02.16. Creation and Original State of Man.
Chapter 16 Creation and Original State of Man.
1. State the evidence the human race was originated by immediate creation by God.
1st. This is explicitly taught in the Bible.—Genesis 1:26-27; Genesis 2:7.
2nd. It is implied by the immeasurable gulf which separates man in his lowest savage condition from the very nearest order of the lower creation; indicating an amazing superiority in respect to qualities in which the two are comparable, and an absolute difference of kind in respect to man’s intellectual, moral, and religious nature, and capacity for indefinite progress. Even Prof. Huxley, who rashly maintains an extreme position with regard to the anatomical relations of man to the inferior animals, admits that when man’s higher nature is taken into the account there exists between him and the nearest beast “an enormous gulf, a divergence immeasurable and practically infinite.”—“Primeval Man,” by the Duke of Argyle.
3rd. It is implied by the fact revealed in the Scriptures and realized in history, that man was destined to exercise universal dominion over all other creatures and over the system of nature. Therefore he could not be a mere product of nature. One of a series of coordinate beings.
4th. It is implied by the fact that men are called “sons of God,” and in the whole scheme of Providence and Redemption are treated as such. It is universally testified to by man’s moral and religious nature, all the more strongly the more these elements of his nature are enlightened and developed. And the fact is preeminently signalized by the assumption of our nature into personal union with the Godhead.
It is obvious that as the intellectual, moral, religious, and social natures and habits of men are transmitted by natural descent just as much as their anatomical structure, it is not only arbitrary but absurd to leave out of view the one set of elements, while retaining the other, in any scientific investigation of the question of his origin, or of his place and relations in the order of nature.
2. Give the present state of the question as to the antiquity of the human race.
1st. The Scriptures and the entire body of the results of modern science agree in teaching that man came into being on this earth the last of all its organized inhabitants. There has been no new species introduced since the advent of man.
2nd. From the prima facie(first founded) indications afforded in the incomplete historical and genealogical records of the pre–Abrahamic period found in the first chapters of Genesis, the generally received systems of biblical chronology have been constructed. The shorter system, constructed by Usher from the Hebrew Text, fixes the date of the creation of man about 4,000 years before the birth of Christ, or about 6,000 years ago. The longer system, constructed by Hales and others from the Septuagint and Josephus, makes the date of the creation of man about 5,500 years before Christ, or about 7,500 years ago. Of these biblical systems of chronology, Prof. W. H. Green, D.D., of Princeton, says, (“Pentateuch Vindicated,” n. p., 128)–“ It must not be forgotten that there is an element of uncertainty in a computation of time which rests upon genealogies as the sacred chronology so largely does. Who is to certify us that the antediluvian and ante–Abrahamic genealogies have not been condensed in the same manner as the post–Abrahamic. If Matthew omitted names from the ancestry of our Lord in order to equalize the three great periods over which he passes, may not Moses have done the same in order to bring out seven generations from Adam to Enoch, and ten from Adam to Noah? Our current chronology is based upon the prima facie impression of these genealogies. This we shall adhere to until we shall see good reason for giving it up. But if these recently discovered indications of the antiquity of man, over which scientific circles are now so excited, stall, when carefully inspected and thoroughly weighed, demonstrate all that any have imagined they might demonstrate, what then? They will simply show that the popular chronology is based upon a wrong, interpretation, and that a select and partial register of ante–Abrahamic names has been mistaken far a complete one.”
3rd. Modern research has developed a vast and constantly increasing amount of evidence that the human race has existed upon the earth many centuries longer than is allowed for even by the chronology of the Septuagint. The principal classes of evidence upon this point are as follows.
