The difficulties involved in the Augustinian theory of “the origin of
evil,” result from these facts. Our only idea of a benevolent being is
that wherever he has the power to produce either happiness or misery, he
prefers to make happiness. Our only idea of a malevolent being is that
wherever he has this power he prefers to make misery.
Consequently, the affirmation that all the sin and misery of man is the
result of a depraved nature which the Creator has power both to prevent
and to remove, conveys no other idea than that God prefers to make misery
when he has power to make happiness, and thus is a malevolent being.
If God would make all minds perfectly holy, as theologians claim he has
power to do, all sin would cease. He chooses not to do so, but rather to
perpetuate the depraved nature transmitted from Adam, which is “the origin
of all evil.”
Now all classes of theologians who hold to the depravity of man’s nature
consequent on Adam’s sin, agree that this is the cause or origin of all
sin and its consequent suffering.
They all agree, also, that God has proved his power to make a perfectly
holy nature in the case of angels and of Adam, and that in consequence of
the first sin of Adam, every human mind begins to exist with a depraved
nature, according to a constitution of things instituted by God.
They all agree that God can regenerate every human mind, and that this
boon is withheld, not for want of _power_, but for want of _will_ on the
part of God.
The difficulty that they have to meet is this—How can the Creator, having
done thus, be regarded as any other than a malevolent being, the malignant
and hateful “author of sin,” and all its consequent sufferings?
The following exhibits the several modes of attempting to meet this
question.
The Catholic Method.
The first mode of meeting this difficulty is called that of _mystery_ and
_sovereignty_. It is simply saying that there is no explanation to be
given. It is a mystery that God as a sovereign does not choose to explain,
and it must be submitted to in uncomplaining silence.
This is the Catholic mode which has been perpetuated by many Protestants.
It is the same method as is adopted in defending the Catholic doctrine of
_transubstantiation_.
All who do not resort to the Catholic mode of mystery and sovereignty,
endeavor to relieve the Creator from the charge of being the author of sin
by maintaining that _man made his own depraved nature_.
This they set forth in the following ways:
Mode of Augustine and of President Edwards.
Augustine, the father of this dreadful system, maintained that all men had
a common nature _in_ Adam, which was ruined by his act, after God had made
this common nature perfect. That is to say, every human soul existed as a
part of Adam, and thus his act was the act of each and of all. This act
vitiated the common nature of all, and thus Adam and each of his posterity
caused the depravity of their common nature. And thus, though God had the
power to create each mind as perfect as he created Adam’s, still he is not
the author of sin.
President Edwards, the great New England theologian, taught that all the
minds of our race so existed in Adam, and were so one with his mind, that
when he chose to eat the forbidden fruit, all his descendants chose to do
so too, and thus each man ruined his own nature, and God is not the author
of the evil.
The Princeton Mode.
The theologians of Princeton set forth the following as the mode in which
man caused his own depraved nature:
God created Adam with a perfectly holy nature. Adam sinned and ruined his
own nature. God had previously “made a covenant with Adam, not only for
himself, but for all his posterity, or in other words, Adam having been
placed on trial, not only for himself, but also for his race, his act was
in virtue of this relation _regarded (by God) as our act_. God withdrew
from us as he did from him; in consequence of this withdrawal, we begin to
exist in moral darkness, destitute of a disposition to delight in God and
prone to delight in ourselves and in the world. The sin of Adam therefore
ruined us; and the intervention of the Son of God for our salvation is an
act of pure, sovereign, and wonderful grace.”
The above is extracted from a standard writer of the Princeton Theological
Seminary, and expresses the views of the Old School Presbyterian church in
this matter.
It is simply saying that man made his own depraved nature, inasmuch as God
_regarded_ Adam’s act as our act _when it was not_, being performed before
we existed, and that he punished us by withdrawing from us, as he did from
Adam, and thus our nature becomes ruined and totally depraved.
The Constitutional Transmission Mode.
