I. Alleged Proofs Of The Doctrine.
Very naturally, a doctrine so central to the Calvinistic system, and at once so necessary to the infralapsarian decree of election and reprobation, and so entirely sufficient for such decree, has been most vigorously maintained. No resource of proof has been omitted. The arguments adduced must now be questioned.
1. More Direct Scripture Proofs.—Native depravity is called sin. This is not disputed. The instances given are clear and decisive (Psalms 51:5; Romans 7:8; Romans 7:17). The fact, however, is inconclusive of the position. It could be conclusive only on the ground that sin—άμαρτία—always contains the sense of demerit. This is not the case; and, as in other applications it is used without this sense, so may it be in these instances. There are many instances of a metonymic use, of which a very few will suffice. The golden calf worshiped in the idolatry of Israel is called sin (Deuteronomy 9:21). It cannot mean that this calf was itself the subject of guilt or demerit, but simply the object of a sinful worship. Also the sin-offering is frequently called sin (Exodus 29:14; Leviticus 4:24; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Such offerings are called sin, not on the ground of any demerit in themselves, but simply from their relation to the forgiveness of sin. In a like metonymy our native depravity may properly be called sin for the reason of its tendency to actual sin, but without demerit simply as a subjective state. Such a sense will give the meaning of Paul in many instances of its use (Romans 6:2; Romans 6:6; Romans 6:12; Romans 6:14; Romans 7:8-17). That depravity as a native state is called sin is, therefore, inconclusive of its intrinsic demerit. The great passage of Paul, which we found in such full use on the part of both realists and representationists for the proof of a common participation in the sin of Adam, is equally in use here (Romans 5:12-19). The discussion of its doctrinal sense in the former place leaves little requirement for additional treatment. We there found it insufficient for the proof of a common guilt of Adam’s sin in either the realistic or representative mode. Much more must it fail to prove the intrinsic demerit of the common native depravity. Really, the text has no bearing, certainly no direct bearing, on this question. It fairly raises the question of a common participation in the guilt of Adam’s sin, but only remotely can it even suggest the question of demerit in the common depravity inherited from him. It furnishes no proof of such demerit. A text of chief reliance is found in the words of Paul: “and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others” (Ephesians 2:3). This was the state of the Jew, as of the Gentile. All alike were by nature the children of wrath. Being children of wrath clearly conveys the sense of guilt and condemnation, amenability to the divine punishment. Hence the ground of this exposure is the real question. It lies in the sense of the term nature: “and were by nature—φύσει—the children of wrath.” Does the term here mean the corruption of nature with which we are born, or the habit of life formed through the indulgence of its impulses? The former is the view of such as find in it the proof of native demerit. Their argument must limit itself to the nature with which we are born, and may not include “our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind;” for all this belongs to the actual sinful life. Is it true, then, that the nature in which we are born, and before any evil act through its impulse, or any spontaneous activity, has in itself the desert of an eternal penal wrath? The proof is not in this text. Even admitting that φύσει might mean our native depravity, it is yet no necessary sense; indeed, would be a very rare sense. Further, after such a portrayal of the actual sinful life in the preceding connection, it would be very singular for Paul, without any intimation, or even the transition into a new sentence, wholly to restrict his thought to native depravity as the ground of a common judicial wrath. It is far more consistent with the whole passage (Ephesians 2:1-3) to give to φύσει the sense of a second nature or habit of life formed through the indulgence of our native tendencies to evil. This accords with the interpretation of Dr. Clarke, who holds the doctrine of original sin, but denies both the sense and the proof of it in this term (Commentary, in loc.). Our actual sins, as portrayed by Paul, and which fulfill the tendencies of our corrupt nature, are the real ground of the divine wrath.[546] [546] Whedon:Commentary, in loc.