(1.) Etymological Pictures, showing that all the divergent peculiarities of the Caucasian and African types were fully developed as they now exist, nineteen hundred years before Christ, are found on the Egyptian Monuments. In all historic time no changes of climate or habit have produced appreciable changes in any variety of the race, therefore, we must conclude that many centuries as well as great changes were requisite to make such great permanent variations in the descendants of the same pair. The Duke of Argyle well says, “And precisely in proportion as we value our belief in the Unity of the Human Race ought we to be ready and willing to accept any evidence on the question of man’s Antiquity. The older the human family can be proved to be, the more possible and probable it is that it has descended from a single pair.”—“Primeval Man,” p. 128.
(2.) The science of language, which proves that in very remote ages all the nations which speak cognate languages must have lived together, speaking the same language and branching from a common stock. And that unknown ages must have been consumed in the development of so many and so various dialects.
(3.) The science of Geology. The remains of human bodies and of human works of art have been found embedded in alluvial deposits in gravel pits, and in caves at such depth and in such association with the remains of extinct species of animals as to prove conclusively that since man existed on the earth whole groups of great quadrupeds have become totally extinct; the climate of the Northern Temperate Zone has been revolutionized, and very radical changes have been wrought in the physical Geography of the countries which have been examined.
3. How can the Unity of the Human Race as descended from a single pair be proved?
Agassiz is the only naturalist of the highest rank who teaches that all species and varieties of organized beings must have had an independent origin, and been propagated from different parents. He holds consequently that mankind is a genus, originally created in several specific varieties. The same view is ably advocated in a recent work which has attracted attention in England, viz., “The Genesis of the Earth and of Man.” That man, although generically different from all other creatures, is nevertheless one single species is proved—
1st. From Scripture.—Acts 17:26; Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22.
2nd. Because the absolute unity of the race by descent from one pair is essentially implied in the propagation by imputation and by descent of guilt and corruption from Adam, and of the representative Headship and vicarious obedience and suffering of Jesus Christ.
3rd. The higher moral and religious natures of all varieties of mankind are specifically identical.
4th. The same is generally indicated by history and the science of comparative philology.
5th. Greater differences have been generated in the processes of domestication between different branches of the same species of lower animals, as among pigeons or dogs for instance, than exists between the different varieties of mankind.
6th. It is a fact universally admitted by naturalists, that the union of different species are never freely fertile, and that the offspring of such union are seldom if ever fertile. But all the varieties of mankind freely intermix, and the offspring of all such unions propagate themselves indefinitely with perfect facility.
4. Show that the Scriptures teach that human nature is composed of two and only two distinct substances. The Scriptures teach that man is composed of two of elements,
1st. In the account of creation.—Genesis 2:7. The body was formed of the earth, and then God breathed into man the breath of life and he became thenceforth a living soul.
2nd. In the account given of death, Ecclesiastes 12:7, and of the state of soul immediately after death, while the bodies are decaying in the ground.—2 Corinthians 5:1-8; Php 1:23-24; Acts 7:59.
3rd. In all the current language of Scripture these two elements are always assumed, and none other are mentioned.
5. State the view of those who maintain that our nature embraces three distinct elements, and its supposed Biblical basis.
Pythagoras, and after him Plato, and subsequently the mass of Greek and Roman philosophers, maintained that man consists of three constituent elements:the rational spirit, as
6. Refute this position and show that the words
7. What do our standards teach as to the state of man at his creation? The “Confession Faith,” ch. 4, § 2, “Larger Catechism,” Q. 17, and “Shorter Catechism,” Q. 10, teach the following points—
1st. God created man in his own image.
2nd. A reasonable and immortal soul endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, and placed in dominion over the creatures.
3rd. Having God’s law written on his heart and power to fulfill it, and yet under possibility of transgressing, being left to the freedom of his own will, which was subject to change. The likeness of man to God respected—
1st. The kind of his nature; man was created like God a free, rational, personal Spirit.
2nd. He was created like God as to the perfection of his nature; in knowledge, Colossians 3:10; and righteousness and true holiness, Ephesians 4:24; and 3rd. In his dominion over nature. Genesis 1:28.