The next way in which man is made to be the author of his own nature is
called the _constitutional transmission mode_. It is as follows:
God made Adam with a perfectly holy mind, and then Adam sinned and ruined
his own nature. _In consequence_ of this act, God established _such a
constitution of things_ that Adam transmitted his depraved nature to all
his posterity, just as bodily diseases are transmitted from parents to
children.
In this way _man_ is said to be the author of his own depraved nature,
meaning, by man, _Adam_.
In this case it is conceded that God had power to make such a constitution
of things as that all human minds would begin existence, as Adam did, with
perfectly holy minds, and that instead of this, he chose that such a
depraved nature should be transmitted to all as would insure universal
sin. And yet it is claimed that by this mode, man, and not God, is shown
to be “the author of sin.”
This is the mode adopted by most of the Andover and New Haven theologians.
Dr. Edward Beecher, in his work “The Conflict of Ages,” advocates the idea
that man ruined his own nature in a preëxistent state _before_ Adam. But
the evidence of this has not yet been presented.
Thus all who do not take the Catholic mode of _mystery and sovereignty_
maintain that _man made his own depravity of nature_, either _in_ or _by_
or _before_ Adam.
Condition of infants.
The most difficult point of all, is the probable condition of infants
after death. On the Augustinian theory they all have been ruined in nature
by Adam’s sin, and when they die, go with this depraved nature to their
final state. Augustine acquired the name of “_durus pater_” (cruel father)
because he was consistent with his theory and taught that these little
ones, if unbaptized, were doomed to endless torments.
But as humanity and common sense have gained ground this hideous tenet has
passed away, and few are now found who do not sacrifice consistency to
humanity, and allow that in spite of their total depravity, all infants go
directly to heaven and are forever blessed. Formerly some would confine
this favor to the “elect infants,” others to the infants of “elect
parents,” but few are found at this day who venture to teach that God
sends even one new‐born being to eternal misery for Adam’s sin.
The difficulties not removed but rather increased by these methods.
But the difficulties involved in the Augustine theory do not lie in _the
mode_ by which it came to pass that all men begin existence with depraved
natures, but in _the fact_, that God, having power to create all minds as
perfect as Adam’s, and also the power to regenerate all, has chosen not to
do so, and thus has preferred the consequent sin and misery to the
happiness resulting from making perfect minds.
This grand difficulty stands entirely unrelieved by the above methods. Nay
more, they all serve but to increase a sense of the folly and enormity of
the awful result, and to present our Maker as the cruel cause of all our
miseries, and the fullest and most awful realization of our idea of a
perfectly malevolent being.(2)
Illustration of the Augustinian Theory.
The following illustrates the case, though but very imperfectly, inasmuch
as any finite temporal evils are as nothing compared to the eternal
torments to which are assigned all of our race, whose ruined nature is not
regenerated before death.
A father places a poison in the way of his wife, forbids her to taste it,
but knows she will do so and that the consequence will be that all his
children will be born blind.
Then he places the children thus deprived of sight, in a dreadful morass
filled with savage beasts and awful pitfalls, with a narrow and difficult
path of escape, which it is certain no one will ever find without sight.
The consequence is, that a large part of his children sink into the
pitfalls and perish.
Then he justifies himself in these ways. To some he says, I have a right
to treat my children as I please, and I allow no one to question me on the
matter. All that I do is right and benevolent, and you must not inquire
how or why.
To all the rest he says, I am not the author of this evil, it is _the
mother_ of the children who took the poison when I forbade her to do so.
She either made herself blind by taking the poison, and then transmitted
the evil to her children as a hereditary boon, or she had “a common
nature” with her children and ruined all together, or they all “sinned in
her” and became blind before they were born. And so I am not “the author
of sin” in this matter.
To intelligent persons not educated in the belief of the above theory of
Augustine, and of these modes of explaining the difficulties connected
with it, this account of the matter will seem so incredible and monstrous
that they will demand evidence that the preceding statements are true. In
the next chapters this evidence will be presented.