Proof is attempted from the sense of άνομία in distinction from άμαρτία: “for sin is the transgression of the law”—καί ή άμαρτία έστίν ή άνομία (1 John 3:4). By rendering the latter term into lawlessness, it is assumed to be applicable to our nature in its native depravity, and to declare it sinful in the sense of demerit, just as in the case of a sinful act. “When John says, ‘Sin is the transgression of the law’ (‘and sin is lawlessness’), the Catechism cannot be far wrong in understanding him thus: ‘Sin is any want of comformity to, or transgression of, the law of God.’ Thus the principle out of which the action springs is sinful, as well as the action itself.”[547] This is given as a specimen of the argument. It is in the following of many Calvinistic examples. Native depravity is sin in the sense of demerit because it is not in conformity with the divine law. The argument is without any valid ground. The definitions and uses of άμαρτία and άνομία, neither warrant nor allow the assumed specific sense of the latter. It as fully expresses actual sin as the former, and has no more applicability to a mere nature.[548] In this particular instance the one term defines the other, and the two are identical in sense.[549] Each expresses sinful doing—ποιών with the former term, ποιεί with the latter. Such sin is restrictedly personal ethical doing, and cannot be the sin of a mere nature. It follows that the present argument for native demerit is utterly groundless and void. Thus all the more direct Scripture proofs fail.
[547]Summers:Systematic Theology, vol. ii, p. 53.
[548]Cremer:Lexicon of New Testament Greek; Thayer:Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament.
[549]Ebrard:Commentary on St. John’s Epistles, p. 223; Haupt:The First Epistle of John, p. 171; Meyer:Commentary, in loc.
2. A Metaphysical Argument.—Dr. Shedd maintains the doctrine of a metaphysical sin, a sin of our nature below actual sin, before the actual and the only sufficient cause of it. This doctrine he supports with the great names of Augustine, Calvin, Turrettin, Owen, Edwards.[550] It is readily conceded that this form of sin lies below consciousness. The argument, therefore, must proceed upon some fundamental principle. It really proceeds upon the principle of causation: every phenomenon or event must have a sufficient cause. Properties of bodies must have a ground in material substance; facts of psychology, a source or cause in mind. The same law of thought requires a sinful nature as the only sufficient cause of sinful action.[551] [550] Theological Essays, pp. 212-215.
[551]Theological Essays, pp. 221-229. The principle of causation in which the argument is grounded is thoroughly valid; but the minor premise, that only a sinful nature is sufficient cause to sinful action, is a material fallacy. The fallacy is the more manifest as the sinfulness of the nature is interpreted in the sense of punitive demerit. If valid in this sense, there must have been, not only a corrupt nature, but also a guilty nature before there could have been any actual sin. This inevitable implication utterly disproves the doctrine which involves it. It is not in any case the previous merit or demerit of an agent that determines the ethical character of a present deed. Such deed is good or bad from its own relation to the divine law. Native depravity is necessary to account for the universality of actual sin, as we have previously maintained; but the demerit of this depravity is not so necessary. Its incitements to sinful action are precisely the same without this ethical quality that they would be with it; therefore this quality can have no part in any account of actual sin which the common native depravity must render.
3. Argument from Christian Consciousness.—In the usual form of this argument it is maintained that Christians, and deeply awakened persons as well, are profoundly conscious of a sinful nature, and therefore have such a nature. There is an invalidating error respecting the alleged consciousness. We are conscious of spontaneous incitements to evil, but not of the nature out of which they spring. Hence consciousness itself can allege no ethical quality of this nature. In order to avoid this fallacy Dr. Shedd has recast the argument and presented it in a new form. The mind reaches the nature through the facts of consciousness, and as the necessary account of them. The mode is valid in both science and philosophy, and equally valid in doctrinal anthropology. When we take into rational thought the many facts of evil which reveal themselves in our consciousness, “that we may look at them, and find the origin and first cause of them, then we are obliged to assume a principle below them all, to infer a nature back of them all. Thus, this sinful nature is an inference, an assumption, or, to use a word borrowed from geometry, a postulate, which the mind is obliged to grant, in order to find a key that will unlock and explain its own experience.”[552] In reply to any objection against the truth or certainty of such inference, the answer proceeds upon the same principle which underlies the above reasoning. When the result of such a rational inquiry forces itself upon the acceptance of the mind, it must be the truth in the case. “If it is not so, then a lie has been built into the very structure of the mind, and it is not to be trusted in regard to any a priori truth.”[553] [552] Ibid., p. 226.