8. Give in psychological terms the true state of the question. In the preceding chapter it was shown that the volition is determined and derives its character from the desires and affections which prompt to it; and that the temporary affections and desires, which prompt the volitions in any given case, themselves spring from the permanent habit, disposition, or tendency of will which constitute the moral character of the man. It was also shown that the moral character of these permanent dispositions of will, and the responsibility of the man for them, is an ultimate fact, incapable of being referred back to any principle more fundamental or essential and confirmed by the unanimous judgment of the human race.
It hence follows that the original righteousness and holiness in which Adam was created consisted in the perfect conformity of all the moral dispositions and affections of his will (in Bible language, heart) to the law of God—of which his unclouded and faithful conscience was the organ. As a consequence there was no schism in man’s nature. The will, moving freely in conformity to the lights of reason and of conscience, held in harmonious subjection all the lower principles of body and soul. In perfect equilibrium a perfect soul dwelt in a perfect body. This original righteousness is natural in the sense (1) that it was the moral perfection of man’s nature as it came from the hands of the Creator. It belonged to that nature originally, and (2) is always essential to its perfection as to quality. (3) It would also have been propagated, if man had not fallen, just as native depravity is now propagated by natural descent. On the other hand, it is not natural in the sense that reason or conscience or free agency are essential constituents of human nature, necessary to constitute any one a real man. As a quality it is essential to the perfection, but as a constituent it is not necessary to the reality of human nature.
9. Prove that Adam, was created holy in the above sense.
It belongs to the essence of man’s nature that he is a moral responsible agent.
But, 1st. As a moral creature man was created in the image of God.—Genesis 1:27.
2nd. God pronounced all his works, man included, to be “very good.”—Genesis 1:31. The goodness of a mechanical provision is essentially its fitness to attain its end. The “goodness ”of a moral agent can be nothing other than his conformity of will to the moral law. Moral indifference in a moral agent is itself of the nature of sin.
3rd. This truth is asserted.—Ecclesiastes 7:29.
4th. In regeneration, man is renewed in the image of God; in creation, man was made in the image of God; the image, in both cases, must be the same, and includes holiness.—Ephesians 4:24.
5th. Christ is called, 1 Corinthians 15:45, as
10. What is the Pelagian doctrine with regard to the original state of man? The Pelagians hold—
1st. That a man can rightly be held responsible only for his unbiased volitions; and
2nd. Consequently amoral character as antecedent to moral action is an absurdity, since only that disposition is moral which has been formed as a habit by means of preceding unbiased action of the free will, i. e., man must choose his own character, or he cannot be responsible for it.
They hold, therefore, that man’s will at his creation was not only free, but, moreover, in a state of moral equilibrium, equally disposed to virtue or vice.
11. State and contrast the positions of the Pelagians, of Dr. D. D. Whedon (Arminian), and of the Calvinists, as to innate righteousness and sin. The Pelagian holds—
1st. That Adam was created a moral agent, but with no positive moral character; that he was at first indifferent either to good or evil, and left free to form his own character by his own free, unbiased choice.
2nd. That all men are born into the world in all essential particulars in the same moral state in which Adam was created.
3rd. That man is naturally mortal, and that the mortality of the race is not in consequence of sin.
Dr. D. D. Whedon (Arminian), in “Bib. Sacra,” April, 1862, p. 257, while agreeing with the Pelagian in the main as to the original moral state into which Adam was introduced by creation, differs from him as to the moral condition into which the descendants of Adam are introduced by birth. He admits that a “created” inclination may be either good and hence lovable, or bad and hence hateful—but he denies that the agent can be in the first case rewardable, or in the second case punishable for his disposition, the character of which he did not determine for himself by previously unbiased volitions. If Adam had formed for himself a holy character he would have been both good and rewardable. Since he formed for himself a sinful character he was both bad and punishable. His descendants are propagated with corrupt natures without any fault of their own, therefore they are bad and corrupt, but not deserving of punishment. In opposition to these positions the orthodox hold—
1st. There are permanent dispositions and inclinations which determine the volitions.
