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.

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:—

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.’ ”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

“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.”

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,—

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.