[553]Theological Essays, p. 228. The argument is based on the assumed truthfulness of our cognitions when reached according to the laws of thought. Our faculties were divinely given for the purpose of knowledge, and, when properly used, do not deceive us. Things are as we cognize them. The doctrine is thoroughly valid within the limit of primary or axiomatic truths, but not beyond them. The present argument for native sinfulness goes beyond the sphere of primary truths into the inductive. The corruption of human nature, as the necessary account of the universal tendency to evil, is a very sure inductive truth; but the intrinsic sinfulness or demerit of that nature is not such a truth. The guilt of the nature has nothing to do with its tendency to evil, and therefore is wholly without inductive warrant from this tendency. Much less is its reality warranted by any axiomatic principle. It is not a truth which the mind must accept. Many reject it, however clearly set before them. Many, after the profoundest study and with an intense Christian consciousness, reject it.
Nothing is gained for the argument by an appeal to the affirmations of conscience. These affirmations have no more uniformity than the results of induction. Many, with a profound moral consciousness and a painful sense of evil tendencies, have no sense of native demerit. The conscience of some has no infallibility for others; has no infallibility for the truth.
There is no principle which validates all the deliverances of conscience, as facts most fully prove. Through deficient analysis the facts of consciousness may be mistaken. One is the subject of spontaneous impulses and appetences which persistently act as incitements to evil conduct, and he has a sense of condemnation, even though no evil conduct follows. Why? Not simply because he has such impulses and appetences, but because of a sense of responsibility for them. This is necessary to the self-condemnation. Why this sense of responsibility? Because of an underlying conviction that by the help of grace he might have promptly repressed or wholly prevented these feelings, and that he ought to have so done. This deeper insight discovers in his self-condemnation the sense of violated obligation. Conscience condemns him, not for the sin of a nature with which he was born, but for his own actual sin. There is nothing in such an experience which points to a sin of his nature. A sense of native demerit is possible, but possible only with the previous belief of such demerit. Thus one’s doctrine must precede one’s self-condemnation, and, instead of being an induction reached and verified through experience, actually conditions and determines the experience. “When native demerit is an article of one’s creed, self-condemnation is in the orderly working of conscience. It is the normal function of conscience thus to affirm the moral judgment which the creed expresses. But surely the creed which conditions and determines one’s experience, and must determine it just the same if false as if true, can receive no verification or proof from such experience.
4. Argument from Primitive Holiness.—The argument is this: Adam was holy in his primitive nature; therefore we may be sinful in our fallen nature, and sinful in the sense of demerit. If the argument were valid it could prove only the possibility, not the actuality of native sinfulness. It is not valid, because there is far more in the conclusion than the premise warrants. It is proper to place in comparison the primitive state of Adam and the fallen state of the race. What he was in respect to holiness we may be in respect to sinfulness. What was the holiness of Adam? Simply a subjective state, free from evil tendencies, and with spontaneous inclination to the good. It possessed no strictly ethical character, such as arises, and can arise only, from holy obedience to the divine will. There is blessedness in this state, but no rewardable merit, no worthiness in any proper sense rewardable. Compare with this the fallen state of man. What is it in the comparison? A state of depravity, with spontaneous aversion to the good and inclination to the evil. There is moral ruin in this state, but no demerit or damnable sin. This is all the comparison will allow. The holiness of Adam affords no proof of demerit in the common native depravity.