2nd. Many of these inclinations are good, many are bad, and many others are morally indifferent in their essential nature.
3rd. These moral dispositions may be innate as well as acquired, in which case the agent is as responsible for them as he is for any other state or act of his will.
4th. Adam was created with holy dispositions prompting to holy action. He did not make himself holy, but was made so by God.
12. Why do we judge that men are morally responsible for innate and concreated dispositions?
1st. Children are born with moral dispositions and tendencies very various. Yet it is the spontaneous and universal judgment of men, that men naturally malicious and cruel and false are both to be abhorred and held morally responsible for their tempers and actions.
2nd. The Scriptures, as will be shown under Ch. 19., on “Original Sin,” teach that all men come into the world with an inherent tendency in their nature to sin, which tendency is itself sin and worthy of punishment.
3rd. President Edwards “On Will,” Pt. 4, § 1, says, “The essence of the virtue and vice of dispositions of the heart and acts of the will lie not in their cause but in their nature.” And even the Arminian, John Wesley, says, as quoted by Richard Watson, “Holiness is not the right use of our powers, it is the right state of our powers. It is the right disposition of our soul, the right temper of our mind. Take that with you and you will no more dream that God could not create man in righteousness and true holiness.”“What is holiness? Is it not essentially love? And cannot God shed abroad this love in any soul without his concurrence, and antecedent to his knowledge or consent. And supposing this to be done, will love change its nature? will it be no longer holiness? This argument can never be sustained.”
13. Prove that a state of moral indifference is itself sin, and that if it were not so no exercise of a volitional faculty so conditioned could possibly originate a moral act or character. That moral indifference on the part of a moral agent in view of a moral obligation is itself sin is self–evident. The essence of morality is that it obliges the will of a moral agent. A non–moral agent may be indifferent to moral things. A moral agent may be indifferent to indifferent things. But from the very nature of the case it is absurd to pretend that a moral agent can be indifferent with respect to a known moral obligation resting on himself, and yet that that indifference is non moral, but the prerequisite condition of all morality.
Besides a morally indifferent disposition cannot originate a holy act or habit. The goodness or badness of an act depends upon the goodness or badness of the disposition or affection which prompted it. It is the moral state of the will (or heart, see Matthew 7:17-20; Matthew 12:33) which makes the act of the will right or wrong, and not the act which makes the state wrong. A man’s motives may be right, and yet his choice may be wrong through his mistake of its nature, because of ignorance or insanity; yet if all the prevalent dispositions and desires of the heart in any given case be night, the volition must be modally right; if wrong, the volition must be morally wrong; if indifferent, or neither right or wrong, the volition must be morally indifferent also. Hence appears the absurdity of their position. If Adam had been created, as they falsely believe, with a will equally disposed either to good or evil, his first act could have had no moral character whatever. And yet Pelagians assume that Adam’s first act, which had no moral character itself, determined the moral character of the man himself; and of all his acts and destinies for all future time. This, if true, would have been unjust on God’s part, since it involves the infliction of the most awful punishment upon an act in itself neither good nor bad. As a theory it is absurd, since it evolves all modality out of that which is morally indifferent.
Richard Watson, Vol. 2., p. 16, well says:“In Adam that rectitude of principle from which a right choice and right acts flowed, was either created with him, or flowed from his own volitions. If the latter be affirmed, then he must have willed right before he had a principle of rectitude, which is absurd; if the former then his creation in a state of moral rectitude, with an aptitude and disposition to good, is established.”
