how, then, can

infants be saved according to Orthodoxy? Professor Lawrence can only

reply, that it is _a general belief_ that they will be saved. The

Catechism declares, less decidedly, that “elect infants” will be saved.

Dr. Whedon (Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1862), on behalf of the Methodists,

says, “That the dying infant is saved, and saved by the atonement, all

agree.” But _how_ he is saved, or what reason they have to think him

saved, except their wish to believe it, no one can tell. Death, in fact,

becomes to the infant a saving sacrament. As long as he lives he is

believed unregenerate and unconverted. As soon as he dies he is considered

ready for heaven. But he cannot be ready for heaven until he is

regenerate; and after death there is no such thing as obtaining a new

heart, and no opportunity for repentance. Logically, therefore, the infant

is converted by the mere act of dying. We presume that no Orthodox

theologians would assert this; and yet we really do not see how they can

avoid the conclusion.

But why is it any worse for children to be damned in consequence of Adam’s

sin than for adults to be damned? Orthodoxy assures us that in consequence

of Adam’s sin we are born depraved. Dr. Duffield, stating and defending

the doctrines of the New School Presbyterian Church (Bibliotheca Sacra,

July, 1863), says that Adam subjected his posterity to such a loss that

they are born without any righteousness, are exposed to the consequences

of his transgression, and all become sinners as soon as they are capable

of it. He quotes with approbation from a protest of the New School

minority, in the General Assembly of 1837 (which he calls a document of

great historic value), an assertion that “by reason of the sin of Adam,

the race are treated as if they had sinned;” and from another document of

the same school which says, that “we are all born with a tendency to sin,

which makes it morally certain that we shall do so.” Now, we do not see

why it is any worse to send infants to hell because of this depraved

nature, than to send grown persons there who have sinned in consequence of

possessing such a depraved nature. If it be said that adults have had an

opportunity to repent, and have not accepted it, we reply, that to the

mass of mankind no such opportunity is offered; that, where it is offered,

no one has the power to accept it, except he be one of the elect; and that

at all events, since infants are sure to be saved, and a very large

proportion of adults are very likely to be lost, _death in infancy is the

most desirable thing possible_. According to this doctrine, child-murder

becomes almost a virtue.

The radical difficulty in all these theories consists in refusing to apply

to God the same rules of justice which we apply to man. To do so implies

no irreverence, but the highest reverence. There is nothing more honorable

to the Almighty than to believe him to be actuated by the same great

principles of right which he has written in our conscience and heart.

Those laws of eternal justice, so deeply engraven on the fleshly tables of

the heart, are a revelation of the character of God himself. If we think

to honor him by rejecting these intuitions of the reason, and by

substituting for this divine idea of a God of justice that of a being of

arbitrary will, who is under no obligations to his creatures, we deeply

dishonor the Almighty and fatally injure our own character. From this

perverted view of God comes a cynical view of man. When we make _will_

supreme in God, we legitimate all tyranny and contempt from man to man.

Then comes the state of things described by Shakespeare:—

“Force should be right, or, rather, right and wrong

(Between whose endless jar justice resides)

Should lose their names, and so should justice too.

Then everything includes itself in power,

Power into will, will into appetite;

And appetite, a universal wolf,

So doubly seconded with will and power,

Must make perforce a universal prey,

And, last, eat up himself.”

_Shakespeare_, Troilus and Cressida.