14. Show that the Pelagian theory cannot be based upon experience. This whole theory is built upon certain a priori notions, and is contrary to universal experience. If Adam was created without positive moral character, and if infants are so born, then the conditions of free agency in these supposed cases must be different from the conditions of free agency in the case of every adult man or woman, from whose consciousness alone we can gather the facts from which to deduce any certain knowledge on the subject. Every man who ever thought or wrote upon this subject, was conscious of freedom only under the conditions of an already formed moral character. Even if the Pelagian view were true, we never could be assured of it, since we never have consciously experienced such a condition of indifference It is nothing more than an hypothesis, contrived to solve a difficulty; a difficulty resulting from the limits of our finite powers of thought.—See Sir William Hamilton’s “Discussions,” p. 587, etc.
15. What distinction did the Fathers make between the
Meander, “Hist. Christ. Dogmas,” p. 180, says that this was the germ of the subsequent medieval and Roman doctrine as to the original state of man.
Bellarmin, “De Gratia,” et Lib. Arbitrio 1., 100. 6.—“We are forced, by these many testimonies of the fathers, to conclude that the image and likeness are not in all respects the same, but that the image pertains to the nature and the likeness to the virtues (moral perfections); whence it follows that Adam by sinning lost not the image but the likeness of God.”
16. What does the Catechism of The Council of Trent teach as to the state in which Adam was created?
See below the doctrines of the various churches at the end of this chapter.
17. What is the Romish doctrine with respect to thedona naturalia , and thedona supernaturalia ?
1st. They hold that God endowed man at his creation with thedona naturalia, that is, with all the natural constitutional powers and faculties of body and soul without sin, in perfect innocence. There was no vice or defect in either body or soul.
2nd. God duly attempered all these powers to one another, placing the lower in due subordination to the higher. This harmony of powers was called Justicia —natural righteousness.
3rd. There was, however, in the very nature of things, a natural tendency in the lower appetites and passions to rebel against the authority of the higher powers of reason and conscience. This tendency is not sin in itself; but becomes sin only when it is consented to by the will, and passes into voluntary action. This is concupiscence(a strong desire); not sin, but the fuel and occasion of sin.
4th. To prevent this natural tendency to disorder from the rebellion of the lower elements of the human constitution against the higher, God granted man the additional gift of the dona superanaturalia lost original or gifts extra constitutional. This is original righteousness, which was a foreign gift superadded to his constitution, by means of which his natural powers duly attempered are kept in due subjection and order. Some of their theologians held that these supernatural gifts were bestowed upon man immediately upon his creation, at the same time with his natural powers. The more prevalent and consistent view, however, is that it was given subsequently as a reward for the proper use of his natural powers see Moehler’s “Symbolism,” pp. 117, 118.
5th. Both the “justicia,” and the “dona supernaturalia ” were accidental or superadded properties of human nature, and were lost by the fall.
18. How does this doctrine modify their view as to original sin and the moral character of that concupiscence which remains in the regenerate?
They hold that man lost at the fall only the superadded gifts of “original righteousness” ( dona supernaturalia), while the proper nature of man itself, the dona naturalia, comprising all his constitutional faculties of reason, conscience, free will (in which they include “moral ability”), remain intact. Thus they make the effect of the fall upon man’s moral nature purely negative. The Reformers defined it “the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of the whole nature.”
Hence, also, they hold that concupiscence, or the tendency to rebellion of the lower against the higher powers remaining in the regenerate, being natural and incidental to the very constitution of human nature, is not of the nature of sin. See below.
AUTHORITATIVE PUBLIC STATEMENTS OF THE:VARIOUS CHURCHES.
ROMISH DOCTRINE.—“Cat. Council of Trent,” Pt. 2, Ch. 2., Q. 19.— “Lastly, He formed man from the slime of the earth, so created and qualified in body as to be immortal and impassable, not however, in virtue of the strength of nature, but of the divine gift. But as regards the soul of man, he created it in his own image and likeness; gifted him with free will, and so tempered all his motions and appetites that they should at all times be subject to the control of the reason. He then added the admirable gift of original righteousness; and next gave him dominion over all other animals.”—Ibid. Pt. 2, Ch. 2., Q. 42, and Pt. 4 Ch. 12., Q. 3.
BELLARMIN.—“Gratia Primi Hominis,” 5.—“It is to be understood in the first place, that man naturally consists of flesh and spirit, and therefore his nature partly assimilates with the beasts and partly with the angels; and because of his flesh and his fellowship with the beasts he has a certain propensity to corporeal and sensible good, to which he is induced through the senses and appetites; and because of his spirit and his fellowship with the angels he has a propensity to spiritual and rational good, to which he is induced by his reason and will. But from these different and contrary propensities there exists in one and the same man a certain contest, and from these contests a great difficulty of acting, while the one propensity antagonizes the other. It is to be understood in the second place, that divine providence at the beginning of creation, that it might administer a remedy to this disease or languor of human nature arising from the condition of its “matter,” added the excellent gift of original righteousness, by which as by a golden bridle the inferior part might be held in subjection to the superior part, and the superior part subject to God; although the flesh was so subject to the spirit, that it could not be moved the spirit forbidding, nor rebel against the spirit unless the spirit rebel against God; nevertheless it was in the power of the spirit to rebel or not to rebel.” For the statement of Bellarmin’s doctrine as to the present moral condition into which the descendants of Adam are born, see below, Ch. 19., on “Original Sin.”
LUTHERAN DOCTRINE.—“Formula Concordioe ” (Hase), p. 640. [Original Sin] “is the privation of that righteousness concreated in human nature in Paradise or of that image of God in which man was in the beginning created in truth, holiness, and righteousness.”
REFORMED DOCTRINE.—“Canon. Dordt,” 3. 1.—“Man, from the beginning, was created in the image of God, adorned in his mind, with the true and saving knowledge of his Creator, and of spiritual things, with righteousness in his will and heart, and purity in all his affections and thus was altogether holy.”
“Confession Faith”, Ch. 4., “Larger Catechism,” Ques. 17; “Shorter Catechism,” Ques. 10.
REMONSTRANT DOCTRINE.—Limborch, “Theol. Christ.,” 2. 24, 5.— “They are wont to locate original righteousness in illumination and rectitude of the mind, in holiness and righteousness of the will, in harmony of the senses and affections, and in a promptitude for good. It is, indeed, most evident that the first of mankind were, in their primeval state, of a far more perfect condition than we are when we are born. For their mind was not like a blank paper, and void of all knowledge but had been endowed by God with actual knowledge, and instructed in the wisdom necessary for that state; and they possessed also the capacity for acquiring further knowledge by reasoning, experience, and revelation. . . . Their will was not neutral equally indifferent in respect to good and evil, but before that the Law was imposed upon it by God, it had a natural rectitude, so that it could neither desire nor act inordinately. For where there is no law, there the most free use of the will is clear of blame.—2. 24, 10. That the first man would not have died if he had not sinned, is beyond doubt, for death was the penalty of sin. But thence the immortality [natural] of man is not correctly inferred. . . . Nevertheless God would have preserved this mortality in perpetual immunity of actual death, if man had not sinned.”
SOCINIAN DOCTRINE.—F. Socinus, “Proelectiones Theol.,” c. 3.—“We therefore conclude that Adam, even before he had transgressed that command of God, was not truly righteous, since he was neither impeccable, nor had he hitherto been subjected to any occasion of sinning; at least it is not possible to affirm that he was certainly righteous, since it in no manner appears that he for any consideration had abstained from sinning. But there are those who say that the original righteousness of the first man consisted in this, that he possessed a reason dominating over his appetite and senses and covering them, and that there was no variance between them. But they say this without reason, since it clearly appears from the sin Adam committed that his appetite and senses dominated over his reason, neither had these previously agreed well together. ”
“Cat. Racov.,” p. 18.—“From the beginning man was vented mortal, i. e., such an one as not only might consistently with his nature die, but also if left to his nature could not but die, although it was possible that he might he preserved always in life by a special divine blessing. ”